And It Was Summer...

I've decided that I'm going to be better about posting, and was happy to see that Katy had done an update recently. Since that time, we've had three kids born. Peace surprised us with a sweet buckling who looks exactly like her. As it was earlier than we'd anticipated, we're now wondering if we were precipitate in naming our breeding buck "Disappointment." Maybe he took care of business after all. At any rate, since Peace is not a good milker we have allowed little "Clone" to remain with her and they do make the cutest couple.

A week after Peace kidded, Katy came up from the barn to tell me that Temerity had just given birth to one kid and she thought there might be a second one in the chute. Sam and I raced down to the barn and saw definite signs that she had another one on the way. We waited and in about fifteen minutes, she delivered the second one. They're both does and look exactly alike. Sam was there with me when the last kid was born so he got to see his first birth. He was pretty unmoved. Later that evening when his daddy was home, I said, "Sam, tell Daddy what you saw in the barn today." And he said, very matter-of-factly, "Temerity had a baby come out of her." Sex-ed on the farm. We've separated mother and babies and are bottle feeding the little ones.

I've been so busy this spring that for the most part I've left the garden in Katy's capable hands. The poor germination of seeds this year and a busy travel schedule prevented me from having my annual plant sale, and the seedling crop was underwhelming. Still, I was able to start an herb bed which I'd prepared in the fall, and I planted a few more perennial flowers in the front. The lilacs we planted two summers ago are all well-established now and had a fairly good showing of blooms this year. It looks like our beloved apple tree won't bear anywhere near its usual crop but that just means we'll have to appreciate each fruit that much more than we have in the past years. It seems that when I have time to work outside, mowing is the job that most needs to be done. Where Sam used to always say, "Grandmommy is cleaning." he has changed it to "Grandmommy needs to mow the grass." Yes, Grandmommy certainly does! But we now have a path to the river and if it ever warms up we'll be able to spend some time at the water. And as the summer progresses I'll try to get some mowing done around all the fir trees, as well as keeping up with the yard.