Rhonda in Rwanda - Day 2

January 24
I got up at  6:45am.  The time difference is I think about 10 hours so its really evening in Winlock.  I left my cell phone on and charged so I would know what time it was at home.  I also had my alarm set to milking times at home so I would be reminded what my family was doing back in the States. 
I ate breakfast of two pieces of toast and butter, with a small banana and two cups of tea.
So before I start telling you about my day, I want to tell you about where I was staying.
Jemrose had moved into this house in November, so had only lived here a few months when I showed up.  Deodonie- the oldest of her children, cleaned his room out so I could have his room and bathroom.  I am sure I havent spelled his name correct.  That was very nice and I was very comfortable.  this is a traditional bed for Rwandes. 
I need to share about the house that there were locks on all the doors, with keys - to be used. I am not talking about outside doors, I mean every door in the house.  For instance the kitchen had three doorways and each had a door and a key.  And all the doors were locked every night and anytime we all left. And bars on all the windows.  There are no screens on the windows.  I believe this was due to the attacks that have happened in the past years of Rwanda.  This house is payed for by the organization that Jemrose is part of.  ROY PROJECT, its out of England. I will put the information on later for her project.  Jemrose is from England and has the accent to prove it.  She speaks pretty good Rwandes and knows the customs too.  Jemrose has 9 foster children from the ages of 17- 27 years old.  She sees them as her own children.  She teaches them their traditions and cultural ways of doing things as well as helps them stay in school and get into a school.  I look forward to going back to Rwanda to see her and possibly to help her anyway I can.  I too have a heart for the children that are displaced, as we were foster parents here in the states for almost 8 years.

Back to the house:  This is the front room and dinning area.  When you enter the house you have a different pair of shoes, so as to not bring in the clay dirt.  They dust and wash everything down almost every day.  Even the outside of the house, the windows and bars, and the sidewalks and all the floors.  The couch and chairs were bought by the ROY PROJECT.  Before the couch it was plastic chairs.  The hutch in the back held our dishes that we ate on.

This is the kitchen.  The stove in the corner is propane.  We didn't use the oven, but did use to burners to keep things warm.  We rarely used this sink as the one outside was the dish washing station usually.  There was a refrigerator not wider than the stove and about 2 times taller.  It had a little freezer.  You can see the bars on the window too.

This is the back yard area to say.  The dish washing sink is on the left bottom.  There is only grass in the front yard.  The rest is cement.  The building you see is the storage and cooking room. The blue bucket is a hand washing station.  And they have a food storage room that isn't in the picture but it is past the sinks and table on the left.  They stored potatoes, fresh veg. and rice and beans and then more cooking dishes in there and it locked. The silver table is a charcoal stove.  There are three burners to it and where the black holes are is where the ash goes.

This way of cooking is traditional for Rwandes.  And the children cooked for me on it each night.  Oh the food was wonderful.  I even got to cook on it one night when I made them as close to Taco's as I could get.

This is the front porch.  I ate breakfast here every morning.  It was so peaceful and relaxing.  I remember thinking I am really in Africa.    The sun shone each day and averaged about 80 degrees.  The red fence in the top picture is a secured gate.  We had to lock it when we went out and came in.  It had a gate so we could just open it and not the big doors, which are for cars to enter.  There is a wall all the way around the house and yard and is very secure. The birds would sing to me.  I tried to get a picture of them but they are very small and my camera was not very good focusing in on them... before they moved.  We also had a bearded dragon (lizard)
in the far corner our the yard.  Jemrose got a picture of him.  I could never get one.

This is the picture hanging on the wall of Jemroses house it is the King of Rwanda, along time ago.  He was a Tutsi.

Now onto my day:
Also time really isn't a factor here, anyway Jodi would tell me a time she would be by to pick me up but it was always an hour or two later.  So watching the clock did no good.  Jodi has a jeep in Rwanda.  Jemrose doesn't have transportation.  O.K.  back on track.  She picked me up and we went to another persons house in Kigali, to make tomato sauce.  Jodi's foundation sells the sauce to a pizza restaurant.  Last year she grew all the tomatoes on the Sanctuary property.  This year the blight took out the tomatoes, so she is having to buy the tomatoes at the open market. 

