Friday Suprise

E2 was helping me with chores on Friday. I sent him out to feed the patriarch of our herd, Golly. Golly's first doe born here has been quite the milker this year. Ginger is giving over 8# a day, so we are quite pleased with 'Gollinator the Pollinator.' So back to the story. E2 took Golly's food out to him, but before he could get all the way out to Golly's house, or 'The Love Shack' as we call it sometimes, he came charging back into the barn and said, 'Mom! There are chicks - baby chickens - out under Golly's house!' Sure enough, one of our Silver Spangled Hamburg hens had sneaked off and hatched a brood under Golly's house. With the threats posed by the roosters, the other hens, the one-eyed cat that has been hanging around, the skunk we have been smelling at night, raccoons and other things we are blissfully ignorant of, we adopted them to the mud room. There are a nice dozen chicks, and we are hoping that they are hens. Time will tell . . .

The stormy weather seems to have settled down. The clouds were pretty neat last night, though.

middle of june

You've heard about the flooding already, I'm sure. And the tornadoes and various other severe weather events that have been in our area. My brother-in-law said it best: This weather in 2008 is like an abusive, drunken husband. It beats the living daylights out of us one day, then the next is all repentant and lovey-dovey. The weather this week has been as near to perfect as it can get; small consolation, I'm sure, to the folks who are having to salvage their lives and homes from the muck and the mire in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, Columbus Junction and on down the Mississippi.

By God's mercy we have escaped harm from the weather so far at Amon Eruanna. The garden is doing great, and the green beans we had to replant, due to a varmint mole, are all up and growing. A blessing in disguise, as it will extend the season and I will have lots to can.

I'm hoping to wander out to the timber to get some black raspberries here in the next few days. There is not much that is better than black raspberry jelly.

I've been working on some beaded blackberry socks the past few weeks, getting a row or two in now and then. I wasn't going to use the beads, but I can't get the pattern to work without them, and now they are really growing on me. Wish I had more time for them, though. They are made with Tofutsies yarn, which is awesome because its made from soft wool, Soysilk, some other fiber, and chitin, which is derived from the shells of lobster and shrimp and such, and is naturally antibacterial! Not that my feet stink, mind you . . .