Chickies are Hatched and the Calf is Bald!

 Captain's Log:  25 March, 2016.

Incubator #1 - 28 live chicks 16 no-hatch
Incubator #2 - 36 live chicks 8 no-hatch

Conclusion:  We now have a bazillion cheeping chickies!  Good grief, whose idea was this?

Oh.  That's right. 

 I get overwhelmed in the Spring.  I want to do everything.  I start everything.  I have Lyme Disease, a chronic illness.  I get tired.  And then I laugh at myself and after awhile, things slow down and I'm not quite so overwhelmed and I drink more coffee and I think I'll survive.

AND THEN THE SUN COMES OUT!!!!  And I must go outside and do MORE THINGS!!!!!

And so it goes!

 This is the calf we started that has done well from the beginning.

 This little bald guy is the one that was very very sick.  I gave him everything in my 'sick calf' arsenal and he has rallied!  He is now drinking his full bottles of goat milk and eating grain each day.  I am sure his hair will grow back eventually.  I think it's a side effect of too many meds, but he was dying and now he's getting well, so DO NOT LAUGH AT HIS BALDNESS and he will probably forgive me, lol!

 This is not a selfie.  How would I take a picture of myself while I am milking?  WHY would I take a picture of myself while milking and WHY would I be smiling like that while milking?

Actually, I don't mind milking at all.  It hurts the hands (arthritis), but honestly, the milk is worth the effort.  No chemicals, it's fresh every single day and it NEVER tastes like goats.  Honest.

 For a couple of weeks I have been overwhelmed with orders for primitives.  Large orders.  I started to wonder if I could actually accomplish it all in the time required by Ebay and Etsy, but I have prevailed!  (It helped that it's been raining endlessly here and the sunshine & birds were not calling me to the great outdoors!).

 I sewed, I painted, I grunged and I tied.  I finished, I mailed!  I heaved a great sigh of relief and now I'm in the process of cleaning my sewing/craft room up once again.

My daughter bumped a vat of oil off the shelf in my pantry and so I cleaned my pantry, too.  Do you know how hard it is to clean up (cooking) oil when it has splattered/pooled/soaked into many items in your pantry?  It's very clean in there now.

 Ok, this is officially a selfie.  I drew this back in the olden days when I was young.  The year was 1977....the year I graduated from high school.

I do a lot of craft work and sewing nowadays, but I haven't actually tried any drawing in years.  It's on my list of things to do before I die....but the list is long and I don't have time yet. 

My husband and I are dreaming of a solarium off of our dining room onto the porch.  We can't afford it, but that doesn't actually mean that we won't figure out a way to do it anyhow!  He's a builder, so the labor is free ;-)  We do have a greenhouse, but it would be so much more fun to have a warmer, heated solarium attached right to the house..right?  Probably we wet Washingtonians think of these things more than other people.

He's been milking one of the goats every morning, too.   That was our deal - We could raise two calves this year if he helped with the milking since my hands just won't tolerate all that effort.  He likes this ole E-Goat and he loves his little calf buddies, too.

This guy is a keeper.  We've been married for over 36 years and I still like him.  He's down the hill at his bee house right now.  He had a dentist appointment earlier, sold some honey in town, came home and got right on the tractor and headed down the hill to work on expanding the bee house.  There are six hives full of a gazillion stinging insects down there.  I personally could not be convinced for any reason under the sun to BUILD SOMETHING NEXT TO THOSE BEES!!!!!  But he is a braver man than I.  Especially since I am not a man!

That's a bit of what's going on at the farm.  We're keeping close to home most of the time.  When my mom was so sick, we spent many hours in doctor offices and cancer clinics and passing the time of her treatments in town.  We're catching up on things we let go around here and just trying to get our bearings & strength back.  This is the first Spring without her and I miss her with every bloom and every ray of sunshine.  We used to play this little game every Spring to see who could spot the first trillium (wild flower in our woods).    Dave & I went for a walk in the woods the other day and I spotted that first trillium of the season and it makes me cry every time I think about it.  She was my biggest fan and I miss her so very much. 
Ok, now that I've cried all over my keyboard, I'll buck up and think about something else! 
A friend came over today to talk about Lyme Disease.  We shared, we laughed, we even cried a bit.  I think we encouraged each other on this difficult road of life and agreed that it draws us closer to the Lord and more fit for His Kingdom! 
May each of us be drawn ever closer to Him as we travel this road with its joys and sorrows!   Off to live more life on the farm until I sit down to blog again!