These are some guys that work for Jodi, they are washing the tomatoes and cutting them in half and then they will use a industrial wizzer ( giant mixer) to smash the tomatoes.  Then we took the tomato sauce to the restaurant.
After this Jodi had two meetings with her employees to catch up on the last months while she was gone to the States.  After this we went to pick up a stray dog and take it to the sanctuary and then Jodi will find it a home.  Then Jodi brought me back to Jemroses house and I got to visit with the children there.  I had for lunch: a special bread - its like indian bread- it was so good and some fruit and cold water.-
Electricity is very expensive there, so the lights are not used often and then made sure they are turned off promptly.  So the Internet is the same.  The kids had the Internet on, so I brought up facebook and showed them pictures of my family and all the snow we had just had.  I got to show them all my goats too.   While I was on facebook, I left notes for my daughters to tell their dad all is well and to tell him Hi.  I was on the Internet the whole three weeks about 6 or 7 times.  After this I went in and took a nap.
Jemrose and I got some alone time and I shared how David and I met and how God moved in our lives. We shared our relationship with God.  We both were in agreement too.
Jemrose shared with me about the Genocide that took place over 15 years ago, 1994.  Each year on, I believe April 7, the whole country morns the loss for 100 days.  Jemrose shared how her children react to this event.  It was very sad.  Some of her children lost their whole families and were chopped with machete's themselves.  It is all very disheartening.  I really have issues with government now - cause they knew about what was happening and turned a blind eye.  Some countries even sent over the machete's to help with the massacre.  How rude!!!!
Before I came over to Africa I had to put together a picture book for my goat class.  But I didn't put any writing under the pictures so that we could have someone put Rwandes words to describe what it was they were looking at.  I gave my book to Jodies right hand man, Emey, who also did all the interpretations for me.
I have gotten alittle color on my cheeks from the sunshine here, already. I have lost track of time. My watch is set at Blue Rose Dairy time and then the clock in the frontroom here is Rwandes time.
Driving here is crazy. The scooters and motorcylcs go where ever they want and the cars do about the same. I shut my eyes when we come to the intersections. Cars and trucks and scooters all mesh together.
We had chips (french fries) for dinner, beans with eggplant, avacodo and spagetti noodles and some sauce.  They like to drink warm water, the children.  But I like cold so they keep some in the refrigerator.  They boil thier water and then run it through a filter.  I am trying to drink lots of water and stay away from the soda pop.  Jemrose and the children put a water bottle in the freezer each night for me, so I can take the water with me when I go with Jodi.  Jemrose drinks lots of tea and I love that.  When I make a hot cup and don't have time to drink it I put it in the refrigerator and have it later as ice tea.  It sure quenches my thirst.
We all sat in the frontroom and prayed before we went to bed.  All the doors were locked and its very quiet out.  Its dark and I look forward to shutting my eyes.

Blue Rose Dairy Goes to Rwanda- Intro- Day 1,2,3

I want to start off with an apology for not getting this started when I got home.... Our computer was turned off due to lack of finances and that's the nut in the shell on that. 
Now onto the Intro:
This adventure started about 4 years ago at Pikes Place Market.  We met Kathleen Harrison, she spoke with us about how to make cheese and then went onto tell us about Kenya and her Project.

Kathleen Harrison, PhD
Founding Director, HARAMBEE, NFPwww.projectharambee.org

She is helping women with AIDS.  We got to talking and she told us she had a goat program, where her organization would buy the milk goats and the mom's would milk the goats instead of breast feeding their babies.  She also teaches the women to do crafts and then she helps them market their wares.  She is an amazing women to do this on her own with no pay and alot of hard work.  We thought it would be great to teach the women how to make cheese with their extra goat milk.   We just needed to figure out the logistic of doing that.  We had to plan around my birthing of babies, milking schedual and of course cheese making and our farmers markets.  So we kind of thought winter here like Dec. Jan or Feb.  Well the year came and went.  The next year I got my passport all in line and thought I might go then, but that wasn't the case.  Instead I met another lady working in Africa, Jodi Garbe.

