Shalali Infante and Pint-Size Farm, located in New Mexico, breeds miniature jerseys, Nigerian dwarf goats, and American Guinea Hogs shipping animals all over the U.S.

Last Tuesday morning, Carmy kidded with a very sweet little buckling (boy). He is a trouble maker, causing us to take too many breaks to hold and cuddle him. Carmy is coming along nicely in the milking department. She still needs me to hold her legs so she doesn’t kick or step in the bucket, but she does let down quite well.

Here is DS2 with little Pinto Bean (Pinto the Conquerer).

After milking, today was mostly spent in the kitchen.

I use a weed-eater to clear a path to run the electric fence when I move it every day to set up the new paddock for the cows.  This morning, again, the weed-eater died.  The cord broke off right where it comes out and I could not pull it out to put in a new one.  So, once again, the machete was my weed-eater.  ARGH!  We have tried several heads on the weed-eater and they all are very poor designs.  I guess I need a commercial head for it.  I’ll have to look into that.  A friend told me about using a cordless shrub-trimmer to cut a path for the fence.  I found one at Lowe’s, but I think it won’t be powerful enough.  I’ll try it in the morning, but I am dubious.  ARGH.

While I am messing with the fence, DS2 is cleaning the barnyard.  Even though we are doing the fence, we seem to take the same amount of time for morning chores.  There is much less mess with the cows out in the pasture and eating out in the pasture, so clean up is faster.

After milking Molly & Janie, bottling the milk, and cleaning up the milking detritus, I started cooking.  I got the bread rising for the rustic loaf I planned for my friends’ dinner.  While the bread was rising, I mixed up the muffin dough (added the rest of the ingredients to the soaked flour).  Once the muffins were in the oven, I got the bread in the oven.  As soon as the bread was in the oven, the muffins were ready to come out.  I mixed up the meatloaf with fresh herbs from my garden, salt, pepper, bread crumbs, carrots, celery, eggs, and cream.  I strained some chunky tomato sauce and covered the top of the loaf with that. After the bread came out of the oven, I sauted some yellow squash and zucchini (sliced thinly) in coconut oil with lemon thyme and parsley from the garden and garlic.  Somewhere in there I boiled the elbow macaroni and made a  white sauce with sauted garlic and cheese for the baked macaroni and cheese.  I mixed this with the cooked elbow macaroni and covered it with grated cheese and bread crumbs.  I put the sauted squash in a baking pan and topped with grated Parmesan.  After I cleaned the kitchen, I made the salad.  I loaded everything into the trunk and took it over to my friends’.

Their baby is so beautiful and sweet.  I got to hold her and snuggle her, and sniff her breath and her neck and her head, and most wonderful of all, I got to give her back to her mom when she started crying

I got home in time to milk late.  I got SHOCKED by the fence pretty badly.  I was not paying attention and leaned into the trunk line.  OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DH put the leftover lasagna in the oven and we ate dinner while watching a movie.

When the movie ended, I went out the move the chicken wagon and the chickens’ fence.  I got eaten up by mosquitoes.

Now it is time for bed.  Goodnight!

It has been so long since I posted. It’s been really busy. The highlights- Sally dried herself up about a month ago. About a month ago, I started training a friend’s cow, Molly, to milk, as she was a very skittish first time calver and pretty much tried to kill them when they milked her. She has been here with her calf and has been learning lots of good manners. With DS2’s help, she is turning into a great family milker. Janie was inseminated 2.5 weeks ago. We’ll know next Wednesday or so if she took. If not, I’m hoping to bring back the bull, but we will see.

The pasture is up and gorgeous! The cows are on it, being rotated daily. The goats are a little leery of the electric fence. The pigs are being let out during the day, after morning milking, but before afternoon milking as they have no manners while I’m milking- that whole liking milk so much and wanting to be in the bucket awaiting it’s arrival.

The portable chicken coop is done, and the chickens are 3-4 days behind the cows. It is working well. The only problem is it ended up being heavier than I thought and the front axle is bending. My dad and I are going to replace the front axle with a rear axle from an older Chevy Sprint. Hopefully very soon.

Today, I cleaned my desk off. It had 2 months’ worth of paper stacked up on it. I went through and shredded everything we didn’t need and filed everything we did need. I think there were about 10 pieces of filing and a whole garbage can of shredding.

My new goal is to keep the check book balanced daily. So, yes, I balanced the checkbook today! I’m also going to try to keep up with this journal more…so….hopefully you’ll see more posts here.

We had lasagna for dinner. I thawed some Marinara sauce I had made a month or so ago. I made homemade ricotta cheese from this afternoon’s milk and used purchased mozzarella, and the Tinkyada rice noodles. Very yummy with salad and garlic bread.

