Making decisions and waiting for goats to kid

Here I am on January 13, and I've already messed up on my resolution to blog on here twice a week! I was hardly home last week, but that doesn't mean I could not have posted on here. I was at the Illinois Specialty Grower's Conference, and I had a great time meeting like-minded people who like to grow food. I am also in the midst of a big life-changing decision, and being there helped me to clarify a few things. I was attending a session on growing tomatoes hydroponically, and once the speaker got into all sorts of technical stuff, I had a huge urge to leave and head to another session. I wound up listening to someone talk about marketing your crops, and my brain said that I should let someone else grow the tomatoes. Considering my physical challenges, that's probably a good idea. Give me a phone and a computer, and I can market.

What's the big life-changing decision? I'm at a crossroads with the farm. I have to either cut back to almost nothing, or I have to ramp it up to the point that we can hire someone. Mike is frequently late to work, which is not acceptable because we need his salary to live. And I know I'm just one fall away from being incapacitated again. I suppose that might be true of everyone, but I know how true it is because after falling in March and June, I was unable to do anything on the farm for many months. And I used to fall a lot! I had no idea that my knees were so fragile, and now there's the sciatica. When you can't bend over and you can't squat, how can you garden?

As I'm writing this, I'm thinking that maybe this is why I don't blog that much any more. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining, but this is the type of stuff that goes through my head every day.

So, what's up with the picture? 

The black and white goat in the middle is Agnes. She is due to kid in two weeks. I'm betting there are four kids in there, and I wouldn't bet against someone that said there were more than that. The poor girl is huge. She had four a couple of years ago, so it's not crazy to think that there could be four in there again. Vera and Cicada are also due at the end of the month, and they are equally huge, so we could go from zero to a dozen kids here really fast. Vera had quints last year, and Cicada usually has triplets or quads. So, hopefully I'll have some happy, healthy kid pics near the end of the month!