Babies are Here!

Our Tea Party Guests 2-13-09 One of our first does to have babies and it was triplets 2 girls and one boy.

Hello:

Well lets see, first off why I haven't written is because we didn't pay our local phone bill and the phone was turned off. David had a good market day and I then got to pay the bill and here I am again.

On Tue. it snowed again. Just 3 inches and then got icy out. So I stayed home. David was home so he drove Danyel to Biology class and did some running around town. Danyel and Ali had their HAM Radio Class that evening. David was suppose to go to Longview to his Sisters Big 50 birthday party, but because of what it looked like here decided to stay close to home. Its hard to predict what its doing 50 miles away from our house... even going to Seattle is a risk when weather is bad here. Anyway he did call her. Our 4-H meeting was cancelled until Wed..

On Wed. we worked on the farm, bought grain and went over to Black Sheep Creamery to vacuum up our first aged cheese. Black Jewels and NW Comfort. We did one round of each. I tasted it and YUM! it turned out really good. David will take that to market on Thur. to sell. He has been promoting it for about 6 weeks, so he knows he'll have people coming down to taste it. We went to Church on Wed. and that was a great Bible Study. A gentleman bought $15 of cheese to be delivered on Sunday.

Thur. the girls and I went grocery shopping for our Valentines Tea. We also started baking for the tea. Our menu was: three sandwich combinations (spinach leaves, garlic & dill chevre, smoked salmon patte- spinach leaves, garlic and dill chevre and tuna fish - peanut butter, powdered sugar, plain chevre - these are rolled up in flour tortia's and cut into three pieces). Sugar heart cookies, mini chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and drizzled with white chocolate, lemon tarts, apple crisp with whip cream, cream puffs with chocolate pudding inside with powdered sugar on top, almond Rocha crunch, carrots, candy, pretzels and of course tea and cream. On Friday morning I was up at 4:30 to package cheese for David to go to market and then I started baking again to get the sugar cookies baked and make the sandwiches. The girls got up at 6am to help clean and organize the house we were expecting 15 people - though only 9 showed up. We had a great time eating all those goodies. I ran to town in the middle of all this to get 13 bags of grain and take Danyel to Biology and pick her up. And we were ready. Tea party was from noon to 2pm. Three of our guest showed up by 10am, so they got to help. We had no babies born during the tea. My girlfriend and her three children were here and so I got to visit with her for awhile. After she left I packaged up some marinated feta and headed over to Black sheep Creamery again to vacuum up some Black Jewel and NW Comfort and the Marinated feta. I got to watch two sheep have lambs while there. I got home about 7pm when our last guest's parents picked her up. David got home at 7:30 and had a good day at market. At about 8pm our first doe had a baby buck. I was so tired by the end of Friday night. I went to bed at 9pm and was sleeping soundly when I heard my daughter and son and grandson come in. They were going to spend the weekend here. David came in about 12 midnight and said that the goat was still pushing, that had had a kid about three hours earlier. So I got up put my sweats on and a coat, grabbed the dish soap and headed to the barn. Sure enough she wasn't done. I went in and found a breach baby - I got one leg pulled out but couldn't get the other one out - so I just held onto the one and pulled the baby out - I figured 3 hours after the birth of the last one this one was probably dead.....NOT! and David said you think she has another one in there? So I bounced her (this is just placing your hand under the stomach and kind of pushing up on the stomach and feeling if there is a heavy weight coming back down) and there was. So I went in thinking again its probably dead......NOT! She had three bucks. I came back inside and went to bed.....

Sat. morning David went up to hay and came back with the report there were four alive animals in that pen... YA! I had to package some cheese for market so was up at 4:30 again. David left for market at 5:45am. Got the girls up at 7 am to go up and see the babies and do chores. I made french toast for the house full of people. Took the girls to Civil Air Patrol. Came home and My daughter and son and grandson all got ready to run to town to do some banking (so I can have my phone back), pick up some grocery's and the kids wanted to go to the cell phone store, while the girls were at Civil Air Patrol......we'll pick them up at noon and come home eat lunch and then go see baby sheep. My son stayed home and studied - when he grows up he's going to be a councilor to youth. That sheep tour went well, got to see a lot of baby lambs, took pictures. Came home got the roast in the dinner - David called from market and said it was really crazy and he was selling lots of cheese. When we got back from see the baby lambs, another doe - Wendi had triplets. They are the ones in the picture. After I got the roast in the oven I headed out to the processing plant to stain my olive oil, and clean up the plant .. do a little organizing. Chores started at 4:30 and was done by 5:45. My grandson loves driving the tractor (he's 5). So we moved some hay bales to the barn and fed the goats their hay. His mom and dad went to the movies for Valentines day in Chehalis. The rest of the evening was pretty mellow. David got home about 8pm he had had a really really good day at market. He didn't have alot to unload since he sold most of the cheese. He said the market was wall to wall people. The beef jerky guy sold out of his product by 2pm and left. David was close.

Sunday morning I was up at 4:30 to package cheese up for market for David. Jamie our son is going with him today. Heather and CJ are going to church in Longview and spend the afternoon with one of her friends and then will come back and pick up Jamie when David and Jamie get home from Seattle. Heather is going to go and get me some containers and lids and some garlic (one less trip for me) while in Longview. The girls and I are going to church this morning. This afternoon I have to go cut up another round of NW comfort and vacuum it up and some more Marinated Feta. Then lable them for tomorrow's market.

Well that is the run down for this last week.

Have a Great Day and remember SPING is how you look at the day!