The last kid...

just left Outback Farm this morning.

Little Sorren went to another farm not too far from here a little while ago. Wow. I had 4 little kids, now they are all gone. Now I will be milking 2 does twice a day. Getting 2 gallons of milk a day. What will I do with all this milk?

I need a bottle calf. And a few pigs. Because we cannot possibly drink all this milk. Or eat so much feta and chevre. Or make soap all the time. I only have 1 1/2 gallons a week going out to friends too. I really need to get certified to sell milk now. I am feeling just a bit overwhelmed right now. I put about 4 gallons of milk in the freezer for soap making. But that hardly made a dent. I am going to have a cheese making workshop here in a few weeks too.

                         Here is a fence full of honeysuckles. It smells SO good around here right now!

I am frantically getting ready for a big show down at Mt. Cove Farm at the old barn this weekend. Friday and Saturday, all day, I will be there with my soaps. And I hope to have some of my pottery too. And I will be spinning a lot of this sheep and alpaca wool for those 2 days. So no market for me today. Gotta go to the pottery studio and do some things there this afternoon.

Y'all have a great Monday!

Making something pretty out of ugly.

I made these 2 the other day. They are both really wonky and I should have just smashed them and started over. But I didn't. So I let them dry a few days.

And this is them today. I feel like they are both really cute pieces of pottery now. Something that can be used. I just like them. I etched little flowers on the inside of the bowl, all the way around.

This one, I used a different tool to get the deeper lines. Then etched little flowers along the rim. Very cute now. Sometimes, you just never know how a bowl or mug or plate will turn out.

This is another bowl I thought I should have smashed. But I made little scallops and added flowers too. Turned another wonky ugly bowl into something that's cute and functional.

The pot with the lid I made the other day too. I had made a different lid for it, but couldn't get the handle to stick. So I watched a few videos on how to make lids and did this one. It's from a video of a guy who was making garlic pots. That's what the holes are for. I wish I had his little hole making tool. Maybe I'll have one some day.

I hope I can do something with that really wonky bowl in the left back now. It was a mess.

Sometimes I feel like I should not be at the wheel. Then some days I can make some pretty cool things. I will not give up!

Thursday. At home.

 I have SO much goat milk right now! The whole bottom of the fridge is full of jars of milk. So I decided to make some Chevre and feta today, in between planting tomato plants and making soap.

This is the feta draining here.

And the chevre. This is a really easy cheese to make. Just get the milk to 80 and add buttermilk and diluted rennet. It sits ALL day, then I drain it 6-8 hours. That's about it. Very easy cheese. I have some basil and chives I'll add to it tomorrow. I need to get garlic. I am out.

                                           I made these Tuesday and got them trimmed last night.

I made these today, when I was finished with everything else. I don't think it was a good pottery day for me.

I made 2 batches of soap. A rosemary-mint and cucumber-melon. They both smell so good. I thought I better make some more because the big barn sale is next weekend. I need to get busy getting ready for that. I'm a little upset that all the things I took to be fired last Saturday had not been fired yet yesterday. So no new pottery to take next week. Unless they get it fired by this Saturday. Then maybe I can get it glazed when I go back Saturday. But I doubt it. I really do need my own kiln here. Just a small one.

I've also been planting in the garden. I got those 47 tomato plants in the ground a few days ago. Then went to get a flat of more tomatoes and peppers. So I got 18 Rutgers and some marigolds planted down where I put all those others. Then got 8 Better Boys and 12 Celebrity planted up by the new kale. Also got a rosemary plant. I want more of those. Put it in the flower-herb bee garden.

I thought we were going to get some rain these last few days. Today we got a few sprinkles. Do you think God took me seriously when I said I'd be ok with never seeing rain again after this past winter? I sure hope not. We really really need rain!  I wanted to get more ground tilled if it rained, to loosen up the hard dirt out there, so I could plant beans and okra. But that'll have to wait a few more days.

I do hear thunder toward Lookout Mt.

So I have had a good productive day here at home today. I don't get many days to srtay home all day, so I take advantage of my time here.