As I begin to write this, we’re traveling North on I-35 in Hinckley with three goats in the back of our Expedition (I usually refer to it by its model name rather than vehicle type because I hate the word “SUV” and truck to me means pickup).  They’re in a dog crate with straw in the bottom.  We just picked them in Hastings from a very nice family with a beautiful farm.  I found them on Craigslist and conversed via e-mail with their daughter about buying them.  They raise goats and show them, but they show females and tend to get rid of the males to keep their herd size down.  Ours were the last three without homes, and they were destined for the meat market if they couldn’t be placed.  We’ve been planning on getting goats at some point, but probably not for another year or two.  But these little guys were so adorable that we couldn’t say no, especially now that we have the fence set up for Cowboy.  Two are Oberhaslis, born April 3rd and April 21st.  One is a Nubian, born April 2nd.  We named the Nubian Banjo, but haven’t yet named the Oberhaslis.  The Nubian is very friendly and followed us all around their yard, very much like a dog.  The Oberhaslis are more skittish due to nursing longer and less bottle feeding.  Hopefully they’ll take to us and be friendly also.

Como Town

We left this morning around 7:30, hoping that if we left early that the kids would go back to sleep in the car.  No such luck, and Delia had been up late the night before, so we were a bit nervous about how the day would go.  We arrived at Comotown around 11:45 and then spent about an hour trying to find a place to park.  Lesson learned: weekdays are better for popular attractions.  The kids had a lot of fun riding the rides there and the lines weren’t even that bad considering how crowded it seemed.  Delia was afraid to ride this rotating wing ride, but she finally gave it a try and then wanted to ride it another five times.

We left the park at about 3:45 and arrived at the farm a little after 4:30.  They have a beautiful place, with chickens, a lot of goats, and a couple of llamas.  Their goats ran right up to us and stuck their heads through the fence to see the kids.  Ours were in seclusion so that they’d start to bond together a bit before leaving.  We fell in love with Banjo right away.  He’s so friendly and sweet.  The two Obers are more skittish, but should warm up to us once we begin bottle feeding them.

We just stopped at McDonalds to get Henry more McNuggets and the kids got out of their seats to play with the goats and feed them alfalfa.  Henry just squealed and giggled because he turned around and rubbed up against the cage and Banjo nibbled his back.  He kept repeating it until Banjo lost interest, and now Henry is saying “Dando, Dando!” trying to get him to do it again.

Our plan is to put them in a horse stall tonight and then figure out what to do with them tomorrow.  They’ll eventually be in with Cowboy, but we may want to keep them in a stall or the old chicken run until they get acclimated or even a little bigger.  The people we got them from gave us alfalfa and grain for them to eat and a gallon of goat milk to bottle feed them.  We also bought three gallons from some people in Embarrass the other night.  I hope they’re thirsty!  We’re going to try to feed them milk tonight when we get home.  Unfortunately it’s supposed to be very cold tonight – around 25.

They’ve been sleeping back there, but now they’re standing up and bleating.  The breeders told us they’d probably get hungry around 9:30 and it’s 9:35 right now.

Today we planted the first things in the garden.

Two tomato plants – a celebrity and something else more heirloomy, can’t remember the name.

An orange bell pepper plant.

3 pumpkin plants on one hill.  They say good for jack o’ lanterns or pies.  We’ll see…

Two hills worth of pickling cucumbers.

Tons of “great lake leaf lettuce” seeds.   I forgot to keep some to sow later in the year for another crop – I’ll just get another packet if it grows and is yummy.  All their romaine lettuce plants were sold out, or I would have gotten one of those as well.

I also got green bean seeds and sweet corn.  Green beans like it warmer, so we’re waiting on those, and I haven’t looked up corn yet.

The plants and seeds were a little under $20.  I just hope it doesn’t all die.  Getting over $20 worth of food from it will be a bonus.  We won’t worry about all the time spent…  I just am not sure I’m converted to the idea of gardening yet!  It’s a lot of work!

Cowboy is visiting!  Nora dropped him off Friday before lunch.  We have been thinking and going back and forth about borrowing a pony this summer, and figured we’d just try it so we are!  Both the kids had a ride in the afternoon and Cowboy seemed to settle right in.

We have him tied to one of our big spools out by the horse shelter, and last night we brought him into a stall in the barn.  He didn’t like the stall much, but when we sneaked out there later he was quiet until he saw us, so we figured he was OK.

I went and got some fencing today so we can make a little area for him out there, and keep dogs and kids and other animals out so we don’t have to put him in the barn at night.  Hopefully we’ll get it put up tomorrow.

Henry says “Boo-dee” for “Cowboy.”  Took us a while to figure out what he was talking about, but once we knew, he could tell us about Cowboy being asleep and his plan to wake him up in the morning by tickling him.

I just dropped Emily and the kids at the airport in Duluth.  They’ll be in Tampa for the next 10 days.  Delia got pretty upset when I was leaving because she wanted me to come along. 

We took a new route, suggested by our GPS.  I don’t know how we missed it all these years, but it’s a slightly shorter route and through some really nice farm country.  On the way back I had a pretty decent burger at Porky’s in Island Lake, and further refined the route using County Rd 100 up to Aurora.  That shaved another few miles off the trip.

