The Week That Was: June 27th Edition

This is a new idea I had while weeding - rather than tell you about the cool aspect of one thing we are doing (because nobody, and I mean nobody, needs heavy detail on lambs-quarter removal), I thought this pseudo-list would give a better feel for the week on the farm.

We'll see how it goes :)

Notable things that happened this week:

1. Eric Turned 40 - As our friend Sharon detailed in her blog post, her husband (and the coolest astrophysicist you will ever meet), Eric turned 40 and celebrated on the day before Summer Solstice with a get-together at their farm. Very nice and laid-back and if the calves hadn't needed to get fed their goat-milk, we would have made it through dinner :D
2. Turning Round Bales into Gardens - OK, it isn't exactly Ruth Stout soil-building (a great woman and pioneer of modern gardening, link is worth a read), but we did have a 1st cutting round bale literally rooting in the June sun/rain/murk. With the help of a couple of dry days, a pickup truck, and some (well 2) strong backs, we managed to pull the alternately moldy and dry hay apart. Then said workhorse pickup dragged 3 heaping loads to mulch the front gardens (sweet potatoes, corn, cukes, pole beans, herbs and the future strawberry expansion) and the back gardens (chiles and peppers). We sneezed for a day afterward, cursing the mold.
3. Re-vegetating the Landscape - the gardens around the house had been suffering from too many weeds, too many dog paths, and not enough flowering plants. We spent Sunday before Eric's party on a fruitless search for potentilla. Then a night of research gave us a tight list of possible shrubs and we were off to the spot we should have aimed for from the get-go: our friend John's "Botanic Barn" on Rt 7 in Brunswick. Easy-peasy. We have come a loooonnngggg way from what the backyard looked like 8 years ago. Another 2 or 3 years and we will have an awesome low-maintenance flowering/fruiting mix.
4. Counting the Baby Mammals - It began with Bri asking why Daddy had nipples. A classic question for every Zoology or Evolutionary Biology class. Then the examples spread and so did the questions. "Do bucks have 2 nipples too?" "How many nipples does Taran (male dog and father to the current Bordernese litter) have?" "How many nipples does the buck calf have?" That's when I realized that we have a lot of baby mammals around right now - 25 goat kids under 8 weeks, 9 puppies under 3 weeks, and 2 calves under 5 weeks.