Heat wave

Very quick post tonight because I need to get to bed. We have been getting up at 5 a.m. in an attempt to get our morning chores done before the temperatures climb too horribly high. It's around 72 when we wake up, but it's into the mid-80s by 8 a.m. when we get inside. No, we don't normally have three hours of chores to do first thing in the morning. We don't actually make it outside until about 6 a.m., then we've been trying to do stuff that would normally be done through the day, such as weeding the garden. Today, most of our time was spent cleaning the barn, so we could get garbage out. Still we somehow managed to miss some old eggs. They apparently busted during the day, and it stinks in there! Temperatures in the barn exceeded 100 the past few days. All the animals are outside except for the baby chicks, who are surviving in the heat. They are certainly NOT huddling together, so I don't have to worry about them suffocating each other! I make sure they have plenty of water. Of course, we have to make sure all the animals have plenty of water in this heat, or they could die. Outside temperatures are staying in the 90s until about an hour before sunset, which makes evening chores problematic.

Yesterday, we picked peaches in the morning also. Then in the afternoon, we canned peach preserves and peach butter. I've never had peach butter before, but it is delicious! We barely made a dent in the peaches, so we plan to make more peach butter tomorrow. This afternoon, my indoor job was making cheese.

Still no tomatoes, but we are getting quite a few banana peppers. I'll have enough of those to can soon. I have no idea what happened to my zucchini. It was doing so beautifully, and then the leaves started to turn brown, and it's dieing.

Time to get to bed now!

Goldfinch in my backyard

Prior to moving out here, I had never seen an American goldfinch, even though they live all over Illinois. But after doing the slightest bit of research on the beautiful bird, I quickly realized why I'd never seen one -- we didn't provide the necessary habitat. There is a thistle growing tall outside the dining room window. I complained silently to myself about the invasive, problematic plant (deposits burrs in the sheeps' wool) until I saw a beautiful yellow and black bird landing on the spent flowers and grabbing the white fluffy stuff. A quick look in our "Birds of Illinois" book, and we discovered the American goldfinch builds its nest in late July, early August, using thistle down! We were entertained by both the male and female (male pictured) coming back to the plant repeatedly throughout the day, grabbing more of the thistle down for their nest!

We appear to be winning the battle against the Japanese beetles. We think we are having such good luck because we are capturing them without the use of lures -- which attracts them. We are simply waiting with our little sandwich baggies, and when they land on the peach trees, we tap them gently, causing them to fall into the bag. Also, I am not removing the damaged fruit (contrary to the gospel that all spoiled fruit should be removed, lest it attract more bugs). I figure it makes it easier for me to find the new beetles, and I'm really hoping they go for a fruit that is already damaged, rather than starting to nibble on an uninjured peach. The baggie has fewer and fewer bugs in it every day!

Invasion

I can't believe I haven't posted in two weeks! Where has the time gone?

Our biggest news is that we have begun the battle with the Japanese beetles. Two days ago we noticed they were on our peach trees. When we went berry picking in the woods two weeks ago, we saw them on some of the wild rose bushes. I had hoped they would stay in the woods, but I guess the scent of ripening peaches was just too tempting. Luckily I went out to the peach trees two days ago to see if they were ripe. They are looking so big and red! We picked half the peaches, hoping they'd continue to ripen in the kitchen. The other half are still on the tree, and we're hoping the beetles won't get them all.

In the first battle of the war, we pulled the beetles off the trees and killed them. Yuck! Then we realized they were very slow flyers, and they usually fall down rather than fly away. Sometimes in mid-fall, they'll start to fly, but they almost never fly off the peach or the leaf when you disturb them. So, in the second phase of the battle, we are taking plastic baggies out there, holding the bag open under the beetle, and tapping the beetle so it falls into the bag! Works wonderfully, but it's time consuming.

Trying to do things organically doesn't leave us a lot of options. Because all the stores around here are sold out of beetle traps, we bought a replacement lure and put it into a yellow jacket trap. We were hoping it would work the same way. What we discovered is that the beetles swarmed around the bottle but didn't go into it hardly at all. After seeing hundreds of them on the jar and the picnic table where we sat the jar (didn't want it near the peach trees!), I decided to go put the jar next to the turkey pen yesterday afternoon. The turkeys feasted on Japanese beetles as the bugs swarmed around them. I started to worry that they'd explode! But it's a cheap form of protein, and the turkeys sure looked happy.

