A Harried Morning

We overslept today. Something that does not happen often. When I woke up and realized it was 6 a.m., I scrambled up and headed to the kitchen to start baking. My husband came in and said he couldn't get up because he was dreaming. About what? I asked. He said~ you got thrown out of church for running your mouth. Good grief! I didn't know if I should laugh or be horrified! Talk about starting your morning off right...
Once bread was delivered I started my chores. Milking and feeding done I headed to the garden. 
I TRIED to dig garlic. However, the ground is like cement as we have had no rain in two weeks. The storms have been all around us- just not here! I did manage to dig a few heads along with one elephant garlic and a few potatoes. We watered the new transplants and picked a few handfuls of green beans. More cabbage was harvested as well as onions and a large handful of basil. That was all we could do in the garden and so we headed to the barn to do some cleaning. The dairy goat barn was in dire need of scraping out. Once that was done, I limed the area and put down fresh shavings. I scrubbed water buckets, something I am having to do almost daily as the green slime covers the bottoms in this heat and humidity. I then turned my attention to the sheep. We lost a lamb this week due to parasites. I was shocked since I had just dewormed 3 weeks ago and moved them to clean pasture. So it has been with fear and trepidation that I go to the sheep pasture each day. The day I lost the lamb I checked eyes. Most were ok but the ewes with twins were quite pale. I dewormed again and have been supplementing the ewes daily with a liquid iron. Quite a job since they don't really care for it! I entice with grain and usually get everyone. I am also feeding kelp mixed with DE. I am curious to see if this helps. I had such high hopes that we would not be plagued as much this year but it seems we are off to a rough start. And so it goes, we have good years and bad years. The last time we had such a huge problem in this area was about five years ago. People were loosing animals left and right. We felt lucky that year to have only lost 4 ~ 3 lambs and 1 goat kid.

Most chores were finished and I headed to the kitchen. Supper was going to be a true homestead meal! I roasted the head of elephant garlic and it was fantastic. We will most definitely will plant a lot more of that this fall.

Our supper menu was green beans with baby potatoes, fried cabbage and onions, banana peppers stuffed with cheese and broiled and pasta tossed with basil pesto. What a delightful way to end a day.