Have YOU tried them yet?!

There are sooo many choices and more on the way - what are you waiting for?

thank you pinterest

for my newest addiction - cinnamon breakfast puffs and browned butter, I mean really how have I lived this long without either?!

Uh-oh....

Uh-oh.... Houston we have a problem... Last night when I went to pick up my doe (who's recently been playing nice with a buck...:-) ) and trying to find a herdsire for my girls, I was shown a little, (well actually not so little, one day old and over 10 lbs!!) black buckling. I didn't bring my camera doh! but he's an even better prospect than the little white buck I've told you about already. I have a very difficult decision to make and soon. It's too bad I don't need two - yet!

if all goes well this year...

...we should have goat kids in June! I know I said that last year but I'm an optimist! Strawberry, if she took this time....(my gut says she didn't, the owner of the buck says he's got a good feeling about it...) is due on the 4th on June and Venus if she took is due on the 27th. I'm sooooo hoping they both did because Katie did not. :-(

his twin sister...

a strong possibility

 There is a very strong possibility that this little cutie; who tonight is 3 days old and who comes from AMAZING milk lines, might just by our future herd sire. It's time, I think, for our own buck. I'm so tired of running all over creation and hoping to have the timing just right and hoping the ladies will co-operate... ugh it's just not worth it, so I mentioned this to the farmer who's been a great help, source of information and whose family inspires me and I've got first refusal for the bucks his does are having this year! I've got my eye on this little gem! He's got an "OK, I'll just sit here in you lap and be loved on all day" kind of attitude, exactly like Buckley (at least for now) which is exactly what we want!

 

 He's a happy little guy!

only 5 spaces left!

Our second annual Soap of the Month Club has some exciting new scents to offer this year, so if you're thinking about joining sign up today - we've only got 5 spaces left!

BEST chocolate EVER!

As some of you are aware we're trying a raw food lifestyle for better health and so far we're loving it! As many of you ladies may want to know 'what about chocolate?! I NEED chocolate!' Well let me tell to I have no idea how I've lived my entire life without these raw chocolate truffles. Not difficult or a long process to make at all, I mean really the food processor did most of the work and I'll certainly be making them again! I'm on the best chocolate high EVER! ;-)


Ok, so for the recipe, it is not mine, I just added an ingredient - maca powder. Trust me, these may sound weird based on the ingredients, but trust me after you try these little beauties you'll thank me! Trust me.

½ cup pitted prunes
¼ cup pitted dates
3 tbsp almond butter
2 tbsp Agave Nectar
2 tbsp cacao powder
1/4 cup grated unsweetened coconut
1 heaping tbsp maca powder
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa

Directions

Place unsweetened cocoa powder in a shallow bowl and set aside.

Combine prunes and dates in a food processor and process until finely chopped.  Add almond butter, agave nectar, and cacao powder.  Transfer to a bowl and mix in coconut by hand.

Scoop up about a tsp of fruit mixture and roll between the palms of your hand to form a small ball.  Roll each ball in cocoa powder and place on a tray or plate that will fit in your fridge.  Refrigerate until firm and enjoy!

Show me the love!

Let's see if we can get 214 "fans" on our Facebook page by February 14th, if we get there one lucky "fan" will win this bag full of our best loved products! Sound good? Let's do it!

oh so happy to have these finished!

I may have mentioned that I've been knitting my fingers to the bone, well, the above photo is the last knitting project I'll be making for a while, I've really injured my shoulder and had to finish the last project with my shoulder packed in ice and will continue to ice it for a while yet. Who knew knitting would be so hazardous?!

These are three headbands for a mother daughter duo and friends of mine all knit from yarn my boys produced, I'm SOO excited to have the yarn back as well as the knitting done! Er for a while at least.

a gray version

This too is yarn from my boys, Crazy Professor and Blackberry I'm calling it CrazyBerry! Soft and warm and slips through my hands like butter!

now that's COLD!!!

Right now it's cold here, I don't know exactly how cold but cold enough that when I went out to do the barn chores tonight the snot in my nose froze. Needless to say that I was not excited to be out there much longer than necessary but I do need to feed and care for my animals so I bundle up and go out and try to ignore the cold. Dakota, our llama has an abscessed tooth which I am in the process of treating. Not to worry, he's responding well to treatment and from what I understand this is quite common for both llamas and alpacas, considering this is our first one here I think I'm doing alright. Other than being over the moon disgusting treatment isn't that bad, a course of antibiotic and flushing the draining pocket of puss until it heals. By pocket of puss I mean the first time I drained it there was well over a tablespoon of thick, white, slightly chunky puss that came out of the hole in his face! Gross is not the word for it! In some cases I understand the tooth can be removed but the risk is a broken jaw neither of which sounds good to me.

