Babies, Babies, & more babies!

So this has been a fun filled month of babies and baby making...lol

Matts cousin just had her baby on Tuesday, he is a very beautiful baby boy!  I took the kids to see him at the hospital last night and they did very well with him!  Brianna wanted to hold him the whole time and so did Kayden...Austin wasnt too interested for some reason which is odd....he usually wants to hold them too!!!  Mom and baby are doing great and Reed is so precious!  I do have to say I had three very well behaved children last night!!!  They make me so proud!!!!!!!!!

We have been trying to breed our two female goats this month so in 155 days we could/will have milk!!!!  Were super excited!!!  It will be an interesting feat considering none of us have ever milked anything!!!  I have done a lot of reading on milking goats however, some say it is a very difficult process......kicking does, stepping into the milk pail, knocking it off the stand.....so we shall see!  Only time will tell!!!!!  Like I have said before there is never a dull moment at our house!!!  I wouldnt have it any other way either!!!!  I hope to be able to milk 2 does this spring!!  That should give us sufficient milk to drink cook with and make cheese!!!  Yumm!!!  and if there is any left over I would like to try to make soap!

The boys are both in cub scouts now.  Austin is a wolf cub and Kayden is a tiger cub!  I am Austin's den leader again and we had our first meeting last night and we had a blast!  Kayden is going to his 1st meeting tonight and he is very excited!  Brianna had her first play date with her friend Abby from school and she's been begging to go back to Abby's ever since.....I am just not allowed to leave...lol

I have been using my home made laundry soap for several weeks now and we love it!!  I didnt put any scent into is the first time to see how it worked and we dont notice any odors or anything!  I have had several people ask me for the recipe so I hope they like it as much as we do!!!  I did buy scent to put into my next jug I fill though I will let you know how we like that!

We decided to breed Olive our Mini Mancha to Domino our Nigerian Dwarf so they are in the breeding pen for 30 to 32 days!!  I hope it goes well!!  We will know for sure in 150 days or so!!!  We are so ready for some goat milk, cheese and soap!  Were going to breed on of the other girls but we havent quite figured out who to breed to whom  lol.  Barbi could be bred because Shadow had taking a likeing to her a week ago but I havent actuall seen them in the act!  So we shall see!!!

We took all 10 goats in one at a time and did some maintainence on them, trimmed hooves checked eye colors and such.  So far everyone is doing great!  We made a new pen for the boys so we dont have to keep switching who in the pen through out the day!  The nice thing about it is it was 100% free!!  We have a place down the road that gives us their pallets and we build thier fence out of those!

We had Kevin and Dana not last weekend but the weekend before and had a fabulous time with them as always!  It was nice to see Kevin since he doesnt come out very often!  We sure are going to miss them when they go to Florida for the winter!!!  We love having Dana and Kevin at our house!!  I would have them every weekend if I could! 

Last weekend Brittany got into a head on collision on highway 20 and she was hurt the worst out of the 3 vehicles involved.  But no broken bones just lots of cuts and bruises!  She was VERY lucky!  Matt and the kids went to Jeremy & Brittanys and I went and sat at the hospital with her to drive her home.  Once we got there we ate beef n noodles and went to bed!  Sunday we got up and had some target practice!  We all had a good time so overall it was a pretty good weekend but as always it went WAY TOO FAST!!!!!

Well, I’m off to a bad blogging start as I haven’t been on here in several days! I am like that with things like this which is why I have never had a successful blog...lol

Brianna started school yesterday and she LOVED it!!! She was only there for 1/2 day but she was more than ready to go back for a full day today!!! I am so happy for her!!! The boys are still doing very well at school! No complaints from either of them! I do however think I am going to have to break down and go buy some school clothes for all three of them! :-( What a bummer!

I have finally done it; I sat down and figured out a budget for our family!! I am super excited and very nervous all at the same time!! It’s going to take some discipline that we have never really practiced before! So we shall see!!! It was actually quite difficult to do since I get paid twice a month and he gets paid biweekly so sometimes we get paid every other week on the same week and others we have money coming in weekly! Yes, confusing but that’s how it works! Now we can start getting things paid off and saving for a family VACATION!!!!!! That is one thing we definitely need!!!

One of my best friends gave me a TON of zucchini and I have started shredding it and I am maybe a 1/4 of the way into it and I have 6 quart sized bags with 4 cups of shredded zucchini in each bag!! Thank goodness she let me borrow her food processor or I would still be shredding that batch!!

Over all, we had a wonderful Labor Day weekend! Matt was fortunate enough to have the whole weekend off with us plus 2 extra days!! It was nice to be able to have some family time! We had Matt’s cousin Tara and her husband Scott and their boys, Ethan 3 and Oliver 3 months? over Friday night and I made chicken n noodles and mashed potatoes for dinner! It was delicious!!!! We processed 6 more chickens Friday night! So we’ve done 23 of our 50! Almost half way there!!! We had a couple of people from Matts work buy some chickens off us and we sold them for $3/lb and they were 4.5 lb chickens so we made 67.5 off three chickens!!!!!!! I didn’t really want to sell any but hey that kind of money makes them worth it!!!!

Josh was over Saturday and Sunday and helped Matt pick up some free wood and when they were splitting the wood he got too close to the close line and ended up getting hit on the face with the axe so a ER visit and 8 stitches later he looks a heck of a lot better than I thought he would!!!!! Monday we all got in the car and headed over to moms and had a nice day visiting them!

Well that’s about it for now! Hopefully it won’t be so long until my next entry!

What a wonderful weekend!

Well, I am ashamed to say I took the easy way out with my spaghetti....no homemade noodles! However, I made up for it Saturday! We had homemade Chicken N Noodles....our chickens and homemade wheat noodles! It was YUMMY!!!

