A Long Stretch without a Word

Heather our #2 daughter due the end of October.

And a goat accident that ended with having her bag sewn up. (Story below)

Trip to the Zoo for David's birthday. His brother and parents came with us. The puppies are ready for new homes and are eating us out of farm and milk. (16 pounds of puppy food and 2 gallon of milk a day)

Got to deliver a baby for a friend. Both neighbor and goat are doing well.

Heather, her sister, is pinning Danyel at her Civil Air Patrol ceremony. Aug. 29.
Danyel is now ahead of Ali in rank!

My new front door screen is done. My dad built it for me and stained it to match the deck. It is really great to be able to open the front door and turn the fan on and no flys come in - or puppies.

Since I'v not wrote in such a long while, I thought photo's would be the best way to sum up the last three weeks. We have been very busy and I have been very tired. All our farmers markets are going well. We finished Stilecoom which was only a 9 week market (thier first year), it went very well. I went to the last market with David so that the folks there could meet the cheese maker in person. It was a great market, both financially and community.

The girls got to go flying again in the power plane. We have just bought the first airline ticket for Ali to go to Texas in December. She'll be gone from the 16 to Jan 13. Talk about excited these two girls cant wait. Danyel will go the middle of Jan. to the middle of Feb. They both picked the best time when we are not milking or kidding to go.

We got news that we are going to be grandparents again. Heather is due the end of October and Tami our daughter in Texas is due in March. So I will be heading to Texas the first of March for a week. This is right when we start kidding at the farm. Danyel will then have to earn thier keep while I am gone.

One of the sort of suttle notes I have mentioned was the financial part of our dairy. What I didn't say was we were a thread away from loosing the dairy. But the bank has decided to give us another chance. I am so thankful to MY GOD for blessing us with this dairy and our way of life. We have worked so hard these last six years (in Dec.) to loose it all. We are now looking at servicing about 12 resturants, we are currently working 9 farmers markets. So we are here for another year at least.

My parents went on vacation for a week and I had to go back and start labeling cheese again. WoW! Its true you don't know what you have till its gone (even if its for only a week). We have talked to a young girl that loves animals and has helped us out before - to see if she would like to come to the dairy this spring and help with the kidding and maybe lable some cheese for me.

I was suppose to go to Africa in October, but that has been post poned until Jan. or Feb. as the cheese processing plant hasn't been finished yet and will take longer than they expected. So that is a good postponement though... . gives me more time to make cheese and get it stored away for winter.

We went to a friends 70th wedding anniversary. That was alot of fun. Got to see people I hadn't seen a long time.

The goat - So here is the story. We went out to milk in the morning and everything was great. But the evening milking was interesting. Danyel came to the processing plant to tell me a goat had a hole in her bag. I am thinking she got poked with a stick kind of hole. When I got there - there was milk and blood comng out of the same space. It looked like someone had cut her teat almost off and straight across. I was on the phone to the vet and had the doe loaded into the truck in about 15 min. Our vet sewed up inside her bag and the outside. The picture is at the vets right after he got done sewing her up. The goat is doing great, she has mastitis on the hurt side - but the vet said that would happen. We are still milking both sides. She had her stitches taken out on Friday and is out in the pasture with the other goats.

The puppies have gotten their shots, wormed and are growing leaps and bounds. We let them run around the farm twice a day and then get them back into thier pens with goat milk.

We will start breeding does in Sept. and that should start kidding in Feb. this year. And the cycle starts again. We will dry up the does the middle to end of November. That will give every one thier vacation.

We started homeschooling three weeks ago so that the girls won't have to do schoolwork in Texas. They will each take two classes at the High School this year. Danyel is taking woodshop and keyboarding, Ali is taking Biology and Drawing. It will work out great as its the last two classes of the day so they can ride the bus home. We will get Danyel's permit for driving so she can get her license when she is 18 in May.

Well I hope this makes everyone happy, cause I know you'v been wondering whats going on with Blue Rose Dairy.