Dakota is learning that when I come into the stall without food I'm coming after him for treatment, he has been taking off to the far end of his pen requiring me to follow, now he's realized that treatment isn't going to kill him and he feels better and is followed by grain - which he loves! Now he steps away just a few steps as if it's an attempt to remain defiant in front of his herd but secretly just giving to the temptation of grain...

Tonight after most of the chores were done I popped back into the house to draw up the syringe of antibiotic and the flush and went back to the barn to treat Dakota. When I got to the barn I placed the syringes on the mini shelf of the stall, went to fetch Dakota and tie him up because he does not enjoy the dose of antibiotic and by doing this it's less space for him to move and dance around in which allows me to use both hands. Got him tied and grabbed the syringes. Feeling around under a ton of thick warm fiber for a place to pinch up a bunch of skin is not exactly an easy task, after this was accomplished I pushed the needle into his skin. I was not able to press the plunger down, I was sure I was in, but the plunger would not move, so I switched out the needles and tried again. The liquid in the needles was frozen! OMW!!! The flush was warm too! I couldn't believe it! I warmed them up so they would thaw and be given but I could not believe in the three minutes they were on the shelf they'd gotten cold enough for the liquid in the needle; which was covered, to freeze. Yup! That's COLD! After the antibiotic was given and the abscess was flushed (and bonus tonight I didn't get any of the puss or flush splashed back onto my face tonight! woohoo) Faith led Dakota over to his bowl of grain which he devoured almost as fast as Andrew eats pesto!

hot off my needles!

I have no idea why the quality of this photo is so grainy but who cares about that when the excitement is this high!!! WOOHOO!!! This lovely headband was grown by Jonathan and Ramsey and handmade by me! I'm so excited about this, in case you couldn't tell. ;-)

What do y'all think?!

Have we any wool? Indeed! Several cones full!

 These three top cones are what has come in today and the middle one is all Monkey's fiber, once this is gone it's gone - we lost him this past spring. I kept telling him that I couldn't wait to wear him and I'm pretty excited about now being able to!

So what do you think? This a huge step for the farm and I've just giving you a heads up - I've got a couple announcements to make when all the details have been worked out! woohoo!

I knew it!

I love that I've learned to listen to my instinct, the finely tuned gut instinct that has served me very well when applied to my family. I mentioned that being told that Ron's bleeding was 'old blood just finding it's way out' just didn't feel right well - turns out I was right! Without going into details I'll just leave it at that. So I urge all of you ladies out there to listen to that instinct, it's there for a reason and for you husbands, listen to your wives!

25 - insurance

So I'm making my list of things I'm thankful for, and for today it's certain;y insurance. Ron, as you know, had had surgery recently and ended back up in surgery yesterday because he had sprung a leak from the incision and and we could not get it to stop, after a trip to the ER, three trips to the doc's office and waking up in a pool of blood they decided to go in and see what was going on. UGH! Anyway, I went to pick him up today from the hospital, got home and having been gone for two days made Bridger need a bit of exercise so the kids took him out to run and less than half an hour later Andrew came in and took out a paper towel for Faith whom had just cut her knuckle wide open which required three stitches.  Got home from that and took - I'm kidding. I have to laugh else I'd go insane! So one of the gifts I'm thankful for today certainly is insurance.

24 - inspiration

My very special aunt cam to visit today and brought me one of her latest creations. I just absolutely love it! I am so happy to be part of a special, talented and creative family! This is a wire tree that she sculpted and told me that I was her inspiration. ::blush:: Unfortunately the picture doesn't do it justice it is just beautiful and I love the way it sparkles in the sun! Thank you Auntie Cupie for something to treasure other than our relationship. 

#23 - a place of solitude

I'm pretty sure the stress of 2011 has caught up with me and is now taking it's toll. For about a month or so now I've been dealing with a pinched nerve in my neck/left shoulder, with chiropractic care it is finally getting considerably better for which I'm thankful. At the initial visit and exam I was told that (without my saying what a treat 2011 was and what I'd been dealing with) it was likely due to loads of physical and mental stress.... hmmm what may have caused that?! So uh, yea, I've been a bit stressed and knitting my fingers to the bone trying to make ends meet and the physical stress of that combined with the mental stress has come to a head, but the timing is amazing! I was talking to the receptionist which ended up being the chiropractors wife and a holistic health coach! Bonus. We started talking and I have no idea how it came up be I made mention that part of the stress which has caused the pinched nerve was Ron's health, she looked empathetically at me and handed me a DVD to watch. She proceeded to tell me a bit about what it was about - 6 people reversing diabetes and getting off all their meds, including insulin, blood pressure and cholesterol meds. I burst into tears, which made her get all choked up, I said thank you and left.

