My New Goat Milker

My oldest grand daughter Chloe asked if she could help milk. I never turn down help! So I gave her a bucket and there she went. She had that bucket full of milk in about 3 minutes! She's milking Abby. Abby sort of picked her feet up a few times but I told Chloe to just grab on and not let go. She did great! I am very proud of her. All 3 grands love goat milk.

It took awhile to get Abby's milk to taste good. Last year it did too. She is 10 years old now. I am thinking about retirement for her. I am going to look for a nice place for old animals to live out the rest of their lives. There has to be a place like that somewhere, right? I have had Abby the longest of all my goats, 7 years. She is the best milker I have ever had. I will miss not milking her. And she has given me 2 does the last 2 years now. So she deserves a nice place to retire. I'll milk her til she dries up next year. Then I'll see what's next.

Busy Week

Have you ever been so tired you just cannot sleep? That's me right now. I have had a pretty busy 3 days here. Wednesday I was up early.  Fed animals, milked the goats, went out to the gardens and started picking, pulling, digging, cutting and then washing, weighing and bagging all that produce for market that afternoon. And I had 2 grand kids here. Do you think they helped? They did later when I had to load it all up. And unload at the market and set it all up. Then had to go back Thursday. And today I am at work all day. I help take care of an almost 95 year old lady.

Saturday, I will stay home. All day. I have a lot to mow. I wanted to leave the clover for the bees but that's all I have is clover. So it looks like no one lives here. I have to mow. And there are some green beans to pick. And squash. And I need to finish a row of running beans and do another row. Then I am done with running bean twine and all that. I don't think I will do running beans again. They are a lot of work. But they are so good.

Also need to clean out the milk room. And get the cat room where I can put all my market things, like tables and baskets. I need to get organized here.

 I sure wish I could wiggle my nose and turn my dogs into some people to help me.  Don't they look like they would be great help?

My Gardens

 My daughter came over today to help me with pictures. So here are some of my gardens. These are the tomato plants.

 A pretty squash flower.

 I am doing rows between grass this year. I think I need to make the rows a little tighter because I am having to go down each row twice. Taking too much time with the mower. So to the right are potatoes, then kale, then cabbage and Swiss chard, then more potatoes. I planted red, white, blue, yellow and pink. They are all so good.

 More squask plants. But I do believe these may be last year's.

 Cabbage. Some of the many I have that I planted way back in February and just now am getting a few with cabbage heads. I had a time with cabbage moths and worms. Now come the Japanese beetles.

 These are some Ruby cabbage. So pretty.

 Some of my flowers beds. The day lillies are so beautiful this year.

 And one of 2 volunteer sunflowers. Just gorgeous!

 Again, I think this is last year's garden. Oopps!

 One of my window boxes I am really proud of. I got the geraniums for just a few bucks each and they are amazing.

 My rock garden. When we first moved to this house they had to put in a new septic tank. Well, they put it right in the front yard. And as you can see from the next picture, our house is made of limestone rocks, probably dug right from this property. So they dug up a lot of huge rocks. They asked me where I wanted to put them and I said just put them over in the corner of the yard, I'll do something with them. Well, I have looked at this pile of rocks for 7 years, trying to think what to do with them. Last year I started putting perennials in the little crevices and cracks. This year they all came back. So I started adding other flowers and little bushes. It has turned out beautifully. I love it now. And the bottom picture is of my lettuce bed under a cedar tree in the garden. I am still picking lettuce. It is shaded but doing really good in the heat. Thank you for looking.