I started 2 batches of muffins for tomorrow and bread. A friend had a baby, and I’m taking a meal to them tomorrow. Meatloaf with beef and lamb, baked macaroni & cheese,  salad, sauted zucchini and yellow squash, and fresh bread along with blueberry muffins. We’ll be having leftover lasagna tomorrow.

Time for bed, goodnight.

I’ll update more after the day is over. Obviously I don’t have milk totals yet. DS2 and I reseeded the pasture and then let the ruminant animals out (not the pigs or chickens) to graze it down and hopefully mash the seeds into the field. We irrigate tomorrow again, and we’ll keep them off for another month, but then I think we’ll be able to start letting them rotate through it. I need to get the electric fence up and the chicken wagon coop built one way or another.

I may try to get in more garden fence posts today. This evening DH, DSs, & I are going to work on the berm of the pasture, so I probably won’t have time to work in the garden today. It seems the only bearable time to work in the garden is before noon or after 7:00 as it is so hot these days. We CLs are also supposed to move some chickens tonight. ARGH. I need a clone.

If as you read my catching up posts and wonder why this time my memory seems to be so much better than before, I have a secret.  I started keep a little notebook that I jot down the details of the day so when I go to post, I don’t have to scratch my head and wonder what I did this morning or a week ago.  It is really nice actually.

Sally gave 10.3 pounds (1.23 gallons but we only got 0.98 gallons), Janie gave 28.4 pounds (3.39 gallons, but we only got 2.71 gallons), we got 17 eggs, and Oreo gave her usual amount. We got less than we should have because DS2 tripped while stepping out of the barn with the milk tote. He fell very hard and spilled almost a gallon. I am glad he is okay, as he landed on his knee and had a hard time putting weight on it for a couple of minutes. He felt really bad about the milk, but I told him not to worry, we had more where that came from. I was just very relieved that he didn’t have a serious injury. The milk tote had a very big dent in it. We are not sure if he landed on it or what. But whatever the way it happened, it took a lot of force to dent that tote, so I know his knee took a lot of force too.

I churned the butter and put in the kombucha mushrooms. The clabber took up most of the bottom shelf of the fridge.

DS1 woke with the tail end of a migraine. Fortunately, he slept through most of it. He was able to go to class. He was interviewed by Channel 4 News about biking and bussing in Albuquerque. He also re-took the placement test and was able to test out of the class he was in and out of the next class, and was only 5 points away from testing into College Algebra. Then, he had to wait for a long time for his bus, so he decided to follow the bus route on his bike to get to his next stop. It worked, and he stopped off at the Library for a while and made it home. He was very proud of himself and I am glad I didn’t know of his adventures until they were over, or I would have been worried. I’m very proud of him too!

I put in 3 more fence posts. DS2 had to help with the last one, as the dirt was very HARD and/or it went through a tree root. I used a string to keep the lines of the fence straight so I would know where to put in the posts.

I ran the milk jar dishwasher twice, as I had so many jars from returns and from skimming the milk the day before.

I actually got to take a nap during the hottest part of the day. I remember when I could not ever sleep during the day. I am glad that I can now, as I have to get up at 5:45 every morning for the chicken tractor moving chore. Believe me, they know when it is feeding time.

After dinner, I got 24 tomatoes planted. I finished in the dark. We watered for about an hour last night. I need to get my garden fence up, as the ducks and goose like to eat garden plants. I think I’m okay for a couple of days.

Sally gave 10.9 pounds (1.31 gallons), Janie gave 29 pounds (3.48 gallons), we got 16 eggs, and Oreo gave her usual.

I made the Kombucha Tea and skimmed 9.5 gallons of milk. I washed and folded the kitchen laundry finally! The AI tech I had spoken with last week called to check on my progress with the vet and see how Janie was doing now. He really recommended getting that test done, and then vaccinating her before proceeding to breed again. The vaccines need a booster 3 weeks apart, so I should not breed her on this next cycle and just breed her the time after that to give me time enough to get all of this done. I need to find a lab I can send the sample to for the Lepto-Harjo test.

The load of dirt I had ordered almost 2 weeks ago finally arrived.

For lunch we had the rest of our Chinese food. There were a few chiles that didn’t get eaten so they went into the piggies scrap bucket. After they had eaten all their food, while I was milking Sally, they started whimpering at me. They kept drinking water and just whimpering. I figured they ate the chile and it was burning them. I called DS2 and asked him to bring them some milk. They lapped it up and appeared to feel better. Poor babies!

