The Good Life

Yeah! It was the one thing I wanted to do this summer: camping trip to Glacier National Park. I had a terrific time. We tried to visit the park a few years ago while taking our road trip to Alaska but a freak snow storm on June 13 put a damper on our trip and we had to turn around… I am glad we did not miss it this time because Glacier is one of the most beautiful places to visit and it was only about 4 1/2 hours away from Hope, ID. Being in nature always make me feel so good.

Here’s some pictures of our trip.

We had a beautiful warm day on Friday and it was such a tease…It was in the upper 60’s and so wonderful;. too bad it lasted only one day and now we are back to rainy weather. Oh well, I know spring is on the way so I will be patient. There are definitely signs of spring with lots of new growth everywhere, including in the garden with new growth of the rhubarb plants and also the iris and lilies are starting to grow. I know it could still be months before we get nice weather (especially if it is like last year, we had to wait until July 4th) but I know it is coming….And the rain, well, at least we know we won’t have water shortage this summer. The snow is also all melted, exept when you go up in the mountains, but it does not mean we won’t get anymore snow this year.

I went hiking with Derek a couple days ago up the mountain and it was so incredible. The view was breathtaking and I feel so lucky to live in this amazing place. I can’t wait for warmer weather so we can go camping. I haven’t been camping in a couple years and I am blown away that it’s been that long. What is wrong with us? This year I am going to make sure it is happening. I’d like to go to Glacier or maybe Banff National Park in Canada (which I think is one the most beautiful places on earth). I guess it is up to me to make it happen.

We also decided to stay in Hope, ID,  settle here and give it a try. We are looking to buy some land but haven’t found our homestead yet. The community is great here and I feel safe (we never lock our doors). So hopefully things are going to work out for us and we are going to make it happen financially. I am hoping to get a full time job at the hospital (or at least enough hours so I can have benefits) and I am not sure what Derek is going to do but I am not worried about him. I will keep you posted on that subject as well.

Gardening season is coming up but we are not sure where we are going to be in the next couple months so I can’t really go crazy buying seeds for veggies, herbs and flowers. There is lots of seeds I want to get. But same as the weather, I need to be patient…

That’s it for the updates. The big news is that we are staying in Hope, ID. I know some people are disappointed but it feels like it is  where we have to be right now. Once you come and visit, I am sure you will understand why we fell in love with Hope. So come on over whenever!

Take care and enjoy the pictures, 

CC

Hello friends and familly,

It feels like spring is right around the corner and I am not sure if it is true or if my mind is tricking me into believing it is so: new growth on the trees and in the yard, birds singing, seed catalogues coming in the mail, gardening tools at the stores, etc.

We’ve had a very mild winter this year, with very little snow and mild temperatures (i think it rarely got down in the teens). I am aware that winter is not really over though but I just like to think it is! After all, we are in North Idaho, and last year we had no spring and went straight from winter to summer! Everything is possible around here I guess.

Now, we’ve had few cold spells with icy roads and several inches of snow over night, but nothing major. I am not very fond of this weather, especially when I have to be on the road early in the morning, before they de-ice or plow the roads. I’ve always wondered about black ice and I hear people talk about it all the time. I guess it is something you can’t really see and when you realize you’ve hit black ice, well, it is too late to do anything… Derek and I were on our way to Portland a few weeks ago and the road seemed normal, no snow, no ice. I was driving and was going about 55 mph on the Freeway when I started sliding on the freeway. I tried to keep the car going straight but I over corrected every time, and when I finally lost control of the vehicle, all i could hear was Derek telling me to keep my foot off the gas. Everything happened very fast but it was going in slow motion at the same time. I really had no idea what to do or if I could even do something at this point because I never experienced anything like it. We started making a 180 degrees on the freeway and we could see cars passing us from every side. Scary. It was around 7 am and the traffic was kind of heavy (I am so happy it did not happen on the 405!). Anyway, we ended up on the side of the freeway, one foot away from a telephone pole, in a couple feet of snow. I was all shaky (Dz too!), still not believing how lucky we were. No damage what so ever. I still can’t believe we did not hit anybody! I bet we scared a couple people when we did that 180 turn on the freeway… It was one of the scariest things that ever happened to me. I still can’t believe it… I am very careful when driving now, even when the roads look normal, because you never know what you are going to find out there. I think we had little angels watching over us that day. 

