Today Tana, Erinn, and I went to Kerrville for Erinn's doctor appointment.

We also went to the library and the river. The girls had an absolute BLAST!! They wished they had shorts, but made do with rolling their jeans up to their knees. Since I have to go back to the lab in Kerrville tomorrow I plan to take them swimming.

I forgot my camera, but Tana had hers! So, I took a lot of pictures of the girls together, and Tana took a lot more. I am going to post some of the ones I took, and let her put hers on the Golden Beamers blog.

The doctor had no clue what was wrong with Erinn and was ready to refer us to a GI doc, but I was able to convince him to try testing for Lyme, Giardia, and H. Pylori first. We will get test results next week.

Erinn felt fine mid day, but had a fever morning and evening. Tana and I made soap this evening right before we milked. Actually, Tana did most of it herself. Green Spearmint, Blue lemongrass, and purple PURPLE. The kitchen smells great!

Thursday

Wait for us Mom!

The Boer orphans KNOW that Glory is their new mom.

Hopefully, she will know it soon too.

She IS showing more patience with them, so that is progress.

Quick, look at the green grass before it dries up and turns brown.

This naughty hen stole the broody banties nest. That's the banty hen on the far left. Her eggs were still up in the nest with the Ameracauna family but I put them down there with her before I left the barn.

Erinn is sick again. Fever and nausea. :o(

We've got little green blackberries!! YIPPEE!!

The two newest kids nursing from Glory.

Yesterday was a busy day again, trying to play the never-ending "catch up" game since we'd been gone all afternoon and evening on Tuesday. We enjoyed a really nice visit with the Beairds who came for one last time before heading home to Russia.
The girls didn't get much schoolwork done because by afternoon Erinn was feeling nauseous again. In the morning they worked on chores, and played with the cousins.

Tuesday

OK, these are the last of the pics from yesterday.
And in case anybody is wondering, NO I did not get the whole list done yesterday. The sealer thingie wouldn't work, and I only got a tiny bit done in the pantry.

Kris, Tana, and Erinn taking the spool over to the new swing.

Tana at the arena in Fredericksburg.

Both girls riding Thunder in the arena.

Tana's (gf) Breakfast. I don't know how the child survives.

Kris has been busy all morning fixing up something fun for the kids.

"Oh, the boys would love this!"

"Yeah, I wish they could be here. They couldn't possibly be having this much fun."

"Well, maybe they are having their own kind of fun."

"Nope, it couldn't be this fun!"

CRAZY DAY TODAY!

3 am -
I heard the chickens carrying on loudly and went outside to investigate. It was the chickens who actually sleep in the chicken house (as opposed to the majority who don't), so I had to go all the way around behind the barn to see what the commotion was about. Right before I got there they fell silent and pretended to be asleep. Good grief.
On my way back to the house I checked on the 2 newest kids who were sleeping in the milk room with Clyde and Swirly, and they were all fine.
I layed down on the couch, planning to take a little nap, and started thinking about how I needed to make some gluten free bread for Tana (and Mooky when he gets home) this morning. Then I thought of forty-eleven other things I need to do. Since it is such an unusually cool morning I decided to make the bread right away so I wouldn't heat up the house later on.
I started making the Featherlight Rice Flour Bread and decided to get enough dry ingredients mixed together to make 5 loaves since that was how much yeast I had left. I had to go out to the storeroom to get the GF flour out of the freezer, and while I was out there I fed bottles to Clyde, Swirly, Torpedo, and Warrior. I also brought a bewildered Glory into the milkroom to feed the two youngest kids - Constellation and Nameless One. They both nursed extremely well. The boy is not too scared of me, but the girl is terrified. As soon as I get her on the milkstand under Glory though, she calms right down. It won't be long until they are both underfoot and annoying...
I have two loaves of bread rising, and the rest of the mix will be frozen for later use.
4:30 am -
Checked email and updated blog. Check Amazon's prices on potato flour and xanthan gum since I used it all up this morning. Drank lots of coffee. :o) Erinn and Tana put a huge tarp down on the store room floor last night and made a pallet to sleep on. I hope they were warm enough!
Hey look!
Henry Fields is having a sale on fruit trees!! I'd have a whole orchard planted if fruit trees weren't so expensive! Not to mention the cost of fencing it off from the goats... So far all we have is one peach tree planted last year and one cherry tree planted this year. We also have the thornless blackberries that are thriving in the back garden.
5:30 to 7:30
Washed dishes, fed Aileas, fed all the goats but the milkers, fixed breakfast, and folded a mountain of laundry. Need to go milk now.

