Milking - Including what we had to chuck because Chardy stepped in the bucket, about 6 ounces (one milking).
Eggs - We're averaging 4 eggs per day. Rose & Grace are laying inconsistently, but all three of the other girls are giving us an egg per day without fail.
Garden - Planted one additional raspberry cane out along the road, and cleared more space to the south of the raspberries in which I'm going to plant some peas & pole beans. I'm going to butt them up against the chain link fence and let them crawl on that. I intend to put peas & pole beans in the garden as well, I just like the idea of having some snacky foods planted right along the road for passersby to enjoy. ;)
Bill also planted some hop rhizomes that he got from J & G along that same stretch of fence, but on the opposite side. We don't know their variety. We're hoping that they will climb the fence too. Besides being a critical ingredient in Bill's beer, they are also really pretty little things when in bloom.
Foraging - Collected and plucked 5 ounces of dandelions today. It might not sound like much, but it ended up being a few cups worth of petals. I'm freezing them as I go until the dandelions peter out, at which point I'll start as big a batch of wine as I can manage with the total number of petals I end up with. That dandelion wine is gooood stuff!
Seedlings & Starts - Potted up 6 Cinderella Pumpkin plants, 9 Mammoth Melting Peas, 3 Cilantro, 2 Kentucky Pole Beans and 3 Nasturtiums for the school plant sale. I'm leaving them out tonight for the first time in an attempt to further harden them off. Lets hope that I'm not murdering them with my optimistic gamble.
Started 5 more Cinderella pumpkin seeds 3 days ago, as well as 6 sugar pumpkins. All but 2 of the 11 seeds sown have germinated. I also have a tray full of Dark Opal Basil and Lime Basil germinating in the kitchen windowsill. I have historically had terrible luck with basil, so my fingers are crossed for these babies to thrive.
Critters - We're going to take Barley & Blackjack to the vet for checkups, as they have a slight limp and a runny nose, respectively. Blackjack's nose and eyes have been exhibiting symptoms of cold/allergy off and on for a while now, so we're going to have him looked at to see if he needs any meds or treatment to get well or if it just needs to run its course. Barley has a slight limp that seems to come and go, making us wonder if he was injured while horsing around with the other kids, or was perhaps stepped on by a mama goat. We'll see what the doc says.
Gertie is looking quite pregnant. She's wider than ever and her rectum/vaginal area is bulging somewhat. (Sorry for the vivid details!) We have not been able to feel fetal movement at all, but she does have a very thick coat and is still just under a month away from delivery, so I'm trying to remain positive that all is well in her little belly. I guess we'll see, come the second week of May.
That's about all for now. Hopefully by this time next week we will have, at a minimum, made a little more progress on the new coop and will also have mowed the very rapidly growing grass.
My hubby wants to grow hops here too. I'm all for it as I've read that they get HUGE and make good privacy walls. I have a neighbor who has an old ugly van that's been sitting in her driveway for 10+ years. And I get to see it every.single.day. Hops would be MUCH nicer to look at :) Hopefully your next round of milking will go better!! Go Chelle, get your farm on!!
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