As far as work goes, I’ve been busy the last couple months, juggling between my two jobs, training to be a cook at the hospital, and trying to find time to spend with Dz and have some fun. I am finally back to a normal schedule and it feels great. I am hoping to find some CC time soon so I can do things I’ve been wanting to do this winter but had no time to do…Working at the assisted living is going okay and I do enjoy working with the elderly. Honestly, I don’t enjoy all the parts of my job but I guess the good times I have with residents make me forget about all the other not so good time…Working with the elderly is rewarding in many ways but it forces me to think about getting old and seeing the not so pretty part of aging. Although I am not afraid of getting white hair, having wrinkles and such, I am afraid of some part of aging such as Dementia, Parkinson or some other mental disease. I see scary things on a regular basis working in the memory care unit and it breaks my heart to see how one can go backward in time and forget all that one learned. Everyday I am so grateful to be alive, to have health and love in my life. I do not take any of it for granted and I want to enjoy life now and not later. Life is too short for any BS and one never knows what the future holds. Nursing assistant is a hard job, mentally and physically and even though I enjoy most of it, I will not want to do that forever.  I have something to say regarding old women and bras: if anyone forces me to wear a bra when i am old, i will come back after i die to mentally torture any one who made me wear a bra. No one should be forced to wear a bra when you are in your 90’s. I said it, be warned! I understand the concept of maintaining dignity but for me, the bra has nothing to do with that. None of the women who still have their marbles want to wear bras. So my advice is that you should talk to your daughters or sisters or whoever and let them know how you feel about wearing a bra or not when you are old. It may sound stupid or funny, but it is the real life in nursing homes, i guess.  I know I don’t want to wear a bra if I end up in a nursing home; at this point, who cares? Nobody remembers anything anyway so I don’t think saggy boobs are a big deal : ) 

Working at the hospital is going well. I enjoy working the cafetaria and being the tray person (which consists in getting trays ready for the patients according to their diets) but cooking there is a bit different than what I am used too and it is not always in my comfort zone. But that’s how life goes sometimes and I am still learning a lot anyway. 

Our lease is up on June 1^stand so we need to decide what to do next. We are thinking that we may stay in Hope, or not, so when we know, we let you know. Our heat is not great: we have propane heat and it is very expensive to be keeping the house at a comfortable temperature. We had many mornings were the temperature was under 50 and it is cold. Our house was never quiet warm enough for me this winter and  I was glad to go work at the assisted living because it is always 85 degrees there…yeah!  

Derek has been devoting some time to think about the future and what he wants to do in life. I think having some time off the last few months have been beneficial for him and I am happy that he is getting back in touch with himself. He has been enjoying hiking the last few days and he took wonderful pictures that I would like to share with you. We do live in a beautiful area and I feel so fortunate to be here. Enjoy the pictures! 

I can’t wait for spring: to plant my garden, grow delicious veggies and ditch my wool pants and undershirt. Looking through the seed catalogues is very exciting and I have a long list of seeds I would like to get this year. So we shall see!  