Josh & Sarah were there when I got home from work and they were a tremendous help to us again! While I was bummed to not see my niece and nephew, I did get to meet Gracie for the second time ever....kinda sad, she didn’t even know I was her Aunt. She is the cutest, sweetest little 4 year old I have ever seen! She has one heck of a personality and I mean that in a good way!! Brianna & Gracie were like two peas in a pod Friday and Saturday! Gracie wasn’t too sure about all my animals but after a few hours and watching my kids interact with them she wanted to play in the goat pen too!

We ended up working outside all weekend again....I’m sure it won’t be the last weekend we do this....probably more often than not till winter hits as we have a lot of irons in the fire. We got most of the "summer kitchen" cleaned out and the front portion is a hay & grain storage area and the back portion is going to be the goat care area for things such as hoof trimming, milking, storage for wormers and vaccines ect. We have a mini fridge we are gonna put in there and there is a wood burning stove to heat it on those cold days while milking. I think it will work great when we're all done with it!!

The goat/chicken run is mostly done. We need to get some sort of aviary netting or something of that nature to keep the chickens, ducks and turkeys in so we don’t have any more runaways! We also need to figure out something for the bottom of the fence so predators can’t get in because right now there is a spot or two my 75 pound boxer can get under. Not necessarily a good thing!

Of course it wasn’t all work and no play we had a nice bonfire on Friday night and the kids roasted marshmallows and had a blast!

I’m not quite ready to start the work week but its here! So, off to work I go!! Have a great week everyone! Talk to you soon!

Laundry Soap & Goats

How many times do you go to the store to buy laundry soap and say to yourself….my goodness this stuff is outrageous!!! I do it all the time. I have stumbled upon the sufficientself.com and they are all talking about how they make their own laundry soap. So, I have decided to try it….it seems pretty easy and from what I have read you can make 10 GALLONS, yes I said gallons for around $6!!!! That is amazing!!!! So, next weekend I will give it a go and let you know how it turns out! Here's the recipe:


Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap- Front or top load machine

4 Cups - hot tap water
1 Fels-Naptha soap bar
1 Cup - Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda*
½ Cup Borax

- Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.3-Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.
-Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel)
-Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil.
-Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons.
-Top Load Machine- 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)
-Front Load Machines- ¼ Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)
*Arm & Hammer "Super Washing Soda" - in some stores or may be purchased online here (at Meijer.com). Baking Soda will not work, nor will Arm & Hammer Detergent - It must be sodium carbonate!!


Today, were hopefully going to finish the chicken/goat run so everyone can be out at the same time not this group then that group. It’s going to make things a lot easier!!! Thankfully we have help!! Josh, Sara and possibly the kids are coming over to help us out! We couldn’t be more grateful!! While they are out working their butts off I will be inside making homemade spaghetti sauce and homemade spaghetti noodles!!! I’m really excited to make the noodles because I haven’t tried homemade spaghetti noodles…others yes but not spaghetti!!!

I tell you what, when you’re new to any animal it’s DEFINITELY a learning process. I think Bob the pygmy goat was not technically a legal sale…not on my part but on the previous owners….I have learned that there is a disease called scrapies and you have to put a tag in the ear or tattoo your goats so if for some reason they end up with scrapies they can track it back to the original farm to check those animals. He is such a pain in the rear that I haven’t been able to tell if he is tattooed but I know he doesn’t have a tag and in the state of Indiana you’re not allowed to see goats or sheep without a scrapies number. Its doesn’t really appear in goats like it does sheep but they do have the occasional case. WHO KNEW?? You would think after all the extensive reading I have done on goats I would have came across this…NOT. OH well! I called the Indiana State Board of Animal Health and I have a flock number, a premises number and theyre sending my scrapies tags!! They will be here in two weeks!


I asked about Bob, the pygmy goat and they said to write down the address where we purchased him from and put one of our tags on him. That way if they ever needed to contact the owner they could trace him back to us and we can give them the address where we purchased him at. They said it’s not the technical way to do it but it will work since he doesn’t currently have a tag! So, in two weeks all my goats will have tagged ears but Olive….she has a tattooed tail since she doesn’t really have ears.

Well thats all for now.

New to blogging

So, I’ve never been much of a blogger but I thought why not give it a shot! It could be fun! So, where to start....The kids just started going back to school...Austin is in 2nd grade and Kayden is in first. They are loving it! It is so funny to see the excitement on their faces as they wait for the bus. They both LOVE their teachers and so far it’s going well. Brianna is going to start a three year old class in September and she wants to start now!!! I just hope she stays that excited about it!!!


So the other day I was sitting on the couch relaxing watching Army Wives when the neighbor kid knocks on the door to tell me there is kittens under the ramp to get into my house.....fun fun!........NOT I now have 8 yes you read that right 8 kittens at my house. We had 10 but have gotten rid of 2...thank goodness!!!! Now 8 more to go...... you want a cat? lol

The goats are doing well, one if not both of the girls may or may not be pregnant as bob the pygmy goat somehow got out and was with the girls for who knows how long.....not planned at all!!!! I was planning on waiting until late October to November to breed that way we would have spring babies but, that may not be the case....only time will tell...I may be milking at Christmas time!

Our meat birds are about ready to go. We have a few that aren’t quite ready but 50 birds two people….we will do more than one day of processing to save our backs! It’s quite an interesting experience! I don’t require the kids to help they just want to. It’s kind of interesting to them to learn about the gizzard what the liver, heart and lungs looks like. They pluck, and gut just depends on how long each task holds their attention as to how much they do. :-)

Alright that’s it for my first entry my first 10 minutes of my lunch are now gone…..need to go find some food before I have to get back to work!