All In a Day's Work

We are working daily towards marketing our farm. Cleaning. Packing. Organizing. Carrying stuff to Goodwill. Craigslisting items and animals that need to move on.

In the middle of it all, Patrick brought in a basket of peaches. While hanging out clothes on the line, I picked a bunch of rhubarb. In between weed-eating, I picked some yellow squash. We are right in the early stages of good summertime eating.

Today we had several calls on goats, thank the Lord! A nice couple of gentlemen came over to purchase a couple of "weedeaters" this afternoon. They wanted females, but ours were already spoken for. I recommended they get a couple of the bucklings and castrate them. They thought that was a great idea, if I performed the operation.

Since I didn't have ANYTHING else to do, and since I really wanted Maggie to sell those goats, I ran to the house to get the elastrator and scalpel. Kids caught kids. One of them (the buckling)was small enough to band. The other was not. Nora ran out of the house, reminding me that it was 4:25 and time to head to Pinkerton's to pick up my car from the shop. Patrick and Maggie held the little fellow and in a matter of seconds, the procedure was fait accompli. Only teeny drops of blood were shed. Goats were loaded and after a quick scrub we headed to town.

As supper cooked, another couple of folks came over to pick up a goat. They are down the road neighbors and already purchased Angel and her baby. They wanted to buy Portia from Maggie.

Portia was our first real animal on the farm. We learned so much with her. We watched her give birth. We drank her milk and made pounds and pounds of cheese and yogurt from her creamy gift. Maggie and Rose learned to milk on her. We learned much about society and pecking order, watching her become the empress of our goat herd.

I couldn't watch her go.

I stayed inside, took care of our dinner and cried.

What a gift that she and her sweet Little Daylight doeling are going to such a wonderful home. It definitely sweetens the pot.

PS We enjoyed a marvelous dinner on the deck in the cool of the evening. Roasted eggplant, sweet potatoes, sauteed yellow squash and a roasted Mike Guzo hen. Pineapple for dessert. Laughter. Just the six of us. Yesterday we scarfed down lasagna from Laura, and it was so good. But tonight, I was thankful to cook a meal. And to hear at least part of the kids quite happy to devour eggplant and squash!