Goodbye July

Goodbye July... and off to a busy start for August.

We had two fantastic weekends in a row with the Ohio relatives! First Mike's parents joined us for a visit before Momma Keenan has to start back to work. We spent a lovely weekend together and crowned it with an exciting trip to the Mackinaw Bridge and the Soo Locks. We made the Keenans into Fudgies and treated them to their first UP experience.

The very next weekend we took a day off of work and traveled down to Sedwood for Cousin's Weekend 2007. To say that we are proud of ourselves might be an understatement. A half barrel of choice beverage consumed in a little over 24 hours was an accomplishment! We had lots of fun Dodd family bonding. Can't wait for CW '08!

The garden is exploding with produce. Summer squash, peas, beans, cabbage, peppers, carrots and lots of other good stuff is appearing! I'm excited that the sweet corn will soon be ready and I can't wait for the first tomato to ripen! Tomato sandwiches... yummmmmmmy!

August will continue our busy summer as Samone and I get ready for our Annual Auntie-Niece Trip. We will be off to LA this year to visit the final American Girl store! Then we have two more weddings for the season. Check the new photos below.

Click on the picture to see the album.

July 31, 2007

Memorial

A small memorial to the chickens that have moved on to the big chicken coop in the sky.

We had a rodent (of some type) get into the coop and take off with 3 chickens. It puts our loss at 4 for this year including Lucy.

A small tribute to the great chickens that didn't make it. We shall miss you.

Tribute to Spice, Sugar, Salt and Lucy...RIP

Busy 3 Weeks

Well it certainly has bee a busy last couple weeks. We went to Josh & Leyna's Wedding. Then Down to Myrtle Beach for a little Bachelor/Bachelorette mayhem and then Will & Renee's Wedding this weekend. Whew!

Unfortunately my grandmother also passed away and we had to deal with funeral and wedding at the same time. That was certainly stressful.

Both weddings were absolutely beautiful and we had a great time at both despite the added stress at Will & Renee's.

We also got the chance to make something of all our extra goat milk! A very tasty and successful wild blackberry ice cream was made and feta cheese. The feta actually hit tragedy last night. We discovered that we had left it out at room temperature for too long with no ventilation. That made for a moldy mess that had to be chalked up to cheese making experience for the next time around.

We also got a little surprise when Juliet decided to crow last week. Please note that he is officially re-named Jules and does not like discussion of his former life as a girl.

There were other untimely endings in the last few weeks also. Lucy, one of the chickens, met her maker. She got picked on by the larger chickens and couldn't recover. This is only our third chicken death in the family and we are sad to see her go. Also the Suburban saw the end of the road. Something terminal in transmission / transfer case was the end of it.

All in all it sure was a busy time! I've added some highlight photos below.

July 11, 2007

People should not drive with casts on their driving foot!

Well... it certainly was an exciting week. For those of you who didn't hear I was in a car accident last Wednesday, June 13th. I was sitting at a stoplight, when a lady rear-ended me at approximately 35 mph. She was wearing a cast on her driving foot and got it stuck and couldn't hit the breaks to stop! Here is a good lesson; be aware of your capabilities. I got some severe whiplash and I am still recovering. My car on the other hand, hasn't recovered yet. She has to have some work done this week or next week.

Mom and Dad Keenan came up from Ohio for a visit in the nick of time. They were already planning on coming for a visit but were an enormous help while I was laid up from the accident. Momma K did so many chores for us around the house and took very good care of me. It really ended up being a great visit, even though I was injured. I was asleep for most of Thursday, but I was home and more awake Friday. I had a great time spending the day with them. Momma K took some great pictures of the goats and garden.

Saturday, I thought I felt 100% better so we washed goats and did lot of other things around the yard. Boy was I wrong. Sunday, I realized that maybe I should have taken it easy on Sat. Still healing up and trying to not take any painkillers or muscle-relaxers.

Click on the picture below to see the album.

June 18, 2007

Names - We have Names!

It has been an eventful and busy weekend. We have some names. The little boy goat is officially named Heineken. Since Pepsi and Vernors are named after soda pop, we thought we'd switch to the hard stuff for our first kids. Plus I think we both needed some of the hard stuff after the shock of having twin baby goats!

Additionally we have some new chicken names.

In a prior post we learned about Juliet, Lucy, Ethel, Bandit, Huey, Dewey and Louie.

We now have Spice and Bertie. I will have to do a photo shoot of all of the new chickens and post them with names.

Click on the picture below to see the album.

June 12, 2007

Emergency News Flash!!!!

Much to our surprise, Mike & I became the proud owners of two more goats!!

Pepsi was pregnant and we didn't even realize it! She had always been bigger than Vernors and we just thought she was fat. Last night we found out she was actually pregnant and we have twins! A little boy and a little girl!

See the pictures of the adorable new additions to our very quickly growing family!

Click on this photo to see the album.

Baby Goats!

Back in the"Blogging" Saddle Again

It has been an eventful 2 weeks. The garden has definitely benefited from the sun and the little bit of rain we've gotten. Saturday I picked arugula, loose leaf lettuce and spinach and there were a full basket of each. The peas also got a little pick me up with some trellis made from sticks and twine. The peas look much happier now that they have something to climb on.

Hilary visited Michigan for Labor Day (CORRECTION Memorial Day) weekend and came out to the house to hang out with the goats and all the new chickens. She named one of the Bantam chicks Bertie. Fantastic name I think! We also found out that Brian & Erin, Mike's friends from college, are having a baby in December.

This last weekend Mike spent a full day celebrating bachelorhood for Nick Atwood's upcoming nuptials. And the most exciting thing of all was a trip IKEA! A new kitchen was fully designed and purchased. Woohoo! We will definitely be posting our kitchen remodeling progress through the next month. We have to paint the walls, refinish the floors and install new cabinets. Whew, sounds like a lot of "rewarding" work!

Here are pictures of the goats, Hilary's animal adventures and a night out with Chris & Nicolette.

Click on this photo to see the album.

June 4, 2007