4 years...

Today, about 4:30pm, marks 4 years of wedded bliss. And it only gets better. Marriage to the greatest man on the planet is a wonderful thing. I love you, Randy!

To celebrate... well, we may make gingerale this evening... if we have time after the bare essentials are done. On Friday we'll prep for Slaughterfest XI and on Saturday we'll laugh gleefully as we axe the head off the rooster that's been crowing at 4am for months now. Along with about 20 meat birds who are just beginning to cackle, but usually wait until 6 or so to begin. Some, hopefully fertilized, chicken eggs are sitting in the incubator now with our 3 muscovy duck eggs. We should have some hatch on or around August 9th. I hope we get something from keeping that rooster all this time!

We've gone through an entire trailer load of compost and still no wood chips. I'm going to call other tree guys today to see if someone's got something we can have. My tomatoes are getting big. Charleston Belle green peppers only had a 10% germination rate while the Sweet Chocolate peppers had 100%. Go figure. Got 100% on some Blacktail Mountain watermelon, but zilch up on Sugarlee watermelon. Cukes, collard greens and beans are all up. I'd say I can hold them back maybe another 10 days before I'll need to get them in the ground. Come on, Pappy (my tree guy), don't fail me now!

Chuck is getting to be quite the handful. He almost escaped the pasture yesterday. I'm glad I was out there and watched his beginning attempts so I could at least make it more difficult. We were hoping to wait until September to slaughter him... do it when Randy's home anyway with Nathan's birth, but we just may need to take a Saturday and do him in early.

We've also decided to dry Annabelle off when Nathan's born. She's giving very little milk and it tastes awful. VERY goaty. Noel and Fudge still give great tasting milk though the quantity has waned some. Annabelle is loosing her hair too. She's just looking very old. We're going to try to trade her for a buck to begin our breeding cycle. To get the doe's kidding spaced as we want, we'll need to keep a buck on hand for 6 months. So... since most people only have goats for pets anyway, we figure Annabelle could have a very nice retirement where they'll enjoy her cuddliness and not try to make her work for her supper as we do.

Our okra is really producing. We eat it several times a week... as there's nothing else green out there to eat right now! We read that luffa leaves could be cooked and eaten like spinach... tried it. Yuck! Cowpeas are doing great... and I'm VERY glad to have a little girl who loves to shell them. We have 3 different varieties going right now: purple hull pink eyes, California black eyes and Mississippi Silvers. The purple hulls went in first so that's what we're getting in abundance right now making it hard to tell which is more prolific. All taste fine. Mississippi Silvers are supposed to be the best, but honestly, I really like having the purple hulls to make harvesting easier. I've passed right over a LOT of silvers and californias just because the pale yellow that they fade to doesn't stand out the way the dark purple almost black does.

And some VERY good news... Randy spotted a HUGE black snake on the shady side of the house a few days ago. Its quite relieving to hear that after a neighbor thought they saw a pygmy rattler. We inadvertantly killed our black snake with the electric fence over a year ago so its comforting to know another has made the Palace home. For those of you who don't understand the glee... black snakes are very territorial and will eat invading rattlesnakes. :->

And again, happy anniversary to the world's greatest superhero, Husband Man! (Also known as Superbabinator Man to his younger superhero fans)