Inventory

1 huge miniature jersey
2 small miniature hereford steers
1 billy goat
3 nanny goats (in milk)
2 young wethers (2 months old)
2 female kids (1-2 months old)
2 lambs
17 laying hens (not very GOOD laying hens right now), mostly Rhode Island Red
12 chicks (Silver-laced Wyandottes)
3 turkey poults
5 guinea chicks
1 black lab
1 cat

Yesterday the Fedex guy delivered a package. He stopped to pet Daisy (she was right by the garage). He stopped the truck in the middle of the driveway and talked to Ruby (the jersey) for a good 2-3 minutes. I think he had fun.

Happy Birthday Beanie Jeanie

It's my daughter's birthday today. She was born four years ago today at the end of four hellish days of kidney stone pain for me. But hey, that's not important, who cares about that! It's HER day, not mine! After just four years of living, she has become a connoisseur of fine ponies. You probably didn't know that this is a picture of Rainbow Dash. See, you are just as ignorant on ponies as I am. I didn't know either until I just now looked it up on Google images. Happy birthday daughter! (note: of course she can't read this, but I will tell her about it.)

I also wanted to post a link to a milk article. "Scientists breed cows that give skimmed milk". This "progressive" feat is nutso. The article says scientists have found a cow that gives skimmed milk, then talks about the properties of its butter. Huh? What butter? Skimmed milk means no cream. Butter comes from cream, yes? Hopefully this won't "catch on". Milk comes with fat because you need the fat to properly utilize the natural vitamins A and D that are also (hopefully) in milk. So this new cow is actually a step backward in nutritional science.

I haven't posted much lately because I have been so busy. But I have been able to get some reading done while at my boys' ball practices. I've been reading Nina Planck and Wendell Berry. Both good authors. Maybe I'll write some more about them sometime in the future. In the meantime, pick up a copy of Planck's Real Food at your library. Great "food" for thought.

Milk Causes Brain Damage?

I just read an article called "Scientists point to link between dairy foods and dementia". Here's the general idea behind the article:

CALCIUM and vitamin D in dairy products may be contributing to brain damage and dementia in older men and women, new research suggests.

Scientists believe too much calcium can narrow blood vessels in the brain, leading to neural damage. The effect may be compounded by vitamin D, which regulates calcium retention and activity.

I just wanted to point out some big problems with this study: the vitamin D that is in store-bought milk is synthetic. It is not the same thing as the natural vitamin D we get from the sun and from raw milk. First of all, conventional milk from the store comes from raw milk that is low in vitamin D to begin with. This is becaues the cows do not get much sunshine, and they are fed grain rather than grass. Secondly, pasteurization destroys a good percentage of the vitamins that are there. This is why they have to fortify it with synthetic vitamin D. But synthetic vitamin D is NOT the same as natural vitamin D, it is actually quite different.

The reason that getting your calcium from store-bought milk is not a good idea is because pasteurization renders the enzyme phosphatase ineffective. In fact, one of the ways they test milk to see if it has been pasteurized is to see if there is any phosphatase left in it. No phosphatase: it's pasteurized. Some phosphatase: it's not yet pasteurized. This is important because your body needs phosphatase to utilize calcium correctly. Without it, the calcium from milk is not doing your body any good. In fact, that extra calcium floating through your body unused could become deposited in unfortunate places, and that can cause many different problems related to calcification, such as hardening of the arteries.

If the scientists recreated this research study using grass-fed raw milk rather than cooked milk, they would likely get entirely different results. My theory is that it is actually the synthetic vitamin D and a lack of phosphatase that can be linked to dementia.

Mom

Happy Mother's Day! I've written a few things now and then about how special my mother is: like here and here. Last year I posted a great Mother's Day poem. Now I'd like to write about one thing my mom always did as I was growing up that I think was wonderful, although at the time I didn't realize it. She was always so enthusiastic about babies, and children in general. We would see a family with a new baby and she would look at my dad and we all knew what her next words were going to be: "Oh Bill, we need a new baby!" As a teenager, the cool thing to do was to roll my eyes, which I'm sure I did a few times. But now that I am older I can see how lovely it was that she was always so overjoyed when it came to babies. Each one is a special welcome little person, in need of our love and extra attention. It is so sad that this joy is sorely lacking in today's culture. There are couples who choose on purpose to not have any children because of the stress, work, and time they entail. Well...I guess they're right about the stress, work, and time part; but they obviously don't understand the dividends that having children can bring. Being the generally lazy person that I am, I credit my mother with developing within me a love for children that helped me see past all that hard work. Mom: my children and I thank and salute you.
Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: "Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all." Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate. Proverbs 31:28-31

Bullet Notes: Comin' at You

Well, it's been a busy week, but I just wanted to make some brief notes about some recent news items and family events:
Having a female baby goat de-horned: sad and pitiful little thing, it will take a full day to recover from that trauma
Baseball season: this too shall pass
Birthday parties: fun fun fun
Ron Paul: still my favorite primary candidate
Wee Sing Fun 'n Folk: this CD has been playing constantly lately
Recent reads: Wise Traditions (spring issue), HSLDA Court Report, Mother Earth News (April-May)
School: Week 27 out of 36 (we go year-round), book shopping for next year
Garden: some things are actually sprouting!
Weather: gloriously warm, it's great! Now for a little rain, please Lord...
Melamine in chicken and pig food: bad bad bad
Massive numbers of pigs dying in China: what's up with that?
Microwave popcorn: not good for you at all (chemicals and teflon-coated bags)
Kombucha: I'm going to go for it. It requires tea and plain white sugar - I haven't bought white sugar in probably a good 2-1/2 years, but here goes nothing...
Kefir: I love my goat milk kefir in the mornings. It's much better tasting than cow milk kefir.