I’m already working on a list of jobs I’d like to get done while they’re gone, though I know from experience that I won’t get it all done.  I’m also trying to get my summer GPS maps done.

Yes – I’ve never done it before, can you believe it?  Sunday I did it for three hours and this afternoon for over an hour.

OK – that’s about as far as I can take that.  This is a family blog.    I’m talking about mowing a lawn.  We got a riding mower at the auction last week and it’s SO fun.  It goes really fast and cuts through huge tall totally wild grass that’s grown ALL summer.

Mowing is cool because it’s something to do outside that can involve the kids and also gets something accomplished.  The kids love four wheeling and it’s similar but the lawn mower is more my speed.    Plus, no gears either.  And I prefer steering wheel to handlebars.

What else did I do for the first time this weekend?  Jack hammer.  I’m not ready to talk about that yet.  (This could be a joke, but I’m not that funny or dirty.  I really did use a jack hammer.)

I got my hair cut.  I love it.  I can’t believe I waited so long.

Also, see Delia’s site for a report and pictures of her first camping trip.
(The username and password to get to the pictures are both the same three letter word that is the first name of a claymation builder.)

Ryan and Delia are on Grassy Lake.  They drove to the lake and paddled to a campsite.  Here are two pictures they sent from the cell phone.

Our new little big pullets laid their first egg!  Delia and I saw it sitting there next to the feeder – a little tiny brown egg.  Since then they’ve laid two more.

They’re about as big as our adult chickens now.  They’re getting along better with the old ones too.  I really need to get the coop done.  I’ve been cleaning up the garage when I can and this morning I put the walls back together so I can finish making a rafter pattern.

Our new flock arrived today! Delia and I picked them up from L&M this afternoon. We went back to the poultry area and there was a little tank with 9 little chicks and my name on the side (we ordered 8 chicks, but they sent an extra Wynadotte which the store gave us for free). We had to get a few supplies such as a feeder and waterer, chick food, bedding, a thermometer, and electrolytes (it’s what chicks want!). Last night we put together their enclosure, which is a big plastic tote inside a dog crate. The whole apparatus resides in the downstairs bathroom. This way we have double protection against cats and dogs. I had the heat lamp hanging inside the crate, but that was too hot. Now we have it hanging from a hook in the ceiling and then secured by a wire connected to the top of the crate.

They sure are adorable. Delia keeps wanting to go down and hold them. She’s being just a touch rough with them, but I think she’s coming around. She’s not at all skittish about reaching in and picking them up. I think their new home is going to work fine, but as they get bigger I really have no idea what we’re going to do with them. Tonight Delia and I went down to play with them a little, and one fell asleep in my hand. It was adorable. I was holding her up so she could see my face, and her eyes closed and her head slowly lowered onto my thumb. The same thing happened with two others later on. It’s amazing that they were inside eggs just a few days ago! They must be pretty tolerant because they came in the mail this morning from Iowa, and they don’t seem terribly upset.

We also have a pair of geese that has taken a liking to our pond, which is still frozen.  Emily saw them first yesterday evening, and they were back this afternoon too.

Delia is sick.  But sort of only at night.  The past 3 nights she’s, uh, no good way to put this really… had diarrhea in her pants and thrown up.  First night she was up 3 times.  Last night she was only up once.  Tonight she’s been up once so far, but no throw up so if this continues hopefully we’ll be OK tomorrow.  Not sure what it is, and don’t know if any of us have it.  None of us have this bad, for sure, but Henry might have had diarrhea a few days ago for 1-2 days.  Hard to tell with babies, you know, and his could have been caused by teething.

Speaking of teething, he’s got his two front teeth and they are coming in really fast.  It’s changing the way he looks, which is always changing anyway.  Lately Ryan and I both say he looks a lot like Delia did at this age.  He’s pulling up on everything he can, and today he let go and tried to walk away from things!  He can’t walk at all of course, nor can he even stand by himself, so this results in a kind of humorous twist-legged fall.  Silly boy, thinks he can walk.  He is getting up on his hands more now instead of crawling around on on his elbows/tummy, so that’s exciting as far as baby-news goes.

We’re letting the kittens out of their room almost every day now, into the rest of the basement.  It’s pretty fun to go down there and see 9 kittens dart from behind one thing to another out of the corner of your eye.  We usually bring 1-3 upstairs for a few hours at a time too.  They’re pretty timid and like to hide, and our cats aren’t helping matters by growling/hissing at them all the time.  Blackie goes to the vet to be spayed tomorrow, then she’ll be out in the barn again.  I suppose she’ll need a day or two in the house for recovery though.

We found someone to clean the house and she’s been here twice so things are improving.  The glass light fixtures in the kitchen aren’t frosted – they were REALLY dusty!!  Abigail has been coming more regularly, too.  She helps with everything from packing orders, organizing inventory, daily tidying to feeding/playing with Delia.  Ryan and I need to tackle the last few unpacked boxes, get a system down for recycables, and go through the storage room and put stuff into totes.