Farm and Family Update

So, our goats should have delivered by now, but since I have no cute pictures peppering this post, they obviously haven't.  We're STILL waiting for babies.  Tomorrow, Tianna will be 5 days late (approximately equivalent to 2 weeks late for human babies), so we'll definitely have babies by then.  Twizzler is due today, and has been having contractions off and on all weekend.  She technically has until Saturday, but today would be much better for my schedule - ha!

But in other updates, the pigs are doing well in their dry pond home.  We are in desperate need of rain but otherwise they're doing well.  There is several chances for rain this week, we are praying hard for some moisture!

And in more news, the garden is fully planted.  Everything is in except for winter squash, and that won't be planted until May.  Now the trick is to keep it all alive!  In about 4 weeks, I'll be planting an undercrop, basically a cover crop that grows while the main crop is still growing.  It's weed suppression and also giving the crop a lot of head start before the fall when we actually need a good cover crop.  The cover crop will grow all winter, the goats will eat some of the foliage down, then the pigs will eat the rest of the foliage and the roots and till the ground, and the chickens will come in and eat the bugs, weed seeds, and smooth the dirt.  Gas-free farming :)  Brushhog, tiller, rake, pesticide and pre-emergent.  And fertilizer.  Doesn't get much better than that!

On a more serious note, we are excited to see how the livestock rotation can add to the overall sustainability of the farm.  Our goal is to produce as much as we can on-farm and to have as little waste as possible.  If this works as we are hoping it will, it will make expansion much easier and more profitable in the future.  We are finding creative ways to use the land we have, and saying that we have 4 animal species herds and a large garden on a 5-acre farm is pretty incredible.

So that's the farm update.  Onto the family.  R is 6 weeks away from graduating from Kindergarten.  We are both very excited.  She got part of her curriculum for 1st grade in the mail, and I keep having to pry her away from all those new books we get to dive into!
Braden is about the same.  The rash gets better, then worse.  The lifestyle changes aren't doing enough, so we are on a stronger antibiotic now and as usual, it got better, but then it gets worse.  So we're not really sure where this leaves us.  We're trying to wait it out a little and be patient, but it's hard after 3 months of fighting.  His bloodwork came back normal, as did a culture of the blisters.  Which leaves more questions than answers.  But, we're still praying for miraculous healing and no matter what, he is in the hands of the Almighty Physician who will take care of him even when we can't.

So that's the update.  I'll post pictures of the baby goats when they finally arrive!