Jode Garbe, DVM, JD

Managing Director

Rwanda Wildlife Sanctuary

& Science Education Center

(RwandaSEC/RwandaNOW)

in Rwanda 250 788740 428

in US 206 283 9167

www.rwandanow.org

She spoke at our grange, Hope Grange -Winlock Wa., about her being a veterinary for the Silver Back Gorilla's in Rwanda.  She shared about her vision of starting an animal sanctuary and veterinary clinic.  So we started talking about starting a goat dairy so she could make cheese to sell to the hotels.  This would help support the non profit sanctuary.  Jodi is working hard also to accomplish this goal.  She has the property now and is working towards building the sanctuary.

So that is a brief pre... to the trip.

 Then I had to find someone to make cheese while I was gone and that came to Taneka and Mark.  She makes goat soap and other items like deodorant and lip balm and hand lotion.  All great products.  Mark had an interest in learning to make cheese so they came over in the Summer and put their hand to task.  Its was alot of fun and they learned to process very quickly.  So about 2 weeks before I left they came over faithfully and made cheese and I gave them more free run of the processing plant each time.  The day I flew out Mark made his first batch of cheese by himself and I was in Seattle and he Now we jump up to just before the trip... Shots. I had to have 3 shots and take a pill once a week for malaria. I hate shots, but each shot didn't hurt as bad as I thought it would. So it ended up not being as traumatic as I thought. only called me a few times just to check if he was doing it right..... he was.

Now we jump up to just before the trip... Shots. I had to have 3 shots and take a pill once aweek for malaria. I hate shots, but each shot didn't hurt as bad as I thought it would. So it ended up not being as traumatic as I thought.   Then I was told by someone that I didn't need to take clothes over - because clothes were cheap there and I could just buy them there.  A few days before I was to leave I talked to Jodi and she said no way thats is not good info.  So I had to repack my suitcase to take clothes for me.  I had several people give me gifts to take over there and give away.  Bob Gurassio made me 20 wooden cars, he lives in Clatskanie Oregon.  Dick and Bev Nieces sent me 20 color books, and crayons to take, from Eastern Oregon.  My mom sent me stuffed animals and some matchbox cars to take over.  I had a teacher for Olympia bring me soccor balls and socks to give away over there.  So I took 3 suitcases filled with goodies and my clothes.

I have to throw in a big thank you to my husband and two daughters for taking over the farm and keeping things going when I was gone.  My daughters also had friends come over and help on occasion. 

Well on January 14 Jodi emailed me and told me that our flight for January 18 had been canceled and we would have to leave on the 21st instead.  One other note is that Harambee, NFP paided my airfare ticket to get to Rwanda, Thank you Kathleen and your wonderful group for such an awesome experience.  Anyway I started packing my bags and making lists. 

 On January 17 it started snowing.  Not the usual kind where it snows 2 inches then melts and freezes and then melts some more.  Oh no someone told the Weather Man I wanted to fly out to sunny weather, his response was Not on My watch.   We are in full kidding now, which means that we have heat lamps all over the barn in every pen... its cold out.  We had about 44 does kid before I left for Rwanda.  We sold all the kids we needed to before I left so that the girls didn't have any extra work to do while I am gone.  Mark came over today to packaged some restaurant cheese orders and made some chevre.  When we got up we had 10 inches of snow on the deck.  Which usually isn't a big deal except Mark needs to come do this stuff so he feels comfortable about doing it on his own.  It doesn't look like anyone is going anywhere today.  I am hoping  on Thur. the rain starts so by Friday I can run to town for the few last items I need - like bug spray, suntan lotion, garden shears for trimming goat hooves, socks, and maybe a pair of tennis shoes.   Today I took my second malaria pill and Friday the 13th I had my yellow fever shot and Mengacal (spelling may be wrong) shot to the tune of $216, the malaria tablets were $96... talk about sticker shock!!!  Tomorrow they are saying we will get more snow... ICK!

January 18

Well this morning I woke up to 25 inches of snow on the ground.  Power went our at 3:30am and came on about 9:30 am.  We milked at 10am and was done by 11am.  David had to use the tractor to clear trails so we could get around the farm.  We did chores later than usual 6pm.