9:15
Now, if I can just get the following done, I will have actually completed my To Do list for the first time in my entire life.
Rip out the carpet in the bathroom.
Till and weed in the garden area where I am having huge trouble with weeds.
Put Glory on the stand for the kids to nurse 5 more times today.
Organize Pantry
Package a bunch of dried beans into vacuum sealed bags.
Cook Supper before 3pm.
Leave at 3:30 to take Thunder to the vet.
Riding lesson at 5:30.
Milk the goats and COLLAPSE.

I'm going to have to take a nap at some point...

Pyros?

The girls made lip balm yesterday!

On April 8 we got Clyde and Swirly - pic coming soon. These are two out of a set of triplets. Mama is sickly and cant feed them all. (She did recover later.)

On April 21 we got Warrior and Weasel. Erinn changed Weasel's name to Torpedo so he would have a tough name like his brother. :o) These are also two out of a set of triplets. Mama didn't have enough milk for all of them.

Warrior and Torpedo

Today we got two more orphans! The doe kid is named Constellation and her sister died a few days ago, then today her mama died. When her owner got home he found her trying to nurse from her dead mother. So sad! The buck kid's mother would not let him nurse. She preferred her other twin. So, these two are not brother and sister, and have already had 4 to 5 days of nursing. It would be hard to get them on the bottle so I decided to see if I can get Glory to accept them. She kidded with a single doe kid last Wednesday and it died on Thursday. She has been pretty upset, and is starting to get a bit of mastitis. I think that having these two kids nurse from her 5 or 6 times a day will be the best thing for her! I put her on the milk stand this evening and they both nursed well.

Pictures~

The trailer needed a flat fixed and the faucet in the shower would not turn off so our trip to town got moved up to today. Thankfully the shower thing happened BEFORE we went to town, not afterwards!

Erinn and Tana stayed home to work on their lists and feed the bottle babies for me. They were a great help. Our two newest orphans are just a week old and have to eat every 3 hours. We are blessed with a thriving "orphanage" business. We sometimes get given a kid outright, but we have a deal worked out with a few ranchers to raise their kids "for halves". We keep half of the kids and they get half back. These are more valuable kids than just a percentage Boer- 100% South African Boers.

An Ameraucana hen layed about 20 eggs way up in the loft and hatched out 10 chicks without me ever even knowing she was there! Those chicks are doing very well. I have them in a pen with their mama, but will be letting them all out pretty soon since Red is gone.

Two banties are setting on guinea eggs and another banty is setting on banty eggs. Who needs an incubator?

With Erinn being sick for 11 days this time, Thunder had a vacation and feels that he should not be expected to behave any more. Erinn and Tana quickly showed him the error of his ways. And just now I hooked the horse trailer up to the truck and he loaded right up on the first attempt! Woohoo! (Thanks again Halcy!)

Tomorrow we have an appointment to get Thunder's coggins test done, and after that a riding lesson. Both in Fredericksburg.

Montana took most of these pictures while she was in Hico, right before she came here. I think they are really great pictures!!

Gabby

Deet

YIKES!! Hoodlums.

Tana on Thunder with just the bareback pad.

(He looks obnoxious, doesn't he?)

See, she does work sometimes. ;o)

THANKS

Thank you so much to whoever it was that ordered from Amazon through our link!!!!