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Day three of hauling hay. I’m getting 90 bales at a time. Loading AND unloading them all by myself. I’m getting some serious strength training in. Lost a few pounds, too. My jeans are getting rather loose. When I’m all done, I’ll have 810 bales of hay, 30 tons worth. That’s a lot! It should last clear till next years’ hay season. I won’t have to buy hay in April anymore.
It’s been hot and dry for a few days now. Everything is drying up pretty fast. I’m watering things every day, and barely keeping up with it.
We have a young buck deer that has moved in here. He sleeps down by the trailer, in fact he has a bed under the plow that is leaning up against the tree down at the bottom of our driveway. He also has a bed underneath the plywood walls we have leaning up against another tree. He’s got little stubs for antlers coming in. One side is smaller than the other, I’m thinking he might have a bit of a deformity there. I’ll have to keep an eye on it as the antlers grow out.
I am enjoying eating the strawberries that are ripening in the garden. One thing about living at this elevation, our food ripens about 3 weeks behind the valley. So we are eating fresh berries when down in the valley, it’s all over for this year. The weeds are almost winning in the garden. I’m keeping them just barely under control in some of the beds, others are just full of weeds. But, I can’t keep up with everything by myself, so I do what I can. The peas should be ready to start harvesting any day now. I can hardly wait. They are one of my favorite vegetables. Creamed peas and new potatoes are one of my favorite dishes.
Well, I’d better go out and unload the hay. I’m going to get a break for a few days now, till someone comes along and buys the hay that is in front of my hay at the place where I’m getting it from. There is one load left, and then I wait till the second cutting to get the rest of it. So that will work out good. Then I can get other things done, too.
More as it happens…..

Everything is going pretty good now. I got the dairy barn all cleaned out again today. I think I’m going to change the floor plan in there. Good thing everything is temporary in there. I knew I’d be changing things around this summer after seeing where the goats did what in there all winter. I’m also changing the fence around the outside of the barn, too.
I went with the neighbor to look at mini horses on Sunday. She’s going to get one for a companion for her other little mini. They are cute, but pretty worthless, unless you just like to look at them. I’ve thought about getting one to clean up the goat hay that gets wasted, but I’m not sure I want another critter to take care of. I have enough to do as it is.
Monday I start hauling hay. 30 tons, 810 bales all together. I’ll have help loading it, but I’ll be unloading it by myself. I’ll take my time and I should be fine. I’ll do one load a day, which is 90 bales. I should be able to handle that, I hope. I have to, there isn’t anyone else to do it.
The goats are loving it being able to roam the whole place now. It is so nice having a good fence up! Nellie isn’t having to work as hard, either. There aren’t any predators coming over or through the fence that she has to chase out. The deer have decided that this is a safe place now. There are two bucks, and a couple of does that call this home.
Monday we had a record setting rainfall of 1.35″ here. Now everything is nice and wet, at least for a few days. I’m glad it rained. I was getting behind on watering everything. One sprinkler isn’t going to cut it. John has planted too many things that need watering. He’s going to have to set up an alternative method of watering. Rain gutters on all the roofs would be good. We’d have thousands of gallons of water if they all had collection systems attached to them. If that had been set up with this last rain, that probably would have provided enough water for the rest of the summer. Another project on the to-do list.
Well, it’s time to put all the critters to bed. More as it happens….

Well, not everything is going smoothly around here. Last week was not good. Thursday when I was watering the gardens, the water pressure went way down and the water turned milky white. I quickly turned everything off and didn’t use the hose the rest of the day. That night I watered with one sprinkler and all was fine. Not sure what happened there, but everything is working now.
Friday morning I had to put down my favorite young and up-coming buck, Simon. He had a massive seizure that he wasn’t coming out of, so I had to get the 22 and shoot him. John is the one that usually does that sort of thing. (I’ve only ever had 2 goats that I had to have put down). But, he’s not here right now, so I had to do it myself. It took about 20 minutes for me to talk myself into doing it, then I got the job done. Not easy, but Simon was suffering, so it had to be done. Now I just have Angus and Rusty, the two adult bucks. I do have two kids from this year that are looking pretty good that are still bucklings, so they should work out fine.
I now am going to have my own label for the goat meat. When I took two goats in yesterday to be processed, we talked about getting my own label made since I can sell it at the Farmers’ Market now. It will say ” Pine Needle Farm All Natural Montana Chevon”. I have eight more goats to get processed, or sold, before too much longer. I need to get down to 50 goats by this fall.
The baby turkeys are growing nicely. There are still a dozen of them. There is a hen sitting on a nest again, so one of these days there might be some more babies. A chicken is sitting on a nest, too. Actually there are three chickens sitting, so who knows how many chicks there will be. There is one right now. It’s a cute little thing. Hopefully there will be quite a few more, so we have some for the freezer this fall.
I’ve started cleaning out the main goat pen now. It’s dry enough now to pick it up and it doesn’t weigh a huge amount. It’s still heavy and hard work, but it’s managable now. Seventeen loads so far, and a lot more to go. There will be a huge compost pile when it’s all done!
Well, that’s all for now……

Last night I had a fun time. I went to a “house” concert at a friend’s house. It was really nice! The musicians were excellent, the food was great, and the atmosphere was relaxed. A good time was had by all. Good job Jane!!
Now it’s time to really get things done around here. Tonight I am mowing the yard, tomorrow I make soap, and start cleaning out the goat pens. The garden needs weeding quite badly, too. Then I have to load up things and get ready for the farmers’ market Saturday morning.
There is a new farmers’ market starting in downtown Kalispell tonight. I would have joined, but it is at the wrong time of the day. From 5 to 7:30 pm. Right in the middle of chores. I’d have to leave at 3, and I wouldn’t get home till around 9. That would be either too early or too late to do the chores. Sometimes I wish I had a helper around here. Someday………
The weather has been really nice the last few days. Good haying weather. I hope the hay I’m getting is all baled and stacked by now. I noticed there were fields of hay cut last night on my way to the concert. Hopefully it will all get baled and picked up before we get any rain.
It sure is nice having the place fenced. It’s nice to be able to turn the goats out and they come back in fat and happy, without me having to worry about where they are all the time. I think the bear is still over on the neighbors’ place. Nellie keeps running that fenceline at night barking.
Well, that’s it for now.

We have the whole place fenced in now. It is so nice to be able to turn the goats out and not worry about if they are staying around here or not. They are fat and happy now!
The farmers’ market was a bit slow today, but I saw and visited with people I know and friends, so it wasn’t too bad. The weather was nice, so there weren’t too many people there compared to other weeks. There was a 3 car fender bender at the stop light. An older woman ran the red light, got hit by a younger woman who had borrowed her friend’s car without telling her, and then had a wreck with it, which pushed the older woman’s car into a pick-up. I don’t think the pick-up got damaged at all, but the older woman’s car was dented pretty good on the front panel. Nobody was hurt, just shook up. Kind of ruined those people’s day. Especially the girl who borrowed her friend’s car! Whoops!
I got a lot of spinning done, which was good. It seems that is the only time I have to spin any more is at the market.
Well, that’s it for now….

Now that I’ve had to change my blog spot, I’m a bit lost on how to do things. But, I guess I’ll figure it out, eventually. Nothing ever stays the same.
So, we’ll see how this works….