January 19

Well the power went out today about 9:15am and came on about 8:30pm.  We had to milk goats by hand twice.   We used the BBQ to melt snow to water the goats.  We moved our Nigerians to the barn we couldn't even see them in the snow.  We had to move the cow to a pen because a limb fell over her pasture fence and the snow was shocking her.  911 got called twice today.  Once was a butt call.  The sheriff came out to see if were were alright.  The second one was because Ali drank bleach by mistake... she is fine.  We had freezing rain today too, tree limbs snapped everywhere.  We had a couple of trees break off and  some big limbs fall to the ground to.  It never got more than 33 degrees today.  Cant wait to see what tomorrow brings.  Had about 1/2 inch of Ice cover everything.

January 21

Well the day is here.  I got up at 5am- cleaned the kitchen a little and David had already loaded my 4 suitcases.  We stopped at Walmart to get batteries for my Ipod and camera.  I also got some pepto tabs and calamine lotion.  WE also had to get locks just for the suitcases that were airport approved.  Then off to Pikes Place.  We sold cheese all day.  We did very good so I took an extra $100 dollars with me.  David took me to Jodi's mom's house where she was packing her stuff to go.  David left me with Jodi cause he had to be back in Seattle the next day to sell cheese and needed to get home.  I took my motion sickness pills 2 hours before we were to take off.  We repacked my suitcase to get everything she had extra to take.  I put the locks on all my suitcases and then put the four keys in different places.  Jodi's mom made us sandwiches to take.  Jodi's brother took us to the airport.  The plane leaves at 11:45 for Washington DC.  I will be taking motion sickness pills every 4 hours till we get to Rwanda. 

We got into Washington DC at 4:40am.  We went to the NCO and I took a nap.  I feel better.We leave NY at 10:45am  We have to go back through security to board the Ethiopia Airlines. This was the airport that I was the most scared about.  Its huge... but the signs are big and its actually easier than I imagined to find my way around.  We ended up having to run to our airlines.  The train wasn't so bad either.  Thank the Lord, I think he was watching over me... no I am sure He was.

When we boarded this plane they gave us slippers and each seat had a monitor that we could watch our choice of movies, listen to music, watch the flight information, play games.  I chose Romancing the Stone for my movie.  They also brought us pillows, and blankets and eye covers along with toothpaste and toothbrush.  This is a huge plane.  There were hardly any passengers and so Jodi and I got 3 seats to ourselves, so we could stretch out and sleep.  We will be traveling 6314 miles to Addis Abeba and we will be traveling at 601 mph at an altitude of 6000 ft.  Thought you might like a little extra info. 

Jodi taking a nap.  This is one long flight.  Looking out the window is only clouds.  We are over the ocean.  I took another motion sickness pill.  They served us lunch: chicken with red sauce - rice and peas.  Cheese and crackers, cheesecake, green salad with Italian dressing.  Hot Tea and water.  It was very good.  This is so hard to do nothing on such a long flight... when I have so much to do.

We are now 5274 miles from Addis.  We are flying past Athens Greece now.  We went across the Mediterranean Sea.  We have been on the plane for 9 hours.  Every once in awhile the plane shakes.  I am now watching another movie, The Sound of Music.  We have about 1 hour till we are there.  They serve us breakfast: cheese omelet, tomato and hash browns, roll, crescent, jelly, coffee, water.  And I am stuffed.

I cant tell you if its night time or morning.  I think its just before sunrise.  I can see the red sky on the horizon.  We have landed...January 23.   We went out the back door of the plane and walked down the stairs and boarded a bus.  It took us to the main terminal and we then boarded a smaller bus and went to a smaller terminal.  We went into the lounge and waited for our flight to leave.

I will be sitting beside the window for this last part of the flight.  I took some pictures but they didn't turn out very good so I wont bore you with them.  We landed in Kigali where we again walked down the stairs and walked to the terminal.  We had to fill out passport paperwork again and I got my passport stamped.  The weather is warm and very nice here.  