Until the next, 

CC

Fall is here with its amazing bright yellow, orange and red colors and it makes my daily drive to work so much more enjoyable.  I love seeing the leaves on the ground and I found it beautiful but some people may find it very messy. I love the sounds it makes when I walk on then.  The tempeartures are colder, with mid-40’s during the day and freezing at night. I have to scrape my windshield in the morning and warm up the car, which means I have to leave a bit earlier (like 5:15 am is not early enough…) It is supposed to be very cold tonight and we may get some snow on Thursday. No need to mention that the garden is done for the season, with only few carrots, beets and turnips in the ground. The growing season was okay; everything was a month behind but the good thing I guess is that we are still enjoying our home grown tomatoes (which we hung upside down in the attic and it is ripening well). Hopefully we will learn from our mistakes and have an awesome year next year.  My plan was to preserve enough food to get us through the winter but sometimes plans don’t go as planned. We did well with making jams (plum, cherry, raspberry, hucklebbery, blackberry), canning pear and making wine and branby but as far as real food, we don’t have much. Well, I take that back: we have about 200 lbs of potatoes (red, yellow and fingerling) thanks to Derek who ordered twice as much as what we needed : ) So we will be eating lots of potatoes if anything else. Gardening was challenging and I still think farmers are awesome for doing all the hard work. Once you farm yourself you realize while they charge so much for drying cherries for example: because it takes freaking forever to pit them and they should be charging more! Anyway, I understand more why things are more expensive than other and there is lots of work involve. Yeah for farmers!

Summer was unbelievable but way too short. I had a great summer and this is why I haven’t written anything in my blog; I have no excuses exept I was having so much fun outdoors and felt like I did not want to waste anytime indoors sitting at a computer. The truth can be brutal sometimes, I know. If you live in So Cal you probably have no idea what I am talking about because you get decent weather all year long (please don’t take it for granted!) but if you live in North Idaho, well, summer is VERY short so no messing around with priorities. It was very nice to swim in the lake (which never got warm) and have a good time with friends. I guess now we will be focusing on baking, eating, playing games, reading books and trying to stay warm. Ted and Nancy stayed with us for a week in August and we had a blast hiking around, spending a day boating on the lake and eating quesadillas. I guess sometimes we just don’t feel like cooking, even when we have company : ) Aaron came and visited at the end of September and it was also a blast. It made my birthday even more special and it was fun to hang and play games. I had to work a lot when Aaron was here but the boys had a good time and it was probably better that I wasn’t there to see everything that happened.

I saw a bear last week when I was coming back from work late at night. He is a big boy and I was glad I was in my car. The squirrels are running around, getting their supply of food (from our walnut tree) readyfor the winter. I wasn’t watching them the other day and they bury the nuts in the ground; it is very interesting and I am assuming that they come back later for their food. A silly though crossed my mind the other day and I wondered what would the squirrel do if it comes back and the hole is empty? I was thinking about getting my nuts back…okay, I have a twisted mind or maybe I was just bored that day. Just wondering…

Derek and I are doing well and are getting the house and garden ready for winter. We also bought a second car, “Blue Boy”, which is Derek’s car, because he is the one who wanted to buy it so he can have it : ) It is an old, beat up truck, with manual transmission, which is so loud that it sounds like a plane. There is an exhaust problem and I had to drive it to work the other day and I was so embarrassed; you know when you wish you could crawl into a hole… Hopefully, Dz will fix it.

As far as work goes, I quit my full-time position at the nursing home and I am now a PRN, which means I work there when I want to. I like that so much better because I can pick the days and hours i want. And no more coming home at 11pm when the weather is crappy. I enjoy working with the elderly and even though the company I work for sucks, I try to do the best I can and make sure I give love to these people. I am pretty good at that. I am also working part time at the hospital in the kitchen and so far it is going well. My coworkers are friendly and the work in itself is okay. My hours are better too and the latest I will to work until is 7:30 pm which is way better than 11pm or midnight. So I am happy my this work situation for now. Derek is still working here and there and he is also spending some time thinking about the bigger picture. I guess we are still trying to figure out what we are going to do when we grow up. It looks like we are on the right tracks though. We are both happy and feeling good about our future.

I hope everone had a good Halloween. I was working last night and we had treat or trick at the nursing home for the employees and it was cute to see little kids interacting with the old people. But the funny thing is that I told Dz to get candies because kids are going to stop by the house and if he is home, it would be  a nice thing to do. Well, he did not. When I was driving home, I saw “treats” written with chalk in front of a couple homes and in front of our house it said “lame”. I thought it was hysterical. I guess next year I will be buying candies myself.

