Wonderful Weather!!

We have been having some amazing weather and we were home for the weekend for a change.  Which lead to some serious work on the yard and garden.  I have really enjoyed spending time working outside.  After so many years here I am finally starting to make some headway.  My garden is really starting to look gorgeous and I'm starting to pull together the flower beds as well.  No better way to illustrate than with pictures.

Enjoy the garden-ness! 

Taking advantage of some amazing wine & clearing out one of my garden boxes last Thursday.

 Messy potting bench on Saturday.  That became very nice indeed.

Working in the garden! Arugula and some other greens have re-seeded in one garden box. Arugula and spring onion salad for dinner... Yumm!

Stressful Week... Rejuvenating Weekend.

Well, as many of may or may not know, we had an awful scare here last week. Every time I think that I am beginning to come to terms with the hardships that owning farm animals brings, I am thoroughly reminded how challenging it can be. Last week after a wonderful Cooking Divas meeting where we made some delicious food (including this marinated zucchini that I am still thinking about) drank wine and enjoyed the general girl talk that abounds, I came home to a grave situation. Pepsi, one of our original goats, was not feeling well. I came in the door, flushed and excited to see Mike, when he said, "Don't take your shoes off, we need to go to the barn." My stomach immediately dropped out of my chest and hit the floor with a loud audible "thud". I turned around and rushed out the door and ran the familiar path to the barn. When I opened the door, what I dreaded was there waiting for me. Pepsi, shivering and hunched, stood in the corner of the barn looking every bit as sick as my mind had imagined. I immediately began assessing her from head to hoof. Poking and prodding her to see what may be wrong. She seemed a little bloated and with all the rain from the day we could only imagine, and hope, that it was bloat. So, we treated her with the one parasite medicine we had, to be safe, as well as the mineral oil and baking soda for the bloat. She burped some from the soda and oil and I kept vigil throughout the night hoping that she would start perking up. She didn't. Instead she seemed worse and she begin to have a twitch and seemed less and less cognitive. She didn't recognize I was in the barn until I touched her. I spent the night awake, researching possibilities on the Internet and nothing seemed all that plausible. We, of course, knew by the morning that we needed help.
A call to the vet was made and they promised to arrive by 11:30am. It was such a wait as I checked in on her and comforted her. She only declined and I watched the clock harder, willing it to move faster so that the calgary could arrive. Finally he was there and unfortunately looked as mystified as I was, which only made me dread the worst. Vernors went down hill so fast that the vets never even figured out what happened to her. I couldn't imagine surviving another one of my goats in the same manner. The vet and I discussed the possibilities that he could think of and what I had found on the Internet. We treated for as much as we could think of and struggled to give her an IV. I returned to the house overwrought, covered in blood, hair and drool. The only thing I could think to do was to take a hot shower, do some work from home and patiently wait for the vet to call back with the many test results. The afternoon seemed like days as I fidgeted around the house. Finally the vet called with the results! My phone lost signal, then again and again. I got in my car and drove around the corner to get signal and he didn't call back!!! The anticipation was killing me. Finally he called back and gave me the news that Pepsi had an extreme parasitic infection. We had already given her a wormer and hopefully she could fight through her current poor state and the wormer would have a chance to take effect. Fight through. I was optimistic, but Pepsi was in bad shape. She was twitching like crazy, almost falling over and stumbling drunkenly into everything around her. We had to wait it out.

Wait we did and we were rewarded with a slowly recovering goat! I am so relieved that my dear Pepsi is better. We had Charlie, Sarah, Mom and Dad checking on her over the weekend and the reports twice daily indicated that she was going to make a full recovery. We have wormed the rest of the herd and are looking forward to healthy goats for the rest of the summer!!


Over the weekend we spent time in Columbus for Helena's baptism. It worked out well that we went down on Friday and I got to have a meeting with a business associate. Saturday morning it was all prep for the baptism party. We squeezed in a bike ride and then hustled about doing this and that. We were glad to take a side-trip to Easton with Patricia and John to do a wee bit of shopping. We also had a nice relaxing late-lunch. We finished out a terrific Saturday with my first pizza picnic at Jefferson Mansion. Lucky for me, mom found a pizza place in the Short North called zPizza that had gluten-free pizza! It was delicious! Mike and I had a mean swinging competition at the park. I, of course, won... no matter what he says. Sunday we finished up prepping food and whatnot for the party, went to mass and then had the baptism. Helena was not a happy camper and cried throughout. Though, I'm sure I wouldn't be too excited about hanging out in front of a bunch of people, getting smudged with oils and then having water poured over my noggin. I think I would have cried too. We finished the evening with beers, cornhole, great food and catching up with family. Then a quick drive home that was sunny most of the way. It was a relaxing and rejuvenating weekend after so much stress.

