Just another week.

Run, don't walk, to the book store and buy a copy of Radical Homemakers. It's epic. You'll love it. If you get any joy at all in that 'I did it' accomplished feeling, you'll enjoy the book. I'm reading it again because frankly, I'm worn. I have had an extremely long week that has left my cup feeling like it's beyond empty. I'm tired, stressed, frazzled. I'm worried. But admits the chaos, I decided to pick up this book again to remind myself the blessings I chose to have surround me. Sometimes I think it would be easier just to be a household of consumption. To be like "others" and not feel this strong calling to honor God and our Mother Earth in all their glory by giving all I can to sustain my home. Recently I became the joke of some, in kindness, that laughed that I must be super-human to even try to get all I wanted done in a day.

Not so. I'm just me. I get up early to read or knit, I sit down in the middle of the day to write blogs to refill my cup. I spend an hour or more outside with my children, chickens and goats because it suits me. It's not super human anything, it's respect for something far bigger than me. I cannot begin to list the accomplishments I have made by aligning myself with that greatness that is in all of us. I just honestly never expected to find my alignment calling me to be a homesteader.

This weekend was a scary one. That little one that is tucked in my arms so securely had a seizure. Not something we haven't had happen before with our oldest years ago, but something that rocks your mothering intuition to the core and makes you stay up for 40+ hours watching your little ones breathe, every moment making sure they are looked after. About 4 am, you fall into a heap of exhaustion only to have your alarm clock scream at you at 6:40 am. Another day begins the same - mothering is not for the weak or weary. It demands you to be more than you thought you could be.

Kalani's hospital bracelet is wrapped around a sweet potato plant I'm growing with care this year. A reminder as I stand in the kitchen that life is fragile and I should honor it more. I should dive in more and tend it with care. The mere image of the growing sweet potato plant with the hospital bracelet gives me pause and causes my soul to stir. It's a summary of why I home stead - for them and for something bigger that aligns with healthy souls - and shows that in the middle of chaos and stress, something beautiful is growing if you tend it with care.

Our hens are laying again. This is yesterdays bounty of eggs the girls collected in the afternoon. It's a lovely sight indeed. On the chicken front, our homestead is quieter these days. We no longer have our two roosters, they made it to the stock pot after drawing blood on our children and becoming far too aggressive to be acceptable in our lives. The process wasn't one that was glamorous or fun by a long stretch. Our kids watched with a mixture of fascination, relief and sadness as we prayed over our chickens that lived a good life while they were with us. I pondered if I ever truly realized where my food came from as a child. I knew how to garden very young and respected my grandparents for their accomplishments as farmers and cattle herders. But did I really respect it? No, I think not. Not the way that I do now, not the way I want my children to understand the system either.

When Kalani had a seizure Saturday night, our hearts dropped and we panicked for who to call. A lovely woman from my church stepped right up the moment I called for help. It was 9:45 at night, I didn't want to haul all our children to the hospital to stay in a tiny cramped space while we waited to figure out what to do next. It would have been more stressful than needed and I'm so blessed to have a community of support in my life. Though I admit, that experience quickly made me realize I didn't have too many close to me that I felt I could call at 10 pm for help. My mom no longer drives and my brother was at work until 11. But he called me the moment he got my message and came to watch our kids until we finally made it home by 2 am. This lovely loaf of bread and a dozen fresh eggs made their way to the lady from church yesterday. Even though my baby is still very sick and never out of my arms, something stirred in me to thank them with what I had. I cannot offer them some elaborate anything, but the fresh loaf out of the oven and eggs that were fresh from that day were offered with love and light and true thanksgiving. I hope they know how much I appreciate their help during our panicked rush to get to the ER.

In true Idaho fashion, last week we all enjoyed spring-like weather. This week, snow and freezing temps. My poor goats! My poor chickens. My poor KIDS! I think we're all feeling a bit like caged animals but luckily they loaded themselves up yesterday with coats and boots and went out to play for an hour or two while I held a sleeping sick little one.

I am longing for spring but while it's not here yet, I'll sit here and rock this little one and knit a baby gift. I'll read books to children for hours and bake bread, make a pot of beans and sip coffee while I wait to go outside. I have a laundry list of things to accomplish this week about a mile long that doesn't seem to be getting shorter, but for now, I'll sit and rock and pray and hope this tiny soul gets better soon.