Last night, I was so excited to find only a few beetles on the peach trees. I decided to go check the apple trees, and as I started to walk across the front lawn, I realized the beetles had invaded the hedge out front! I took my plastic baggie and started catching them. Can you imagine a sandwich bag half full of beetles? That's how many I had! (Oh, yeah, I should also mention that they can't seem to fly out of the bag either. I think they have trouble flying straight up.) Luckily, there are no beetles on the pear trees, but there are signs of beetle damage to the very tops of the apple trees. So far, the apples are untouched. I think I need to get some of this kaolin clay that someone told me about. Supposedly makes the fruit unpalatable for the beetles.

This morning, I only found five beetles on the peach trees, so I am hopeful that our current battle plan is working!

Baby picture!

Finally! Here is a picture of our newest, sweetest baby girl!

This is Odette's baby, born June 28. We've decided to name her after the ballet Giselle. Like her mama and her Grandma Dancy, she is the friendliest goat imaginable. She runs up to us whenever she sees us, and if we're holding her, she couldn't be happier. If we're out in the pasture, she even follows us sometimes instead of her mother -- not that we encourage such behavior, but it just shows you how friendly she is. She definitely got her grandma's personality!

I'm keeping busy with daily gardening chores, cheesemaking, cleaning (house and barn), and contemplating what to do with mean rabbits.

Gooseberry picking, goat selling and sheep milking

We spent this morning with a potential goat buyer. She is just now starting her herd. She is from Virginia and arrived early enough to watch the morning milking and try her hands at it. Then we introduced her to all the goats, and she told us which ones she'd like to buy if we decide to sell them in the future -- or alternatively, which ones she'd like to have a kid from. Then we came inside, and I showed her how to make yogurt from sheep milk and queso blanco cheese from goat milk. (Yes, that means we milked our Shetland sheep! More on that later.) Then we made pasta and sauteed queso blanco, a main dish I created.

After lunch, she left to visit a nearby alpaca farm, and Mike and I went into the woods for gooseberry picking. We have a 5-cup bucket about 4/5 full. Tomorrow, we'll be having gooseberry muffins for breakfast. They are delicious -- somewhere between the taste of raspberry and blueberry. The wild raspberries aren't quite ready yet, but we nibbled on a few early ones as we made our way through the woods. We also discovered an unusual tree in the woods, and Mike's research online showed us that it is a cucumbertree! I didn't know such a tree existed, but the pictures match up.

Now, about the sheep milking ... A few days ago I got the bright idea that we could milk our Shetland sheep. I noticed one of the sheep had a very impressive looking udder -- at least as good as some of our goats. So, I convinced Margaret to milk her. Since catching sheep is not easy, we decided to put her in a smaller pen, but then she got lonely, so I decided she needed a friend, whom we could also milk (since her babies are two months old already). Well, now I know why no one milks their Shetland sheep. It took us four days to get a quart of milk from the two of them! Margaret said she loves milking them because they have very soft, easily milked udders, but the quantity is quite small. Now I also understand why their babies don't nurse as long as the goats. Some people say the ewes wean their lambs, but now I think the lambs just give up around two to three months of age. It's just easier to drink water and eat grass than to chase down the mama for a sip of milk -- and I do mean a "sip" because that's all the sheep have at this point. So, Shetland sheep are not dairy animals. I am hoping the Icelandic ewe proves to be more productive when she freshens next spring.

The top picture for today is Carmen, the goat who won grand in the show two weekends ago. I had posted a picture of her in the show ring and a picture of her as a baby, but then I realized I didn't have any pictures of her beautiful, sweet face. Katherine took this picture for me a few days ago.

The goose is one of the goslings that arrived on Antiquity Oaks slightly more than three months ago. I can't believe how fast they grow!

Wonderfully busy

Sorry I didn't get those pictures posted! I've been wonderfully busy. Yesterday, I don't think I hardly sat down at all. I worked on cleaning out the barn, which (like house cleaning) is a never-ending task. I think it gets dirtier faster than the house though!

We did well at the show this past weekend. Our senior doe, Scandal, won grand champion in both rings, and our buck, John Adams, won grand in both rings. Our junior does, however, were almost always at the end of the line-up (meaning last places).

Now, there must be something wrong with Blogger, because I've tried five or six different pictures and different ways to post pictures, and it's not letting me do it! Grrr ... will try again later!

We survived

Yes, we survived hosting our first goat show. We were all exhausted by the end of yesterday, but we all survived. We also coordinated a 4-H goat workshop in the morning. The goat show was in the afternoon. I did paperwork and other miscellaneous tasks during the show, while the girls showed all of our goats. Our friend from Chicago was the ring steward, meaning that he kept track of who was placed first, second, etc. Once the show was over, we had to clean out all the stalls.

When we got home, we discovered a turkey hen had hatched eight poults. They are now running around the farm and are adorable. I'm hoping the mama turkey can keep track of them all.

I'll try to get some pictures up later today ... goats, baby turkeys, etc.

It's a girl!