Until the next,

CC

Derek and I finally found a house for rent in Hope, ID, 13 miles East of Sandpoint. We rent a 2 bedroom house, with an unfinished second floor (that we use as a bedroom now because the view is incredible) and a decent size yard where we planted a garden in hope to harvest yummy produce this summer. But so far, nothing is happening in the garden because the last month has been wet and cold; the tomatoes don’t like it and I don’t like it! So we may be lucky, or not, we will see… Anyway, we spent days getting the garden ready and we did not have any tools so we did everything by hand. Awesome work out but next time, we will buy or rent some tools!

Besides the fact that we had no spring, i still think that this area is beautiful and i am very happy to be in Hope. The population is about 200, and most of it is retired people and it is rare to meet someone under 60. Now, I don’t have anything against people over 60, but I have to say that it is nice to have friends our age. Anyway, the previous renters, Erik and Jen happen to be our age and they just bought a house (they had the deal of the century!) down the street so we’ve been spending quiet some time with them, having dinners, playing games and drinking beers. Awesome.

Our first plan was to move back to Spokane but we did not “feel” it was the right place for us and some invisible hands took us back to Hope, where we were a couple of years ago, and we knew it was the place. Now we just need to make it happen financially and we are brainstorming for short and long-term ideas/possible businesses. We both found few hours of work in Hope here and there, but nothing too exciting yet. Derek is working for different persons doing odd jobs while I worked few hours at the Hope café/Art gallery in Hope. The owner just got her wine and beer license so I may have an opportunity (for the season) to work a couple nights a week. Whatever jobs are available in Hope, there will be seasonal, as most of the inhabitants will be going back to Arizona or California before winter hits; and most of the businesses open now will be closed for the winter season as well. Schweitzer, the ski resort 25 miles from here is the big employer during the winter but I am not sure how comfortable I am driving up the mountains in the snow…. sounds awful.

A little over a hundred years ago, Hope’s main commerce was orchads and strawberries because it had (and still has) very good growing conditions, with good soil, southern exposure and a “moderate” climate due to the lake.  The house we are staying in right now was used to store apples and it is known in town as the old apple house. Today, Hope has a population of 200 people and only a few apple trees remain here and there. Over a century ago, Hope was a bustling center of activity, with the railroad and logging being the main commerces. Its population then reached 3000 people, including a lot of chinese immigrants who came to work for the railroad company. The Hotel Hope, no longer in use, had guests such as Teddy Roosevelt and Gary Cooper and is still in good shape. This town has lots of character and the community is really friendly.

Ted and Nancy (Derek’s parents) are coming in August and they will be our first visitors. Yeah! They should be right on time for huckleberry season and I am keeping my fingers crossed for a good huckleberry season. To tell you the truth, I don’t have high hope because it’s been so wet and cold and everything has been blooming later than usual (lilacs, lily of the valley, flowers and trees); about a month behind on the growing season so it means that the huckleberries might be a month behind too or they might not be here at all, which would suck because i am so looking forward to making jam and having pies. 

This area got a lot of snow up in the mountains last winter and we are having  a wet spring (if we can call it spring!) so the rivers are very high, as well as the lake Pend Oreille, and there are fears of flooding, especially for people living by the lake or rivers. I knew there was a reason why we don’t own a waterfront home! So we have no problem with water around here and my mom, who is France, has been telling me that they are having drought conditions there, with unusually high temperature since March and no rain. Farmers there are complaining and many crops have been lost due to the drought. It is so werid because here it is the other way around: so much rain that farmers can’t plant anything and if they do it rots in the ground because it is too wet! I wonder what is going on with Mother Nature sometime…. Anyway, I would love to get some of the sun and heat that my people are experiencing in France. We’ve had rain for days on now and sun and heat are sounding wonderful. Today, it looks like a fall day: rainy, gray, and it is a bit windy. But I am not complaining: I am accepting and loving what it is, whatever it is.  (Note: “ Loving what is” is actually a book from Baron Katie. Great book to help you accept what is and loving it. I highly recommend it).

