1 week old today

 These little cuties are 1 week today! They are so sweet and adorable. I love them.

This is Sorren, the only buck kid. He's doing really good, despite a bad scare with his umbilical cord. But it's all good now.

And cute little Rika. She fell asleep in my lap yesterday, while the rest of the kids were jumping all over me and eating my hair.

Olga is a really good mother too. These are her first kids. They seem to favor her left teat, so the right needs to be milked a lot. Which is not easy, let me tell ya. Her teats are not long at all. In fact, I can only get my thumb and index finger on them. Fun, right? It takes at least 30 minutes to get just that side milked. I can't even imagine what her udder will be like when I start putting the kids in a crate at night. I might just have to invest in a milking machine, just for her.

Just look at these cute little elf ears on Astrid! She is the sweetest little kid ever. This is how she is a lot, jumping on my leg.

Astrid and Isla are 3 weeks old now. My how time flies.

I love this! They were both laid out in the sun this morning. So peaceful!

We had a wonderful day with my family yesterday. They all came out for Easter dinner. My mom even dyed some eggs. Chloe and Coryn said they were too old to hunt eggs, so I did. My daughters hid them and I went out with my egg basket. Found them all, with a little help from Abby. So fun! Who's too old to hunt eggs? Not me.

I hope you all had a wonderful day, celebrating our risen Lord!

Appalachian egg basket

 I went to a basket weaving class last Saturday. I always wondered why it's called basket weaving. I found out. For 3 hours, I was weaving this little egg basket! You'd think something so small wouldn't have taken so long. But it did.

The handle is wisteria, the ribs privet and the rest is kudzu. This was still a little wet when I took these pictures. And I had to wait to snip off all the little loose ends. It's not perfect, but I love it. And I made it myself! If I had thought about it more and not just plowed into it, I would have made the kudzu go the same way. Like use the outside of the vine, not let it get all twisted. You can see how it's light and dark. Some of the ladies had designs where some was light then some was dark. But mine is all willy nilly, just like me. When I make another one, I'll be more careful.

It's just perfect for the 8 eggs my 8 hens lay nearly every day! I don't think it would hold 9 eggs.

It was not a good time to have a basket class, right at the end of winter. Bill said the best time to gather kudzu is in winter. Well, too late now, right? But I can use other materials, like honeysuckle. Which takes dye really good. I have tons of honeysuckle and dye. I will have to boil the vines 1 1/2 hours, then strip the bark. I also have plenty of wisteria and privet too. So there might be some more basket weaving in my future. It really was fun to create something useful from weeds.

 I saw this door in my mom's garage last week. She said we could have it. I've been wanting a new back door ever since we've lived here and this was perfect. It was 1" too wide though, so my husband has been cutting and sanding it to get it to fit. It's still not right yet.

This is the back door. It's horrible! And so narrow too.

I've been planting in the garden already! I don't know if I have ever planted this early. So far I have planted kale, collards, mixed greens, radishes, lettuce, 3 different kinds of onions, beets and dandelions. Yes, I bought dandelion seeds to plant in my garden. I've been picking them all over the garden, but thought it'd be nice to have a dedicated row just for them. And these are a different variety. So we shall see how they do.

And the other day, I put up 2 cattle panels a little more than half way down the driveway, so the sheep and alpacas can mow the tall grass for us. It's a long driveway, but didn't take them too long to eat it down. Just a few days. So I'll probably let them out there once a week and we won't have to mow here!

I don't know what happened, but here's the back door in, but not quite where it fits yet. Still have some work to do so that I can go in and out. But I love it. I'll have to make some curtains though, because the sun comes right in back here and gets really hot.

It's a beautiful Good Friday here. The family is all coming here for Easter dinner Sunday. I hope to go to church, then the Chattanooga market before dinner. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and happy Easter!