Updates

It has been so long since I have been on my blog for anything besides a book review! Oh My! It seems life has gotten a bit busy, a new computer has made updating my blog tough, and probably a slew of other excuses!

So I found a free trial of a software program to help with the blog updating issue. I hope to find a few spare moments to get back to updating this more often (I miss the journal it is for me) and I hope to conquer any other excuses!

So what is new?

Baby goats were born in January - 4 of them to my 2 does. We were there and loved it.
We added 2 turkeys in February along with 75 broiler chicks.
We love a turkey to a raccoon in May, and butchered all our chicks in April, after we showed.
We added a new chicken coop - still a work in progress - it will house our hens and offer a rotational grazing deal.
The garden is doing well, sans weeds! yay!! We have a slew of tomatoes, peppers, a few watermelon, and squash. We planted some green beans too, three varieties and hope something makes!
The cows are still growing out in the pasture. One should be leaving in about 3 months. The other has some growing to do still, so she will be around a bit longer.
The biggest addition has been our bees!! My oldest J has become a beekeeper along with his dad! They are both pretty cute in their bee suits! After we received our two hives and bee boxes and stuff, Robert was able to catch a swarm at work, so now we have three hives! Oh my!
He has tasted a bit of our honey and is sure it is the best he has ever tasted!!

Well, for today I think that is all the updates I have. Life certainly is speeding right along here. We are not too close to finishing school, but no matter what we are promoting and starting up July 8th. So we will be making a mad rush to finish all we can in the coming weeks - squeezing in VBS, a mission trip and friends & family visiting! It should make for a great summer!!
(I'll have to post pics later because I cannot seem to figure that out either.....oh well!)

Baby Goats have arrived!

We had such a great week last week – we woke up to find Primrose with her first baby both doing well!

The next morning I expected to find Petunia’s babies too – but instead I found a doe so ready to give birth I knew it would be anytime!!  So we started to check every hour or so, and about noon J called all of us to say it was happening!

We were so blessed to watch her deliver her baby – I mean babies!!  Oh my – we were hoping for twins, we got triplets!!

And we are in love!!

Here are some videos that will share our experience – it was amazing!!

Both mommas are doing great, and all the babies are growing fast!!

Here is arrival of baby #2 – Calla Lily “Callie”

 

Here is the arrival of baby #3 -  - Darth Mal

Life is going well here on Milk & Honey Meadows!!

 

P.S.- the honey is officially in the works too!!  Yay!!

Growing up … ugh!

Here is the evidence of the dreaded truth – these kids are growing far too fast!!  But oh my – aren’t they adorable/handsome!?

And a few more…

 

Horsin’ Around

Oh my word!!  What a day our family had!!  The men took off about 9:30am to head to Arlington to watch the Texas Rangers play baseball! 

The girls hung around, we painted our nails, we watched a bit of Duck Dynasty (that’s what girly girls do ‘round here).  Then we packed up and headed out to see our sweet friends!!

 

My sweet girl is in “that” horse phase of life.  I have learned some of us (me) grow out of it, while others (our friends’ family) never do!  We got to go visit their place, and meet their horses!!

AG has seen horses before, she has even ridden one, but not like this!  Not this much time, not this much attention!  She loved it and so did her sweet friend Jules.

 

So, it has begun, the quest to add a horse to this crazy hobby farm.  Yes.  I know, I said never – why do I do that?  I said never – you cannot eat it – cannot have one.  Hmmmm.  Funny. 

When your most responsible child is longing for something, and you know all that it can offer, how can you say no?  That bond…oh my.  I already know her heart will be in the pasture and no longer in her chest if we find that perfect horse.  But, wow – the memories, the learning, the responsibility will be so worth it!!

So, stay tuned, who knows….

Meanwhile our visit…. Ag met a sweet baby horse – between 4 to 5 months old.  Jules.  She was pretty taken with AG.  I think it was her first time to see someone about her size. 

As my girl would walk around, this sweet horse would turn completely around, ignoring the rest of us to see AG.  They were pretty cute!!

Then we went to get Pepper ready to ride.  All the full grown horses were pregnant (that we met). 

She was so good with AG, so patient and gentle – a super sweet horse!!

 

After meeting they got all ready to go on a little ride.

Chuck, our friend that lives here and is part of the whole operation that his parent are running, led AG around on this horse.  It was so fun to watch!!

After that we washed Jules’ mom – Storm (I think) and that was fun too.  AG sprayed just about all of us while trying to wash the horse!  Then SHE got to lead her back to the pasture!  Oh my. 

To watch my little 7 year old lead this huge pregnant horse around – and SHE listened, the horse.  She really did what AG asked her to do.  It was so fun!

 

One of my favorite parts of the day was seeing Jules lay down and start rolling in the grass.  Reminded me of Bree in A Horse and His Boy – how he worried so about the Narnian horses – “did they roll?  Was it okay to roll?”  Just another reminder about how we try to conform to fit the “norm” – who cares!?  if you like to roll, then roll – and don’t fret about what anybody else thinks!! 

That was Jules – she did not care – she just wanted to roll – so sweet!!

A perfect day, thanks to the Stone family and their open hearts!!

Cousin Camp {day #4}

Spent day#4 of cousin camp on the water.  We are worn out – but had tons of fun!!

		Cousin Camp day on the Lake VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Cousin Camp {day 2&3}

As I am wrapping up the third day of Cousin Camp, I am delighted to look at all our pictures!!

We have had so much fun the last three days : painting, sewing and lots of game playing!  The kids have even walked almost every day!  Great fresh air and exercise!!  Sage has helped in the kitchen for almost every meal prep!  I have so enjoyed cooking with her!

 

Sage making her pretzel

Here is my sweet girl rolling out a pretzel.

 

Cousin Camp ‘13 {day 1}

When you can get 7 kids (ages 7-12) under one roof, you know it is going to be a party!! 

Today was officially day 1 of Cousin Camp!  It has been so much fun.  I planned lots of stuff for us to do each day, but I really did not realize how well all these kids would play together!  They have played Risk too many times to count, they cleaned off the ping pong table and had a few rounds of that, and there have been many games of Fussball too!

We have made some garden stones and the kids always love that!  Hopefully the parents will enjoy them too!

Our apron sewing project was started today – we cut out the fabric and got it ready to sew some ruffles tomorrow.

My favorite part of all my days is our Bible Study time, here I snapped a pic of my gang praying before our morning kicked off -

Here we are making garden stones

Here is Matthew feeding our sweet calf

Another Garden stone making pic – they were trying to work together and help each other

A shot of 4 of the kids playing ping pong (yes the school bldg is trashed) – oh my the giggling, laughing and fun they were having!!

Here they are playing stratego – it was either this or risk over and over.

 

Praying things continue to go well, night times have been hard since my boys think it is a free-for-all.  Hoping my boys can get their act together and we can continue to do the fun things that Cousin Camp brings!!