Hello old friend!

Can it be?



I think it is!

Spring has sprung!

After what has seemed like one of the longest winters since our family moved to WV almost 20 years ago, it's finally behind us. I do feel wary saying that too loud as it may be tempting the fates to give us one final round of the winter, but the calendar and the weather outside are both in agreement that it is officially spring. I even saw my first robins for the year this week.

Today was absolutely gorgeous, and we took advantage of it with a little playtime outside.

Wordless Wednesday #14

You don't want to miss this. Seriously...

Wow! Bet you can't guess what today is--

It's my first year anniversary of starting my blog. It feels a bit like cheating since I'm just getting back from my extended Summer break, but one year ago today, I published my first blog post. It was a beautiful fall day and I'd taken the kids to the park in town to take advantage of the day. Unfortunately, looks like the weather isn't going to cooperate for a repeat of that since the high here is supposed to be 52 F.

I always marvel at how fast children grow. It's hard to believe how they change in a year. Just look at that round little face on Holly! I had her in the front packer still. And Ivy has changed so much in the last year. She's nearly as tall as me now. It's like it just happened overnight because in a very short time period it seems everyone has commented on it. Not just people who haven't seen her in a while, but family friends who see her at least weekly if not more. Finn seems the least changed of the three. Of course he's grown, too and is a source of endless entertainment with the things he says. Holly keeps right up with Finn. I know that if he is doing something, she will be right behind him--good or bad. Grandma found this out the other day when they were visiting. She had given them cookies and later Finn had more cookies. She questioned how he had gotten them, and he admitted to dragging a chair to the counter. Sure enough, next thing you know, Holly is climbing up onto the chair as well. Obviously, she is not quite as coordinated at the stunts as he is, but she isn't about to let anything that trivial slow her down.

Here's some pictures of Finn from today when he walked with me up to feed the pigs. He has that watermelon candle in his treehouse, and I wanted a picture of him "eating" it, but instead I got a shot of him spitting seeds. Pretty cute, I thought. I was hoping for pictures of the other two also, but Holly was asleep when I got back to the house and Ivy wasn't interested.

And here's our piggies, finally. I have to say they aren't my favorite animal on the farm. They are so big and act starved to death every time you feed them. We put them way up the hill since so many people said things about how bad they would smell. So they see you coming with food from way off and start squealing (screaming, really) their heads off. They pulled the trough off the side of their little barn and have rooted the dirt over in front of the gate so much now that I can't even get in the pen. We were hoping to get them taken care of next week, but nobody told me that you have to schedule time with your butcher months in advance! Seriously--they are booked through January 7th as of yesterday. Wow--I really don't want another two months of slogging food up the hill. Plus we only planned to have them through the warmer months, so don't have a plan in place for dealing with frozen water. My dad found out a few more names of butchering shops yesterday, so I'm going to give those a try.

Now if you've hung around to get to the end of the post, I have a little something for you to watch for. After Holly went to bed last night, I went to the sewing room hoping to get together a little gift to celebrate my one year blogiversary. I had hoped to whip it together last night and get pictures, but let's say it proved to be a little more involved that I thought, and Holly wound up waking up around eleven, and I needed to get her settled back down. You know how it goes. So it didn't get finished last night. I'm hoping I will be able to get to it sometime today. So there could be pictures later today. I won't give anything away right now, but I like the way it's turning out, and I hope you will too! So just comment on this post, and I'll randomly pick from all the comments. I tried to think of something interesting to comment about, but I'm going to leave that totally up to you. Tell me what you're looking forward to this weekend. Tell me something that made you happy this week. Tell me about something you are making or have made recently. Just say "hi" and let me know you were here. Not too difficult-just make sure I can contact you from your comment or profile or something. I have a feeling not too many people are hanging around anymore, but I could be totally wrong. That ought to make your chances at winning that much better, though. But if you're inclined to send your friends here, please do. I'll let you have another entry if you feel like blogging about this and sending a few folks this way. In fact, if someone mentions that they came via your blog, I'll include an extra entry for you and for that person so be sure to mention that to your readers if you are inclined to blog about it. And I'll throw in extra entries for my blog followers. Just leave an extra comment for each way you enter.

So let's just tally up the ways you can get entries:

1. Obligatory comment
2. Blog about this giveaway
3. Mention or be mentioned the blog post that sent you here
4. Be a follower of Petalz and Finz

I think the extra entries are probably serious overkill given the amount of actual entrants that I expect will participate, but I happen to love a few extra entries myself on giveaways, and I figured you might as well. Woohoo! It's my first giveaway. Too bad I can't show you what it is yet, but keep your eyes peeled. I think I will close entries a week from today. So that's next Thursday, but I'm actually going to call it at midnight EST Wednesday, November 11th, so I can announce the winner next Thursday. Updated 11/10: Since I've just gotten to posting pictures of the prize, I'm going to extend the time for entries by a couple more days. So the new end date will be this Saturday, Nov. 14. Thanks for playing and reading!

