Meet the Cast - Galloway

This is Galloway, he's our up and coming herdsire and yes, he really is that adorable! He was born at the end of January and if everything goes well will be fathering our next generation of Nubians! He's amazing and with the lineage of  milk and conformation our next generation should be stunning!

he's here!!

I just went to pick up my herdsire! He's actually here and I'm SOOOO pleased with his growth and dairy-ness and and and! I'll post pics later but I'm just so excited!

a great way...

...to bookend my days!

Meet the cast - Orange Spice (for now)

This is the newest member of the From the Country Farm family! Since Katie and Strawberry did not take and I'd sort of planned a few things (details coming soon!) which require more than one milking doe and Venus not delivering until the end of June, I was sort of in a pickle! Sooo I found a 4-H family that was selling off their Nubian herd because they are more interested in the LaMancha breed; who had a Nubian doe in milk and brought this little lady home. She's not quite two yet and she's got a long life ahead of her and just freshened about two weeks ago! I'm excited to see where things go now! The kids are SO smitten with her that they are sleeping in the barn with the entire herd tonight. Oh my! Morning stories should be fun to hear!

Praise!!!!

We went to the doc's today for a check up and an up date with the results of Ron's most recent MRI. We had anticipated good news but what we got was more than that! As some of you are aware we've been dealing with some major health issues with my husband, without going into oodles of info, in July they found a grapefruit sized tumor in the retroperitoneal area which after being told twice that it was cancer turns out that it isn't! Even better than that; which  rightly so was pretty damn good news, was hearing that according to the latest MRI it is now the size of a blueberry!! He credits it to the raw food, juicing, love, prayers, and meds. And the cherry on this was that the doc told us that Ron was responding to treatment far far far better than even he'd expected! We both walked out of the office on a cloud and a smile a mile wide!

um it's been a little toasty here lately

granted this is in the direct sun and in a u shaped part of our house but it's also MARCH!!!

oooh la la...

Love love love this product! Silky, creamy, moisturizing, body butter! It has been met with very good reviews and these little beauties are headed to their new homes tomorrow, do you have room at your home for one?

soapbox

A friend of mine posted a video on facebook today that was the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, but it made articulate some things in defense of why I'm a vegetarian. I was asked my opinion if the video she posted and I thought about posting here so you'd better understand my comment (which I'm going to post below) but it is insane so I'll spare you. I do not want that rubbish on my blog. I was so honored that she'd ask my opinion and started a topic if conversation that should prove to be interesting to say the least, let's see what we can generate here!

Now let me say that I admire this woman very much, she is a good example to many and makes me think about things all the time in her blog and life. Again, I'm glad and honored she asked my opinion. Thank you L.B. Keep making me think!

This was my response to the video:


 oh where to start..... well first thank you for thinking of me with this - I think ;-) I watched with the thought that it was a piece on organic food vs. non which is something I'm very passionate about and what I heard was nothing of the sort. I've read other things by Wilson and have liked some of it, this was not the case for this morsel. (pun intended ;-) lol) My first thought was, 'Is this guy for real or is he insane?! Seriously a steak from petroleum?! as an argument against people who don't like eating chemicals?! WHAT?!!!!????'  You have got to be kidding! The chemicals that 'they' (and I for that matter) are referring to not wanting to eat are toxic petroleum based, or at least in my experience that has been the case. H2O is a chemical I realize that, but it is not cooked up in a lab somewhere and in most cases essential to life and NOT going to kill you! DDT, RoundUp, Agent Orange, petroleum based anything, etc. are not meant to be ingested by the human body and therefore do not have a place in our food system. period! 

I also take offense to his anti-vegetarian sentiment as being a food "fusser" I choose to be a vegetarian for lots of reason, one being based on the info I have I feel that is the best way for ME to care for MY body, eating a whole food, raw and plant based diet works for me, I do not force this on anybody and saying that not eating meat is anti biblical?! we are all given free choice are we not? I choose this as a way of honoring the one body I was given to honor God in the best way I can. Our bodies were created by God and in His image and are completely aware of real food and fake. Meaning our bodies know what to do with kale but react differently to a twinkie. I say this as someone who thinks obesity is caused by starvation. As crazy as that sounds think about it for a minute. Most of the people I now who are obese are not what I'd consider a model of health, what they eat primarily is over processed, cheap, highly sugared, highly salted, irradiated, highly caloried, lacking any nutrition, genetically modified, "food" that is as far from what it started out as as you can possible get and they eat LOADS of it because their bodies tell them they are hungry. What they bodies are rally telling them is that they are starving to death if it could shout it's would say, "GIVE MY SOMETHING NUTRITIOUS!!!! I'M DYING HERE!!!!" Oh right their bodies are shouting with things like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and....... the list goes on. One is pretty hard pressed to find a fat healthy person.... 

Only an idiot would think childhood leukemia, childhood diabetes, cancer etc are "old age disease" they are cause by a poor diet and a poor diet for generations! I'll concede that genetic play a part in it as well as environmental factors. Lots come from big Ag and big Pharma..... And yet that is exactly what he claims. How long can genes be good genes if your constantly damaging them with toxicity? You want to tell that to a mother who just lost her child from a terminal form of childhood cancer?! 

