Loving Animals is hard

We've had a rough week here, three of the goats have been fighting something. I believe it is worm overload. We thought it was coccidiosis and was treating them for it. But they weren't getting any better. Then after a conversation with my friend Dalyn white gums and anemia came up. She reminded me that could be worm overload. I did my research and all the symptoms listed here my goats had...grr. So I wormed my whole herd. Unfortunately it was too late for Half- pint. I found her dead Wednesday morning. Her sister was doing a little better until this morning. She probably won't make it to lunch time. Their mom is doing much better. Only time will tell.
If that wasn't bad enough we had to put our 17 year old cat Harley down. There were a lot of tears on Tuesday as we said our good-byes.
I really hope next week is a better week.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Happy Birthday to my sweet hubby Rob, the Big 40!!!

Pickled Asparagus

This is the recipe I used for pickled asparagus




Yield 8 pints
Tips:
*Buy new jars when you can because I tried to save some money by not buying them and using my old ones...one broke during the water bath...grr
*Always make more of the brine than it says, I had to triple the batch for 20lbs of asparagus.

update

It has been a long time since I posted, no excused except life has been pretty busy. Between milking and caring for the goats, the garden went in, BBQ at friends houses, finishing school, chasing chickens out of the gardens, helping out friends, park day, home school activities, add in canning, cheese making...you get the point;) Anyway here is the garden in May and this month.


We had the idea of bringing in truck fulls of compost, since I can't make compost to save my life. But that didn't happen, we bought bags of it instead. It would have been cheaper I am sure if we would have stuck with our original plan. It just never worked out. I lost two tomato plants to our wonderful wind we have here. They were quickly replaced with others. All together we have 34 tomato plants...ummm I think I will be busy;)
I am milking three out of four goats this year. The fourth one has too small of teats to deal with. Hopefully next year they will be a little bit longer. Chevre cheese is my newest addiction, Thanks to my friend Dalyn and her cheese making abilities.
Rob has been busy at work, fishing with the kids, and trying to keep up with all the projects around here. I think we both need about 6 more hours in the day. On top of all he has to do, our van's transmission went out about 6 weeks ago...grr. It will all get done, I know, just hard not having a second car, especially when the vehicle we do have is an Excursion. Can you see $$$$$$??? Needless to say we won't be going to too many places this summer.
Hope you all have a great week!!!