Jodi had some friends meet us to take me where I will be staying.
I stayed with Jemrose Walker and her 9 children.  She is a foster mom helping these children through their school years.  Right now there were only two boys and 3 girls home. .  Jodi stayed for awhile.  I went and layed down and took a nap, but when I got up I had a headache so I layed back down for a while.  Think its jet lag.  I unpacked my suitcases and organized my stuff.  Staying here will be wonderful.  They don't have hot water so they heat up the water and put it in a large thermos for me to wash my face and sponge bath.  The first thing I learned was their way of greeting you... its always giving you a hug and then a hand shake.  They call me Auntie, which they call all the women that come into their house to stay.  She cooked dinner for me, Pea's with celery, potatoes, rice and bread and I had water, they had pop. After dinner the kids washed and put away the dishes. We prayed in the evening before we went to bed. It was very nice
I have to say I miss my family... I am so far away.  But the adventure is about to unfold.
I went to bed and slept very sound....

More tomorrow......

Winter 2012

The herd checking out the snow 1-16-12

Danyel

Alixandrea

Well -- have  you noticed that it snowed out?  I took notice a few days ago and was surprised that white wet stuff covered the ground and made everything wet and cold.  Though my daughters put on pretty dresses and took thier shoes off and took pictures in this stuff.  I am not sure if it was to see how long they could go before they got frost bite.  The photo's turned out great! 
This snow thing causes so much work for us farmers.  We end up having to haul alot of water buckets to the goats and cow.  You have to use the tractor to move hay around.  And then there is the temperature.... cold.
We seem to just go with the flow and keep moving on.
My trip to Africa is almost here... I am going to the Pikes Place Market with David Sat. morning.  I will work the market with him and then we will meet up with Jodi and head to the airport.  It will be a long day for sure.  My flight leaves at 11:45pm and we wont be in Kigali until the 23 of January. 
We have a lay over in Ethiopia and then onto Rwanda. 


Tue's Snow 10 inches on deck railing 1-16-12



The milk parlor and barn this morning 25 inches 1-18-12

the deck railing this monring and in the background you can see the corner of our fence 1-18-12

Marcus checking us out from behind the barn 1-18-12

My patio furniture - table and chairs 1-18-12

Well the snow this morning was so .... I don't know.  I was hoping the weather man was wrong as usual.  But to no avail we ended up with 25 inches of snow.  David had to get the tractor out before we could even go to the barn.  The power was off since 3:30am and when Ali woke me up at 5:00 am to see the snow I was shocked.  But the reason she woke me was even funnier... She had Jonny inside last night (one of our cats), well he wanted outside and she opened her bedroom window and put him on the window sill and sent him on his way only to have him disappear into the snow.  She jumped out the window to save her cat and thats when she found out how much snow we had.  The cat spent the rest of the morning inside.  Well once I was a wake and saw the snow I couldnt go back to sleep.  So out onto the couch I went and watched the snow fall.  I woke the girls up at 8am and we still didn't have any power.  So David moved the BBQ closer to the back door and we heated the baby goats milk and the girls took it out and fed some cold babies - thier heat lamps were off.  We started melting some snow so we could start milking the goats by hand.  Just as we were heading to the barn the power came on... Ya!  I cleaned the parlor and milked the goats.  I was done at about 10:30am.  Our adopted grandparents had gone and got pizza the day before so they could come up and have pizza with us before I leave for Africa.  David cleaned the driveway up by going up and down it about 3 times so they could get thier truck up the driveway.  They came about 11:45 for pizza.  It sure did taste good too.  David went out and made trailes around the farm so we could get to the places we needed to.  It sure looks funny too.  He also had to scrape the snow off the chicken house so the roof wouldn't break.
Now the funny goats are the nigerians... the snow is deeper than thier backs.  Ali made a trail for them to be able to get to the hay feeder and I wish I had the picture she took of them on her phone.  So funny.  Knight our llama had about 18 inches of snow on his back.  He seemed alright today though. 
I layed down about 2pm and took a nap.  Got up at 3 and packaged cheese for David to take to Olympia tomorrow.  He printed out the invoices.  I think everyone knows what thier jobs are while I am gone.  Mark and Teneka (I may not of spelled her name right) are making the chevre for me and packaging the cheese and labeling for David.  Mark made the last batch of Chevre by himself with me in the background.  I had to hang it cause it snowed and no one could get up our driveway yesterday.  Today we all were snowed in .... hopefully tomorrow afternoon he can come up and take the cheese down and package some cheese for David for Sat.'s market.  I feel confident that Mark and Teneka can handle the task. 
I will Skype David while in Africa... and possibly email when in town.  I won't be adding anything to the blog until I get home ..... so no one panic after Friday evening....I will blog each day with pictures when I am back... this will take 3 weeks... so patience will be in order.  Especially for me if something cool happens.
Well thats my up date for today.  Stay warm and dry and enjoy the beauty of the season.