Playtime at the Park

Over the weekend, we took a little drive to a goat show. Although the camera was tucked in my pocket the whole time, I completely forgot to take it out and get any goat pictures. So I didn't get any shots of the goats with amazing udders! I think I was so busy ogling the size of their udders that I just got distracted, actually. I knew Bella wasn't milking anything to brag about at around 3 cups a day, but I didn't fully appreciate how lacking she was until I saw these girls with udders so full I'm not sure how they walked without dislocating their hips! So now I know what a real dairy goat looks like. Can't wait for Betty Bob and Bambi to kid this month so I can see how they measure up. This being their first freshening, they won't be at full production potential yet, but I am definitely expecting better things out of them than I'm getting from Bella currently.

I did remember to pull the camera out a little later when we stopped at Cedar Creek State park for lunch and play.

Finn didn't want to leave the goat show and cried when we put him back into the car. But after we picked up lunch and told him we were going to a park, he perked back up. He chattered excitedly almost nonstop until we got to the park, which we took as a sign that he was looking forward to it.

Getting Holly to look at the camera proved to be almost impossible, and when she finally looked at me, Ivy was looking somewhere else.

Holly and Finn both had fun sliding with Paul, but neither really got the concept of taking turns.

The swings were another favorite. Finn had to make several visits to them.

We had a tiny visitor join us for lunch. After trying to get a decent shot of him, he hopped onto my arm and seemed content to climb around on my sleeve.

The New Kids on the Block

Look what followed me home!

I think I may have mentioned that we were looking for a milk goat. So we found one this week, but she had her two little babies still with her. So we had to bring all three home. (Aww, shucks…I have to put up with all this cuteness.) The babies are both little bucks, so we won’t be keeping them for too long. (Anybody looking for a Nubian buck?) But they are so adorable right now! I wasn’t prepared for how little they would be. They are only a couple days old, compared to our girls who were two months old when we got them. They fit perfectly right in your arms for little sweet goaty cuddles.

Paul is going to build a milk stand this afternoon for me, and we have to modify the goat barn a little to make a pen to keep the kids in so that they will leave the milk alone for the night, and we can milk her out first thing in the morning, then let the babies go with her for the day. So tomorrow I may be taking my first shot at milking a goat! That should be interesting as I have never milked anything before. But I’ve read all the books and more than one author says that is how they started with just written instructions. My inner dairy maid is telling me I can do this!

And here’s Mama, of course. She’s really the reason we bought them, but it’s hard to resist the baby cuteness. She’s three years old and this is her second time having kids. She’s a purebed Nubian. (As is Bambi. Betty Bob is a La Mancha.) The babies look just like their mama. It’s actually really hard to tell them apart, but we’ve found a couple slight differences. We’re working on her name. We thought another “B” name to go with Betty Bob and Bambi. Beulah, Bess, Bella, I dunno--we’re working on it. We haven’t made it to baby names yet, either. I thought maybe something like Heckle and Jeckle or Tom and Jerry.


She’s a bit nervous around us, but lets us pet her while she is eating. We’re working on winning her over with little bribes like animal crackers. Ivy thoughtfully picked out all the goat shaped ones because she didn’t think it was appropriate for the goats to be eating them. Although she hasn’t been hand milked before, she will stand still and let you handle her teats while she is eating which is more than our spoiled girls will do. Betty Bob, especially, will just dance all over the place if you try to handle her while she is eating. Here’s what happens when goats get used to you:
That’s my well-behaved girlies trying to eat my delicious pants. It’s also much harder to get pictures of them when they rush you when you step into their yard. I did have several opportunities for extreme close-ups of Betty Bob when I tried to kneel down and take pictures of the babies and she thought I wanted her to eat the camera!

Of course, we are hoping for kids from Bambi and Betty Bob in the summer, but now we won’t have to wait for milk. We go through ridiculous amounts of milk here, and it will be nice if we can avoid having to go to the store nearly every day for milk. We can easily use almost a gallon of milk a day here, and Holly isn’t even drinking it yet! Goat milk is supposed to be easier to digest than cow milk, plus we know that it won’t have any extras in it like hormones or antibiotics. We’re also hoping to be able to make some of our own cheese and yogurt. And we have plans to make goat milk soap which is wonderful for the skin. Right now we’ve been buying soap from Hidden Haven on Etsy, and it’s wonderful. Her prices are terrific, and she is very reasonable with shipping charges also. If you decide to check it out, I highly recommend the Chocolate Mint soap. I have to warn you, though, it’s so yummy smelling you will want to eat it!

So, if you’ll excuse me now, I’m off to check on my babies!