Dandelion's Acre Farm

Saturday was my birthday. The 35th one. Brenna's worried I'm getting old and has been all the more clingy because of it. Silly girl.

Joe took me out to lunch as a treat. Getting there with six clean kids was the real treat. Here's a little peek into what's usually involved in getting our six kids out the door and looking halfway decent:

It took me the better part of the morning to get them all cleaned up from their morning outdoor play. As I took the littlest ones out to the van, I noticed that:
"a" the carseats were not in the van where they needed to be, and
'b" the goats needed water.
I sent Joe for the carseats, set Isaac and Charlotte down next to the van with a stern warning not to move, and set out for the water bucket. It took all of 72 seconds to refill the goats' water. But in that time, Charlotte in her pretty white sweater and pink leggings had settled down in the middle of a mound of fresh dirt, and was digging her little heart out with her clean little hands. Isaac, not to be outdone, had toddled up the porch steps and was trying like a brave little one year old to climb right back down them. Except he doesn't know how to climb down yet. And all I see is the concrete pad awaiting his little head at the bottom. And both Isaac and Charlotte are in opposite directions. And of course neither are paying attention to my frantic screaming. (and my morning coffee has worn off long ago) Obviously I run for Isaac first and am glad to say that I saved him from certain peril once again. But by the time I reached Charlotte her white sweater was a pretty shade of mushroom grey, with matching hands and face. By this time, my ~~oblivious~~ awesome husband had finished with the carseats and turns, smiling at me, proud he's done something to help, right about the same time Ava shows up ready for lunch, in her pajama pants. The girl that wears dresses to do her barn chores. Oy. After all this, lunch was a lovely affair. Isaac flirted shamelessly with the waitresses. And Joe and I made up over vegetable lo mein.

The pulsator on our milking machine broke. Not two weeks into using it. Joe's hoping it's minor and has ordered a rebuild kit for it. In the meantime, we're back to milking by hand, and thankful we don't have 50 goats just yet.

Joe broke ground on the garden a couple days ago. Hard, backbreaking work, even with a tiller. It needs done a couple more times before we can plant, but it's started. Maybe someday we'll have a plow. Today we discovered that the small overgrown field next to the barn was REALLY soft (it's been frozen up to this point). Under the sod, we found black compost about a foot deep. Gold. Must've been where the cows from years past were kept, waiting their turn to come into the barn for some fresh hay and a milking. I was busy much of today digging that out and transporting it by wheelbarrow-ful to the garden plot. Again, backbreaking. Again, can someone say TRACTOR? Oh well, the physical labor is exhilarating. Joe says I'll be as skinny as a supermodel in no time. Uh huh.