Another Intern bites the dust!

Our newest intern wanted to make cheese right off the bat, like I am going to turn over my machine to just anyone....NOT!  He left mad cause after observing him for about 1 week we thought better than to turn him loose with my business.  He was nice - just thought he knew more and could do more than I was ready to let him.  Anyway the stress level here at the farm has dropped alot. 
This summer I had a couple who makes soap come and spend many days at the farm and helped me make cheese and package and lable too.  They are who we chose to make cheese while I am gone to Africa.  He bought two kids from me and is going off to Calf. to start a dairy... Only problem is he doesn't want to clean and do the grunt work that is all part of the farm thing.... Goood Luck Timmy.
Well I took 21 kids off to the auction in Chehalis to be sold.... Got the reciept in the mail today and I owe the auction $37.  I paid someone to buy all those kids.  Man oh man I am mad.  I will not ever again take any kids there again... And I will telll everyone about the rip off place.
I also thought it would be a no big deal to go get my last two shots.... not so.... and its going to cost me $350 to have two shots...  I am so disappointed.  So after I pay for my shots I have about $100 to spend in Africa instead of $500.  Please pray God will send me some more money to take.
We just had two goats kid in the last few days.  We have a few more goats to have babies and then we are done.
Taneka and Mark made the batch of cheese that is hanging now.  We will hopefully take it down tomorrow or Wed.  We are going to package abunch of resturant orders tomorrow.  We also are having a tour, a guy come buy 2 kids, and my accountant is coming too.
It will be crazy tomorrow.
Today though was sit back and relax.... I think after all the drama of Tim we were all exhausted with trying to understand a person thats not easy to understand.
Anyway have a great day.

Bucks off to the Auction

We got up to frozen ground this morning... no fog.  The girls and I had to do all the chores cause Tim and David headed to Seattle to deliver cheese and sell at Pikes Place.
We only have one mom with twin bucks still in a pen.  So feeding extra goats is pretty easy.  We have turned the boar mom and her twin bucks loose in the top so they can go out and run and eat grass.  We are milking about 35 does now.  I was sure glad to be done milking this morning.  Bottle feeding was long and the only thing that kept us going was that tonight we will be 21 kids less.  After milking I ran the babies to the auction.  I am making cheese tomorrow after milking.  Ya!  It should be a good batch since I am not using 8 gallons a day to feed the kids.  We are going to start the older kids on the Lambar bucket with 10 nipples on it.  That cuts feeding them down to about 10 min for 10 kids.  So much faster.  I still have about 10 does to sell  But I have a guy coming tonight to buy two and then tomorrow another person is buying 2 and then Sunday I have a 12 year old that has saved her money up for two does.  That leaves me a few left and I have another lady coming to buy some for her sons birthday gift. 
So that should just about do it.  We have about 10 does left to kid.... but that could be a month off. 
I am going to dump milk into the bulk tank tonight after milking cause I don't have to save any for kids. 
Two friends who have helped before make cheese are coming over to make cheese with me.  They will be making cheese while I am gone.  That should keep my husband happy and supplied with cheese. 
Last night a friend and her two boys and husband came and helped feed the baby goats.  We took pictures of him in the pen with the baby goats while they were attacking him.  He loved it.  It was so cute.  He kept sneaking out of the house to go hang with the big kids so he could feed the goats.  What a trooper. 
I stayed up from 8:00pm to 10:30 pm packaging cheese and labeling it for David to do market today.  I didn't know he was going to stay and do market... Hope he does well.  We are behind on some bills and need to make money.
I have saved almost all the money from the sales of kids for my Africa trip... I hid it!  I did have to pay a bill of 150 yesterday though with it.. God will supply what I need.
Well I am going out to clean the pasturizer so tomorrow I am ready to make cheese.  The cheese cloth was washed yesterday and is ready, the 10 buckets are washed and ready... Now to make it.  I have to order bags tomorrow and pray they get here soon.  I have a big order for Friday.  So the wows of a farmer.....$$$$.
Have a Great Day

