First day of Spring...and it is still snowing!!

It is really hard to believe that today is the day that marks the change of seasons. You'd never know unless you were looking at the calendar. In January it is exciting to look out the window as the snowflakes are descending and the snow banks are rising but in March it is down right depressing! I guess Spring will come when it is ready. The Easter Bunny will just have to utilize her winter boots.
This morning I took the goats to be debudded. That was an experience I do not want to remember. It is done so that the goat will not grow horns which are potentially dangerous if you have dogs or children around, we have both so I opted to have this done. First they prep the area by shaving, then they burn it with some round instrument, then the round hard area is removed and the instrument is reapplied to the underlying structure which is the beginnings of a horn. I watched Anna Belle get done and I could not bare to watch, hear, or smell Oreo being dehorned. Anna Belle and I headed for the Subaru and as I comforted her we could still hear his cry. I took them home right after and fed them and they napped, a couple hours later they were jumping around the mud room as if nothing ever happened. Now I work in an ER and inflict pain and watch people suffering daily, you would think I could have handled goats in distress but I could not! I took pictures but they aren't pretty so I decided not to post.

On a lighter note the kids had an early release day so we decided to decorate some eggs. We first experimented with natural dyes getting the idea's from the latest Hobby Farm magazine. We used turmeric to color the eggs orange and I had some cranberries (that were no longer good for human consumption) to make the eggs red and we used spinach in attempt to have green eggs. The first two ingredients worked as planned as you can see below but the spinach did not work so we turned those into egg salad.


















Then we decided to do a little painting as you see Ms. Leah deep into her work. She loves to paint!

In the next week or two we really need to get some plants started. We were a little excited with spring fever to say the least and we started some tomato & cucumber plants. We may be harvesting before they can be planted outdoors, check out all the flowers on the cukes. Our goal is to someday grow vegetables year round in our green house heated by an outdoor furnace.

Moving on... I want to share with you all a cool website I came across this evening. Some friends and I have been e-mailing meaningful discussions initiated by Amy. The topic was based on what we are all doing with the rising prices of fuel, how are we getting by and what are doing to save. It was a great discussion and we learned a lot from one another, networking is a great thing! Anyway, you must all check out this site. The part that you HAVE to look at is the video, it truly is inspirational!


http://www.ecospace.cc/food/100-foot-diet-0108.htm

On a final note I must share with you what our little naughty dog, Callie just did. She loves butter and we often find wrappers on the couch as John is notorious for leaving it on the counter. John just headed out the door to work and the minute the door slammed she came over to the counter (not thinking that momma is at the computer and has a great view of the kitchen) and she put her two front paws up scanning for that stick of butter. The look on her face was priceless when she heard my voice, you had to be here! :)