Hay There

Kim and Crew arrived late Friday night, too late to sit out by the fire but that's okay.  We made up for it the next night.  Saturday morning we all went to the market and were met by the lovely Mia.   We had a bit of rain but still had some traffic.  The kids were great, pairing off Hannah/Jared and Lindsay/Luke to go around the market to check out the craft and food scene.  Home again to go swimming in the POND, which is as mystical and magical as ever.  I didn't want to get out, but we had a barbecue planned so we said goodbye to the bull frogs and ventured back down the hill.  We played badminton after eating, then sat on the hillside to watch a surprise fireworks display put on by some neighbors down the road.  Everyone pitched in to do chores.  Many hands make for light work.   After French toast this morning Mia headed back to NJ then Kim and Darryl helped us give the goat kids and nannies their shots, worming and hoof trimming.   Zack, John-John and Billy Goat are now separated from the flock and will live in the back pen.  I think this year we may have removed the males on time.  No mating behavior detected yet.  Lilly was bred in July last year.  Fingers crossed nothing has happened.   True to her word Julia Burger and her son, Matt, got my upper fields mowed.  We walked up there tonight looking over the thick rows of first cut hay and imagining all the round bales we'll get for winter feeding.  Julia says we'll get a second cut and I believe her. Very happy about that.  I'm hoping to get my back field fenced off to keep the sheep and goats there while the second cut grows in up the hill.  There is lots to each back there, with short scrubby trees that goats LOVE to eat.  They can get shade in the big hawthorn grove and drink water from the concrete cistern the Kupris family put in years ago.  That field is impossible to hay as the dips and gulleys would wreak havoc with a tractor.    I'm a little tired tonight.  Hannah and Luke are watching America's Got Talent and I'm getting a kick out of their laughing and giggling over the acts.  I'm going to sew a bit and hit the hay myself, dreaming of all that hay.  It's a farm thing...