After dinner DH used some of the dirt to fix one of the berms for irrigating. The CLs came over to help me finish digging my garden bed. Yippee! We also cleaned the rest of the grub buckets as we were planning to use them to collect manure in to give to the meat birds to scratch through after it has been sitting around for 3 days collecting fly eggs. It is working great, but the buckets are too cumbersome, so we are just using a big container and a pitch fork. This is also really fertilizing the areas they are on along with their manure. They are growing much faster now that they are getting the meat scraps.

We didn’t take the girls across the street today, as the pasture is done for. We need to get the fence all picked up and cleared away now. It has been so hot that we want to do it in the evening, but I’ve been working in the garden in the evenings. I’ll have to set aside some time for that soon!

Sally gave 11.7 pounds (1.4 gallons), Janie gave 29.5 pounds (3.57 gallons), we got 12 eggs and Oreo gave her usual.

I took Janie to have her hooves trimmed after milking. Right before I left, NCL’s DH came over to get measurements and ideas for giving me an estimate on making the chicken coop on the wagon and a feeder I designed, but don’t seem to have time to do anything about. Janie’s hooves look wonderful. She looks like she is wearing ballet slippers. If only he had given her a coat of pink polish, she would have been perfect ;wink;

DS2 & I washed the kombucha bottles and then bottled it. I had made extra in case NCL helped me again, and I would have enough to share with her, but…she didn’t so I got DS2 to help.

We went to P. F. Chang’s for dinner for our anniversary. It was a nice dinner. We all got something we could share. When we got home, we got the girls from across the street. OCL was here for the chicks and she took her share of the plants.

Sally gave 9.4 pounds (1.09 gallons), Janie gave 29.2 pounds (3.39 gallons), we got 9 eggs, and Oreo gave her usual.

OCL & I went to Keller’s for meat scraps for the birds. We decided to be picky and choose only meaty scraps and feed this directly to birds, instead of using the grub buckets. There was too much fat, and it clogged up the holes in the bottom of the buckets with greasy leaves.

I cleaned out the chicken coop and brought that to my garden area to use for composting the horse meat. It took 3 large wheelbarrow loads to empty the coop. I then laid down a layer of straw in the coop. I was able to put in 2 fence posts in the garden. Geeze it was difficult. I ended up with 2 blisters on my left hand, one broke open and the other stayed intact.

When OCL came to take care of the chickies, we composted the horse meat. It turned into a very nice compost pile. We used leaves and dry grass clippings for the carbon. We also separated out the meat for the meat birds into daily bundles so that it will be easier to thaw and feed to them daily.

With my help, the boys gave DH some peanut patties and a card for Father’s Day. A few days earlier (when they were helping with the pump and sprinklers) I gave my dad and my mom bee veils for Father’s Day and late Mother’s Day.

Sally gave 11.1 pounds (1.33 gallons), Janie gave 29.7 pounds (3.55 gallons), we got 9 eggs, and Oreo gave her usual.

OCL came to help with chicken tractor chore at 6:30 AM, as NCL is out of town for Father’s Day. I made a strawberry cheese cake with strawberry glaze for DS1’s party. I reduced the pureed strawberries all day long for the glaze. I cleaned up the kitchen. DH & I went to Keller’s for meat for the BBQ for the party. I made beans, baked Mac & Cheese, and my mom brought salad. We had chips, dip, brauts, sausage, hot dogs, & hamburgers. It was a nice party, only a couple of his friends, his god parents, my parents, and the parents of one of his friends. They had a bonfire and roasted marshmallows and made S’mores. I went to bed after midnight!

Sally gave 11.5 pounds (1.38 gallons), Janie gave 31.4 pounds (3.77 gallons), we got 11 eggs and Oreo gave her usual.

I woke up with heart pounding, realizing I forgot to get the girls from across the street. They did not seem too worse for wear. In the morning during chicken chores, NCL & I moved 10 birds from the tractor at my house to the 2 at hers, 4 into one and 6 into the other. I also decided to open up the chicks to going outside in the brooder.

We unloaded the hay, after which I got a massage. She discovered that the pain in my hip is caused by a spasm of the ileopsoas muscle group and it is pinching my sciatic nerve! That is why the pain is a little different. It is still pretty painful.

My new phone arrived. It has a slide out keyboard. My old one was dying and I think had too much hay in the circuit board.

I made an appointment for Monday to trim Janie’s hooves.

I had the boys take the girls across the street for me. My sister’s DH had a heart-attack today. We went to the hospital to see him. He looked really good. They were able to immediately put in a stent and clear the blockage. He only had one area in all of his arteries that was clogged; all the rest looked really good with little to no plaque. AFter the hospital we went out for burgers and got party supplies for DS1’s 16th birthday party a couple of weeks late.