Sorry, but I'm too lazy to look up the links to the health-related notes here. These are things I've read over the last few days, but I don't remember where.

A Day in the Life

8:30 - I wake up. No alarm clock. Get ready to milk Daisy and Rose.
8:45 - Milk Daisy and Rose and say good morning to the animals in the barn. We get 1/2 gallon of milk.
9:05 - I bottle the milk and go back out to do the other animal chores. I feed the animals that stay put (Ruby the cow and Billy the billy) and put the other animals in their appointed places, which are mostly on chains attached to posts. Also, make sure they all have water.
9:30 - I get ready for the rest of the day
10:00 - Make pancakes for the kids' breakfast, which they eat with butter and maple syrup. My breakfast: 3 eggs over-easy, bacon, coconut muffin, a glass of kefir, and two cups of herb tea.
10:35 - Settle down to eat my breakfast and read the morning's news on the internet.
11:00 - I put off starting school by looking up several hatchery websites to see what chicks we want to order this year. I e-mail my husband to ask about ordering chicks.
11:30 - Clean up and get ready for school.
11:50 - We start school: Bible, phonics, reading, piano lesson, and my older son works a while independently ("independently" is a relative term here). We had a late breakfast, so I figure there's no reason to have lunch before 2:00. We continue working until:
1:50 - My second son notices a white horse out on the road, walking south. I notice that the horse has a saddle, but no rider. I go outside to investigate and see if I can find an owner for the horse.
1:55 - As I walk across the yard, I see Iris standing in her spot with some sort of white and black animal lying still on the ground next to her. I realize that Iris, the goat we thought was NOT expecting WAS expecting, and she has just had her baby. I partially recover from the shock of finding an unexpected newborn goat kid outside in our yard, and take the two into the barn to make sure they are ok. I totally forget about the horse. The new kid is a girl.
2:10 - The newborn kid, which seemed almost lifeless when I found it, perked right up in the barn, but showed no signs of wanting to nurse. That worries me, so I try to help it get a drink. Still no interest. I let her rest for a while. I notice a Bobcat driven by an Amishman drive down the road.
2:30 - The Bobcat goes back past the house going the other direction with the white horse in tow.
2:45 - The kid gets up and stands on wobbly legs and starts looking for milk. She finds it on her own. Yay! Both mother and baby are perfectly fine.
3:00 - I go back inside to get some lunch: warmed up soup for me, and leftover pizza for the kids. It was frozen in a little freezer bag and took forever to warm up in the toaster oven.
3:30 - We eat lunch and take a break from the day. We all thank God for the white horse that got my attention so I could discover the newborn goat outside. Otherwise we wouldn't have known about it for at least a couple more hours. I catch up on Dr. Mercola's blog.
4:30 - I read with my older son, and we talk about our stories. My daughter cuts holes in her tights with unauthorized scissors.
5:15 - I check on the new baby and then take a phone call. The kids argue over whether the baby goat should be named "Dandelion" or "Belle".
5:30 - I realize there are no dishes clean for dinner and rush around getting the dishwasher loaded before ball practice.
6:00 - Ball practice for my second son. Older son and daughter ride bikes at the park, and I walk around behind them and also read a homeschool magazine while they play on the playground.
7:20 - I put some Italian sausage on to cook for dinner. It's so nice out and rain is on the way according to the radar map, so I put it on low so I can go outside.
7:25 - I go outside and talk with my husband about animal stuff, and we work together on evening chores and getting the pens situated for this new mother and baby. That took some doing since the other mothers and babies are separated at night, so we needed a new separate pen. We ended up taking the "chicken tractor" into the barn to keep the babies in for the night. That's a makeshift solution, but, it will work for now.
8:30 - I have no idea what time it is, but I figure I'd probably better go inside and make dinner. We'll want to eat eventually, right?
9:15 - Dinner is ready. Husband and Son #1 are still out arranging the animals, so the rest of us eat: spaghetti for them and a big salad with sausage for me (I'm grain-free right now). This is a late dinner - even for US.
9:45 - I catch up on Dave Gumpert's blog (writer for Business Week). Son #2 asks me to make him some eggs. I tell him I doubt I will have time to make him any eggs since I haven't even started the dishes yet, and there are a lot to do. He starts doing dishes just so he can (he hopes) have some eggs.
10:00 - I make kefir, Son #2 continues doing dishes. Then I join him.
10:30 - We are both still doing dishes. Isn't he a trooper? This is entirely voluntary. I decide to fix him his eggs. He says he wants them over-easy.
10:50 - My son sits down to his snack of 2 eggs: one over-easy, and one scrambled (the yolk broke). I go back to the dishes. I ponder whether or not I should believe that kombucha is good for you or not. Son #1 makes me an early Mother's Day card. It's sweet.
11:15 - I quit doing dishes. Haven't I worked on them long enough? I never did get them done. I wander over to the computer, thinking about the day. I considered doing "a day in the life" type of blog in the morning when I woke up, so I sit down to write it out.
11:45 - Get my kids ready for bed and say good night.
Midnight - I finish my blog and head for bed. I thought when I got up I would blog about a "typical" day, but it really wasn't that typical. But then again, I really don't remember the last time we had a typical day. Anybody know what normal is?