Also, I would formerly like to state... that all who do not get along their in-laws have thoroughly gotten jipped, because mine are awesome!! They are tons of fun and we all love each other. I wouldn't wish for anything else.

Why are you so loud Bell??

Well, last night was quite hilarious. I was talking to Hilary on the way home and of course, as always, my phone cut out just as I was pulling into the carport. I curse you Sprint coverage! I got out of the car and the goats came to the fence to greet me and ask for dinner. But Bell was being really loud. I was slightly annoyed and told her to cool her jets. Then I realized while looking at her, she seemed stationary and quite distressed. I ran out in my heels to find Bell's noggin stuck between the fence post and the barn.

Now, the goats have pushed this particular fence post out and wiggled free of their enclosure more times than Mike and I can count. So my husband, being good at fixing all things and especially dedicated to thwarting the goats, fixed the post so that they could no longer escape. Bell certainly tried and Mike's plan worked. End result - Bell got her head stuck.

Mike - 1
Goats - 109 million

Quite comical actually, but no matter how hard I tried to un-stuck her, I couldn't budge her. So I had to go inside and change into some work clothes. I then attempted to find a drill and bit on Mike's workbench. (Which, if you've ever seen Mike's organizational skills... you'd feel sorry for Bell.) Finally I had found the proper instrument for saving Bell and I went out to remove the braces that held the fence to the barn. It still took several minutes of maneuvering, but Bell was finally freed! She was pleased to be free and gave me a loving nuzzle of thanks.



I have pics that I stopped to take. Bell was quite annoyed, as the whole process took forever as it was. but, I think they are quite funny and I couldn't help myself.

Mike and I also pushed ourselves to head out to tackle the tree planting project. I came up with an amazing new frittata recipe, that I may share eventually. I can say it will be made again, yumm!! Then after savoring the hearty egg dinner we hit the north side of the house project. We spaced out the cedar trees that we purchased to become a wind block and then made a plan. I was digging holes and Mike was cutting down the dead trees. TWENTY-ONE holes was a lot of holes!! My arms and hands were shaking by the time I was done. Mike then went on to putting trees into the ground and I weed-whipped where the dead trees used to be. We got 10 in the ground and watered before it was pitch black. Well, it was actually pretty black as we picked up, did chores and headed inside. Happy all of the hard work is done and now we just have to plant the rest!

Spring Resolutions

Who needs New Years? Every new year all of my friends ask me what my resolutions will be for the new year and every year I say nothing. I really make it my goal to try to better myself all the time and I constantly question what I am doing and how I am doing it. Spring seems to be such a time for renewal though, maybe a resolution or two won't hurt.

I resolve that will make more time for my garden.

I resolve that I will no longer waste my money by buying plants and then letting them die before I plant them.

Whew that felt good! I started on my spring resolutions tonight. This evening I stopped at the greenhouse and bought 5 plants. I am happy to say that all 5 are currently in the ground and watered. I bought two gorgeous lavender delphinium, oregano, basil and thyme. I hope the delphinium grow well. They are beautiful and I want to be able to cut some for my table! I also made time to check my newly planted garden boxes and give them a drink as well. I would just like to say... go me. I was well rewarded after completing my goals by an amazing sunset over the hill.

We just bought some new trees and they arrived on Saturday. My next goal is to make sure that those trees are all in the ground by the end of the weekend.

Here's to spring renewal and a gorgeous flower garden!

Working Away

Tonight was a great night, mostly. I got home from work and headed out to do chores and start in the garden. Mike was amazing this weekend and got the big garden into awesome shape. It's ready for flower seed, I just want to wait and make sure that it's not going to pour rain this week. I don't want the ground to get rock hard after planting and then my flower seed suffers. I did get 3 garden boxes into shape and 2 planted with lettuces, radishes and a few peas. I'm excited! Cannot wait for garden veggies! I didn't stop there though. I also worked a little bit on the flower beds and took the antenna off of the roof that has been precariously dangling for quite sometime now. I am very happy it's gone!! Charlie & CJ even came down for a jeep ride.

The only not so fun part was Mike's break down. He got a super bad sunburn this weekend while I was gone and tonight it went from bad to worse. It was a couple of hours of cold compresses and him slightly freaking out... poor baby. But, maybe this will teach him a lesson to wear sunblock! A few pics of the garden and the wonderful smelling lilacs are below.