Here is a wonderful preview:



So I brought it home, told Ron about it and we watched it together. The longer thinker/processor on the family need to process what he'd heard and decided a few days later that he's willing to give it a try! I almost burst into tears again. Let me back up a bit, during the cancer scare this summer I'd been directed to a few documentaries that might be a glimmer of hope in what seemed like a dark spiral we were in at the time, one of them that clicked instantly was: Food Matters




which led to: Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, Burzynski the Movie, Vanishing of the Bees, and Gasland. All of which came on the heels of King Corn, Food, inc. and Fresh and all of which I think you should see. I had also been introduced to The Raw Truth and Perfect Weight America both by Jordan Rubin, both of which I'm in the process of reading. I was ready for a glimmer of hope, a ray of sunshine, a straw to grasp what have you, so I went back to another appointment and asked more about this raw food thing and asked for a book to start with. She smiled, made a recommendation and said that she was starting another round of raw food "cooking" classes in January so the kids and I are looking forward to that and hopefully Ron will join us.

Which brings us to the surgery Ron just had to relocate the ulnar nerve in his left arm due to the severe atrophy and muscle wasting. The surgery went well and outlook looks good. He got his stitches out yesterday and last night we ended up in the ER again because the wound had popped open and would not stop bleeding, and I mean it was a gusher! The ER nurse whose name is Chris is now quite familiar with us and recognizes us, joked as we walked in saying this was the best that Ron has ever looked and almost didn't recognize him, but could tell there was a serious issue and took great care of us. I hope there is a comment card I can fill out for him, he's awesome! The ER doc wwas finally able to get the bleeding to stop and we went home after a while with instructions to follow up with the surgeon today, so we did. She flushed the wound and dressed it and sent us on our way, we went over to pick up a script for an anti-biotic just in case... and while he was standing there it started gushing, again. We returned to the surgeon who'd gone back into surgery and the seemingly alarmed nurse in the office went back to get the doc. She came back out and dressed the wound, again and said to expect this until all the blood from surgery a week ago comes out. Quite frankly this doesn't feel right, I've learned to listen to my gut and this doesn't make sense to me. By the time we made it home the blood had soaked through a TON of gauze, dressings and ace wraps, so I watch add more gauze and wrap it again, and wait.


In the meantime the kids and I have a humdinger of a head/chest cold; how Ron had not caught it is beyond me, I'm trying to listen to my body and rest because that's what it is telling me it needs and take care of the kids Ron, and the barn. While out doing the barn chores tonight the kids made me ugly and I sent them into the house. Nearing tear again from the stress and concern over Ron, feeling like I've been run over by a mac truck, the pain from the pinched nerve and all the other things going on made me walk into the grain room and collapse on the hay. Bridger who is now a tried and true farm dog likes to hang out in the grain room on the hay while we do the chores was already in there making a nest for himself in the hay was all too happy to have me plunk this tired body down beside him. "Puppy" I whispered and he gently laid his lead on my lap. I let out a long sigh and he did the same. I leaned back onto a bag of grain; cushioned by Garlic's winter rug, put my feet up on a grain bin and listened to some of the most magical sounds on the planet. I heard the peaceful hum of the alpacas, the rustling of the hay and the occasional pawing as the goats enjoyed their hay, I heard the gentle cooing of the hens and an occasional flutter of wings as they finished eating and hopped up to their perch to settle in for the night. One of the goats started bleating in protest thinking I'd forgotten to feed him and wanted to make sure I hadn't. I hadn't, just hadn't made it there yet. And Garlic was snuffling through his dinner and enjoying every delicious morsel. Odd as this may sound I love the smell of the barn, I just love it, the sweet intoxicating smell of second crop hay, the combination of manure and fresh shavings, cold crisp winter air, warm breath of the animals, sweet smell of the grain, the leather in the tack room, it's all perfectly harmonious and brings me such peace. I just laid there listening and breathing in the barn and realized that I was feeling the stress just melt away and realized that I was so fortunate to have a place where I could find solace and I smiled.

it's real now!

Today in the mail was a payment for some of the roving I just got back from the mill and for me that made it real! I'm so excited about this! I'm SO EXCITED! Yea!

best seat in the house!

If I have to be in the house and not in the barn, arena or garden then this is where I love to be. This sunroon was the best investment the former homeowners ever made! Three walls of windows to let in oodles of light, high vaulted ceilings and only two outlets so that it cannot be spoiled with electronics like tv's and dvr's. blech! So next time you're wanting a great cup of chai, or a strong iced coffee stop in, have a seat and sit a spell.

600 and one word.......

As I welcome the new year AND celebrate my 600th blog post I'd like to know what your New Years resolution or goal is - IN ONE WORD. Can you tell me in just one word? I'll go first. FREEDOM!

** The only New Years resolution I've ever kept was to not ever make any more resolutions, so I don't, I set goals, goals I can do!