As far as feeding the masses, I think he is sadly mistaken and seems to have taken a page from the monsanto play book, I feel it is possible to feed the masses if people took more ownership and responsibility of fending for themselves instead of depending on everything being done for them or readily available for them. As far as what my thoughts are well, there they are, you may wish you hadn't asked, but there you go, have at it! What a great conversation starter! 


So there you go, what are your thoughts? Where do you stand on the subject?




And just so we're clear the comments made on the video were not of her wordage or opinion on the video, it was of an interview of a theologist, I'm anxious to hear her thoughts! :-)

a momma in waiting - FINALLY

So finally all the trips up and down the highway back and forth to the buck have paid off! Late, very late but on or around June 27th we're expecting twins from Venus! Neither Strawberry or Katie took, so I was feeling very discouraged but I took her to the vet's office today and she confirmed her pregnancy via ultrasound. Unlike with Strawberry the vet took a long time looking trying desperately to find anything, whereas today it was almost instantly that she looked and said joyfully "Babies!" She showed me the heartbeat and saw one pick up it's head and move and I may have let out a little squeal of delight and may have danced around in a moment of glee upon hearing the news, then let out a long breath of relief! I was starting to worry that I was doing something wrong, but this pregnancy was just a confirmation of my suspicions about Strawberry. Ahhh...... 

go boys go!

Andrew was given a challenge this past fall; by the woman who spun alpaca fiber, to go head to head in a goat driving competition at a small local fair - he accepted and has started with Buckley. Buckley has been in the harness before but not with anything attached to it, much less dragging behind him but Andrew could ask anything of Buckley and he'd try it. The weather here had been glorious recently so we've been outside a lot and it seemed like a good choice to give it a whirl today. We got part of the harness on backwards, but not to worry, it was the part that would have held the shafts (which we didn't have or use) and Buckley didn't seem to mind. We've been working with Buckley on commands when he's got a halter and lead on; commands like walk on, whoa and stand, so he was familiar with those and took to this whole experience like a duck to water. At first I walked beside Buckley to give support to Andrew's command with the halter and lead he had on in addition to the pulling harness and reins, then I stepped back to see how things would go and they went pretty good. Andrew would give a command and Buckley responded pretty quickly so we responded with praise, a scratch, or both! Once we got outside his comfort zone in relation to being so far away from his herd he started acting up, we turned around shortly after trying not to let him think naughty behavior gets him back to the herd. Goats are pretty smart you know. Andrew and I will work on tweaking the pulling apparatus, this worked for today but not ideal, we've got some ideas and will work in those in the next few weeks so stay tuned!

all together now

I finally remembered to take a picture of all the different colored yarn together! Let me say once again how thrilled I am with the finished product. There are still skeins available if you're interested.

quite an eye

I love this shot that Faith took, quite an eye, quite an eye...

enjoyed it we did

back in the saddle baby!

It's been a long time with everything that has gone in the past year with high's and low's but today I'm back in the saddle and let me tell you it feels good!!! Today I decided to saddle up Garlic and go for a ride. It's been a long time since I'd done that with all the ice we had last winter, all the death this past spring, the illness this past summer and fall, the business that brings in the end of year, now we're back to the beginning of riding season and I'm back in the saddle!  I mean this in the literal sense as well as metaphorically too, I cannot say the past year was easy or that it was handled brilliantly. I'd do it again if I had to but there were times that despite the peace I honestly felt there were times that things felt completely out of control and it's been a while since I felt like I had a handle on things, today was the culmination of feeling like things were back under control. As 'Boz' and I headed back to the barn we rode along in a rhythmic collected canter; mane, tail, and hair flowing behind us; both of us needing this and fully enjoying our time out. I was able to let out a sigh that as it was being exhaled surprised even me in it's exit. Long overdue that.

parental discretion advised...

I have seen some realllllllllllly bad movies in my life and will admit that I've watched an watched an entire movie and thought "It's got to get better" or "Well there's a chunk of my life I'll never get back," but when it comes to my kids it's a different story. I took the kids to see the lorax today and gathered up my kids and walked out about half way through in complete and total disgust. Boys do not need to be told that they do stupid things because they are a boy or that if they do a stupid thing twice it's because they like a girl, and FYI girls do not need to hear this either! The main character does not need to say it's ok to be knitting, my son knits - that's not the issue- (a pink scarf, hat thing-y) or be wearing a pink polka-dot frilly apron! Or have him scream a loud 'song' about it is all about him and how bad can it be since it's all about him?! OMW!!!! I'm all for men cooking and/or wearing an apron or a chef suit but seriously a pink frilly apron?! It is crap like this that just doesn't need to be put out there. We need to be encouraging our young men to be courageous fearless men and encourage our daughters to look for and admire these qualities. There you go, have at it!

out of balance

I realized tonight that I need to do a better job of leading by example with my kids, that I am a creative person and must have an outlet for the creativity that flows deep in my veins, that I may not currently be a great house keeper but that I can start right this minute trying again and that being a Libra makes lots of things out of balance when one thing it off. Soooooo I took steps in adjusting things back into balance and feel much better!