goat dairy

My mom came to visit last weekend and we took a little day trip (well, afternoon trip) to a goat dairy in a town a little over an hour away from our town.  Ryan and I have passed by it several times on our travels and we finally got the chance to stop by. 

 



The goats were hilarious.  They followed us all around (one even joined us in the store).  It took the kids (ours...not the baby goats) a little while to warm up to them being so close. 

 We took the milking tour, which was a lot of fun.  We got to see all the animals, play with the kids, go into their cheese cave and milk some goats. 

 After that we visited their cute little county store and stocked up on some goat yogurts and cheeses. There was plenty to sample and we all left with a few goodies to enjoy on our dinner-picnic.

We will definitely be visiting again.  Until we get our own goats and learn how to make our own tasty treats.  Maybe someday :)

In other news, Emma is officially potty trained.  This trip was one of our first longer drives without diapers and she did great.  We had to stop three times because she "had to go!" All false alarms.  But I'll take that over having accidents.  Sleeping through the night has been no problem.  So, a big farewell to the diapers and a way to go, Emma girl!

super mason

Mason got the coolest (handmade) super hero cape from his Aunt Caroline for his birthday.  Just the other day it was a little breezy outside and he brought it to me saying..."Mom, if I put this on and we go outside in the wind, do you think I can fly??"  

 

Yes, buddy.  You can fly! :)

beets and peas

Just a little peek at what's been coming out of our greenhouse.  Mason and Emma love to pick the peas.  Mason usually picks them off the vine and Emma is our resident pea-sheller, even though more make it into her mouth than the bowl.  The peas are going straight into the freezer.  

 

This was our first harvest of beets.  We've been enjoying the greens in our salads too. 

 We used some of them for beet rolls from a book I had gotten from the library.  Total fail.  The chickens enjoyed them. 

 We used some more in quinoa beet pancakes, which were really good.  Ryan and I liked them better than the kids, but they did eat a few each. 

The rest of the beets we just roasted with balsamic vinegar and had with dinner a couple nights.  The kids love them this way.  As Mason would say, "We are just chowing down on these!"

We're ready to pick the rest of them in the greenhouse.  We're probably going to pickle them and can them.  We planted a ton of beets in our garden and they are just now sprouting.  They took longer than everything else.  We're crossing our fingers that we don't have an early frost. 

In other greenhouse news: the tomato plants are flowering, we have more salad greens than we know what to do with, and the basil is calling out to be made into a couple batches of pesto. 

pickin' wildflowers

We have plenty of wildflowers here around our house,  and their new favorite thing to do is pick a big handful of them.  

 

 We often have a jar of them sitting on the kitchen table.  We are learning all the different names of the different kinds.  They are also starting to recognize them in other places too.  We just spent a couple days camping down by our bunkhouse and they walked all over looking for different kinds of flowers. 

If I need five more minutes to finish dinner or fold the laundry I send them out and they return all smiles with their hands full of these simple flowers. It really doesn't get much better.