Homestead On: Goats

Yep, we're goat owners. The beginning of January brought us a lovely opportunity to grow our homestead by adding goats. This wonderful addition is not without a lot of prayer and accepting that goat ownership is serious work. I'll be the first to admit, unless you've been there, it looks fun but it's work! I am in awe of the wonderful men and women I know that do what they can to support themselves. These lovely goats are the first "big animals" I feel we have owned. I'm learning all sorts of things like how to vaccinate my own herd, how to tattoo a tail, how to trim hooves, filter milk and cool it quickly, the list seems endless right now. But truly, I love our goats.

Please enjoy a laugh on our behalf. It's been a wild month! 

This photo was taken on the night we brought Thelma (darker on the left) and Mama (pregnant) home. We knew it was right for us but we had nothing ready! Holy crap. So, our goats lived in the back of the trailer for a few days while we set up their pen and built them a great goat shack! They of course had food, water and we covered our trailer so they were warm and in a pen that is 6x12. Not tiny or cramped. But during this time, we went without water ourselves as it was below zero and our well froze. We would have loved to dedicate nothing but time to them but we needed water for US first. Living without a working toilet was no fun. Not to mention, building a pen and a goat shack in zero degree weather was not on my agenda when I went to "visit" them. I am so sincerely thankful for my husbands dedication to brave the freezing temps to get them a proper shelter and pen. I'm thankful for the missionaries who came to help him pound T posts in the frozen ground to secure the dog panels we had sitting around. It was a CRAZY week jumping into goat ownership!!

Damon built our goat shack completely for FREE! Woohoo!! The materials came from various projects and places, but it was really great to turn this would be garbage into 'waste not want not'. Our goats LOVE it. They jump on and off it all day and it provides multiple shelters for them.

Thelma is a little stand offish. She is wary of people being around her too much but we'll get her to come around. Time is on our side. She is about 10 months old right now, still a baby.

Mama is the opposite. She is the LOVE ON ME goat. She loves all people. She loves to be pet and loved on. She will follow the kids around and rub up against them to get their attention. She is really lovely.

So... You'll notice, in the above photos, Mama is quite large. She was carrying triplets, as I suspected. Now, when we got our goats, we were given an estimated due date of March.... Imagine my surprise when Feb 2nd I come out and see Mama much smaller and hear babies yelling for her to come back to them! I quickly yelled at the kids to go get Damon, I scooped up the two babies that were out in the snow and assessed that one of the triplets didn't make it. With no time to ponder that, Damon and I quickly wrapped up these tiny babies and brought them inside to warm them up. I was a bit panicked to say the least. I had all this stuff I was going to do... I had time right? I was going to build a birthing pen, be there for the kidding to help if needed, blah blah blah............ Nothing went as planned. Luckily Mama has done this before and after calling two friends for help, running around like an IDIOT, trying to figure out how to get Mama to deliver a placenta, tried bottle feeding baby goats... etc etc.... I mean seriously, after having four of my own babies, I didn't have bottles or a bottle warmer, nothing! So here I am, standing in Babys R Us, picking out a bottle warmer for my goats.... Yep.... Hysterical in hind sight.........  After all that, this city-raised woman decided to put the baby goats back in with their mama and stay the heck out of the way! But it's a good tale now. Laugh!

This was Mama and her buckling and doeling the night they arrived. Now, if only I had her intuition, I would have sat down and wondered at her good work instead of stressing out all night long and acting like an idiot. Oh the stories that become great memories... I got up every few hours to walk out in the 10 degree weather to stare at her. I'm amazed I made it, she clearly knew what she was doing and every time I peaked in she looked at me like "what do you want?".... Well, this city-raised-woman wants to stare. Like it's a zoo, but on my own property. And I want to help if something goes wrong, and I want to apologize it wasn't all perfectly set up for her, and and........ Seriously, lack of sleep must have brought me to apologizing to my goat at 4 am in the dark while she was asleep with her kids.

Of course, our children are absolutely smitten with the baby goats. They are tiny goats, weighing less than 2 lbs each at birth. Here's Aurora loving on Jensen - our buckling.

Jensen and Collette with our kids on Daunika's bed. They want to hold them all the time and bickered about who got to go first!

Collette and Jensen, a lovely addition to our herd indeed.

This week our tasks for our homestead will include extending our goat pen to be about the size of 1/6th of an acre. I also have great hopes for Damon to build me a milking stand and a hay feeder. We're supervising Thelma around the little ones now that they are a week old and getting around better and are super fast runners. She isn't thrilled with them, but is starting to understand that being a jerk to them results in being beating on by a protective Mama goat!

What an amazing addition, nothing like jumping in!