Saturday Morning

No setting up at the Hamilton market for me today.  I might go over there to see if the Sauquoit blueberries have arrived, and buy more cheese from Jake's Farm.   Sometimes I need a day to fall back and regroup.  My farm needs me today.   Everywhere needs shoveling or tidying.  Spouse is not good.  He went to Tractor Supply and got a haircut yesterday, then met me at Remember When for dinner after school.  That much activity set his foot to swelling and oozing again.   Back on the sofa.  I have to figure out what to do with this lower field of thistles.  I'm about to call my farm "Thistledom."  If only the spoiled rotten goats would eat them.  I see them nibbling at them so I know they can, but there is so much other clover and soft, lovely grasses for them to eat they are fussy.  I took the doggies up to the pond for a dip, then back down for some fresh farmy eggs with melted jalapeno cheese.    I've been busy getting this year's fleeces picked, washed, dyed and dried.  This glorious sunshine is helping enormously.  I'll have plenty of Mother Fiber for fall shows.  Baby duck is still with us after a scare last night when it fell out of the hay mow into a pile of goats, milling around outside of the milk room door where the grain is kept.  I chased the goats away and picked him up, crippled and scared.  Mama pecked at me when I climbed the ladder to give it back to her.  I feared it would die in the night, but this morning found it courageously following Mama through the thick wet grass.  Still have rats in the chicken room.  Found a cozy nest of big rats all entwined under the feed bucket when I was doing chores late last night.  I ran for a kitty but they disappeared under the dirt floor.  I don't do traps or poison as other critters can get into them. Have to have a talk with the Kitty Cadre and tell them to get crackin' on the rats.