Carmen's sister, Odette, gave birth today to a BIG baby girl! She weighed in at 3 pounds, 14 ounces, which is big, especially for such a petite mama! Healthy Nigerians can be as small as 2 pounds, and they frequently are that small when there are quads, but this little girl had no competition for nutrients, and she grew quite large! Her mama looked so big, we thought she'd at least be having twins, possibly triplets. She was born this morning. I wasn't here, but both my daughters were there for the exciting event.

Sorry, but the only picture they got of her face was this one -- she must have been about three minutes old and is still quite wet.

This is Odette's first freshening, meaning she's a first-time mom. Her udder is quite impressive, so we think she's going to rival big sister Carmen in the show ring. Unfortunately, there aren't many shows left this year, but that's okay. I'm sure she'll do even better next year. Margaret suggested showing her this weekend, but there's no way I'd show her only three days after she's given birth. She needs time to rest, relax and get to know her baby. Most mama goats make the motherhood thing look so easy.

Names ... Odette is named after a character in the ballet Swan Lake, so we're going to name all her babies after ballets and ballet characters. So far, the only thing I've thought about is Sugar Plum Fairy from The Nutracker. Any other ideas?

Another busy weekend ahead

Did you ever wake up one morning and say, "Oh, no! What have I done?" I've been feeling like that all day today! Last week, I was obsessing over the kids in my writing classes, and I was thinking about the farm show on Saturday and the goat show on Sunday, so I had absolutely no time at all to think about what was coming next. What's next? This weekend, we are sponsoring our first goat show. I only attended my first goat show two years ago, so I'm kind of wondering how I wound up actually sponsoring a goat show now! (Yeah, right ... how did I ever wind up on a farm after a lifetime of living in the suburbs?)

Sponsoring a goat show is kind of like throwing a huge party combined with a serious meeting. There is serious stuff to be done, but you're hoping that everyone has a really good time. We have over 50 goats pre-registered, so we're hoping to at least break even financially.

I have a friend coming from Chicago who will be helping, and he'll be staying with us. A goat breeder will also be staying at our place, so that's two house guests arriving on Friday. Mike has been working hard to get Jonathan's bedroom finished, so that the guest room can finally be a guest room. One guest will get the guest room, and the other will get the media room in the basement. It's not completely done, but there is a futon in there, and it's pretty private. No one will have to sleep on the couch!

To do list for this week: Clean the house, move Jonathan out of guest room, clean guest room, clean the barn, clean the yard, mow the yard, pick up friend at train station Friday, pick up judge at O'Hare on Friday ... I know there's more!

Today's picture was taken by another goat breeder at the show on Saturday when Carmen was named grand champion. If she wins grand two more times, she'll be a permanent champion, so in theory, she could be a champion by the end of the weekend, but I'm not holding my breath. Judges have their own preferences, even though it's supposed to be totally based on the scorecard. Even if Carmen doesn't ever become a permanent grand champion, she'll always be my little baby, and she'll always live here on Antiquity Oaks.

Busy weekend

It started last week, actually -- the "busy" thing. I spent the last two weeks teaching two writing classes for middle school. The creative writing class was wonderful. It included 10 kids who loved to write and wanted to be there. The writing fundamentals class was a nightmare. It included 14 kids who hated to write and didn't want to be there. You can probaly figure out the rest! I'm so glad I homeschool, and so are my children. When I was telling them about the antics of the kids who hated to write, they didn't find the actions humorous, and they were glad they don't spend five days a week witnessing such behavior.

Saturday, we were at an historic farm helping to celebrate 1860s Day. I was dressed up in my 1860s work dress, and I did a couple of soapmaking demonstrations during the day. We sold a lot of soap and yarn. My daughter had been invited to spin, but she was at a goat show. The day was pretty hot. Temps were in the 80s, but there was an occasional wind that helped make it feel better. I am amazed that I'm really not any hotter in five layers of clothing than in modern clothes. Yeah, I was wearing five layers ... drawers, half slip, chemise, dress (lined bodice), and apron.

Margaret called me around noon to let me know that one of our goats, Carmen, won grand champion senior doe! I was especially excited because she was born on our farm.

Sunday, I went to the goat show and joined my daughters. Although Carmen didn't win that day, her daughter won grand champion junior doe! We were at least as excited about Lizzie winning as we had been about Carmen winning the day before.

Today's picture was actually taken more than two years ago when Carmen was born. She almost died at birth, and she wound up being our first house goat. She was spoiled rotten and hardly knew she was a goat. I wound up keeping her for sentimental reasons, thinking she'd be a runty little thing forever, but she grew into a beautiful doe! As I was looking for pictures, I realized we haven't taken any this year. We certainly need to remedy that situation now!