What a Lovely Day

I have to say it is a good feeling to work with your hands, to be outside and smelling fresh air.  My job lets me have all these benifits.  I think farmers stay healthier than city folks, because of our lifestyle.  We don't need entertained - we are to tired.  We don't need fancy food - cause usually when foods on the table we just eat it.  And we don't need fancy cars - goats, hay and grain mess it up.  Cothes are usually two kinds - farm and town, neither is to fancy cause we don't have the energy or time to care.
But in all farm life is good.
As I am out milking this morning I am thinking about the last 10 years that we have been here at Blue Rose Dairy.  The changes we have gone through, the different situations we have had to over come.  the number of goats we have had and then not.  How our children have grown up and flew the coop.  And where are we going next? 
The things that stick out the most with me is the smell of the morning air, early morning.  The thousands of beautiful sunrises and sets we have seen - because we are always outside during them.  The weather changes we  have endured.  Rain, Rain, Snow, Sleat, Frozen rain, frozen ground.  Its always changing.  I think God does this to keep us on our toes.... and making us ready to change in a moment if need be.  From getting up and putting on warm gear, ear muffs and gloves and stripping everything off before the morning chores are done.
We have met  some great people at the markets we have sold our cheese at.  And we have met some real stinkers.  We have had opportunites open up for our farm and other ones close.  My husband is a real salesmen and loves the challenge of a good chef.  He loves to visit and share our story with eveyone.  Sometimes I think alittle to much - but that is David.
This farm has been a blessing to more people than we can count.  We have opened our doors to everyone and anyone.  We have always said if you want a place to stay your welcome --- but you will have to work on the farm.  God has taken care of us through thick and thin and He still is.
We are almost done with kidding season already and the cheesemaking part starts again.  The weather is clean and clear and we look forward to meeting more people and sharing our love of goats and cheese with anyone who will listen.
I hope you have a wonderful day.... The Sun is shinning and the sky is blue and my farm is smiling.

Busy Busy at Blue Rose Dairy

Yesterday we went out to the barn to triplest - all boys, and a set of twins.  We had two more does kid during the day.  We are milking 26 does and have picked out only 6 does kids for milk replacers.  We have a huge amount of buck kids that are going to the auction on Friday.  I need to make cheese and they are between me and pastuizer.
Tim is back from his weekend in Seattle spending time with friends.  He has been doing the watering and is helping feed kids - 40 of them - bottles.  He finds things to do around the farm when we all go our own directions.  Hope he is learning what he will need to take care of his 3 kids he is buying.
Danyel and Ali will be gone all day today- until chores at 4:30.  I have to make a big dinner tonight cause I think we will be having extra kids today.
I want to go and get the processing plant set up and cleaned.  I need to package some feta for my mom in Arizona.  She has been selling it down there.  I have to package cheese for resturants on Friday of this week. 
I am hoping to be able to make a batch of cheese on Sat.  We should have alot less kids to feed so I should be able to save a bunch of cheese.  I got about 7 gallons today and so I put 5 in the cooler and will add to that each day.  Hoping for a 30 gallon batch but we will see.
Its windy out today and they said we were suppose to get some more rain. 
Well I am thinking about Africa, since I have only a few weeks to go.  I just hope the farm holds up while I am gone.  Taneka and Mark are coming over to make cheese for me.  That will help alot.  They have helped me in the past.  So they are very familier with my processing plant.  Maybe Tim can watch and learn but they will be the cheese makers while I am gone.   
Well I will add more later.