Now that I have all my kitchen gadgets back, I’ve been making bread again and right now I am baking potato bread and it smells very good. It is very yummy and very easy to make. I ordered a bunch of different flour (wheat, spelt, and rye) online and I can’t wait to be baking more in the next few weeks. Opening all the boxes stored in the trailer (unopened for the last two years) was a real pleasure and I forgot about a lot of the gadgets I had.

Since we moved in our house, we’ve been buying more things (garden tools, wheelbarrow, furniture, etc) and when we move out there is no way that everything is going to fit in our small trailer anymore. I guess we will worry about it when time comes. We go to a lot of yard sales on the weekends but we try to limit ourselves to buy only things that we need (but we are also pretty good at buying things we don’t really need…). I am trying to buy only used items for furniture, garden tools and kitchen gadgets but sometimes I “want” something right away and it is not easy to wait. Yard sales teaches one patience. I like it because we keep the budget low for furnishing the house (which is nice because we have no furniture at all and we need to buy everything) and I recycle by reusing someone else’s junk; I love the “new to you” feeling of getting something used. 

I am very happy to be in Hope, ID and I feel very fortunate to wake up to this beautiful view every single day, even with the rain and the grey. There is good energy in town and we are just trying to enjoy life, everyday, no matter what life throws at us. I am very grateful for the life Derek and I have and i would not trade it for anything else. The good life is still my main goal and i try to live my life everyday with this in mind: to be a good person living a good life surrounded by good people.

That’s it for the updates. We are renting a cool house and we are hoping to harvest produce from the garden. I am hoping to can/dry produce as well and I took a class on canning/preserving dry beans yesterday and it was a lot of fun. When we find out about jobs and long term plan, I will let you know. I will try to keep posting  pictures and let you how the garden is doing.

Enjoy the pictures.

Peace,

CC

A couple years ago, we lived in Hope, Idaho, a small  town of 200 people, 13 miles East of Sandpoint, on Lake Pend Oreille. We drove through, fell in love with it and decided to find a rental there. Two years later, back in that neighborhood, we still feel the same way and we are trying hard to find a rental in Hope again. There is something magical about that place and it just feels like home. Renting is taking longer than what i would like but i guess we don’t need to rush things: we want to find the right place, something that we are both comfortable with, and with a big garden area if possible. We are late for the early summer stuff but hopefully we will get something going for a fall crop.

Everyone we met in Hope is so nice. We walked all around town and talked to a lot of people, especially about rentals, and every single person we met is so eager to help. I’ve never been in a community like that. Three different people offered us a place to stay (for free) until we find something that suits us! Pretty amazing… The community is great, people are very nice and the views of the lake are  just amazing! We have a couple options as far as rentals go but nothing for sure yet. I keep my fingers crossed!

Leaving Twisp, WA, we headed towards McMinnville, OR where we spent a couple days with uncle Thom. We picked up our trailer and then headed towards Spokane, WA where we spend the first night. Never stay at the Airway Inn Express! This place is a dump and i would not stay there even if i was given money. It was so filthy…Anyway, the second hotel (the Shangri-La) we checked was a bit better, but i would not recommend it either (kind of dirty, stained towels, etc.). We spend one night anyway because we were tired and ready to call it quit after a long drive. While there, we drove around Medical Lake and Cheney, which were both okay but we did not feel like it was for us…The next day, we both agreed to come back to Sandpoint; we found a nice motel, with old but clean rooms and we’ve been staying there for 10 days. S0 far so good.  I forgot to mention that Derek got poison oak in Oregon and he is finally getting over it: he got it everywhere….again! This stuff is nasty.

I am really happy to be back in Northern Idaho and it is such a beautiful country. It is a late/wet Spring  and people had a very long winter this year….. I can’t wait to find a place, get a job and enjoy a beautiful summer in paradise. And i can’t wait for huckleberry season so i can make lots of jam, pies and fudge…

Hopefully my next blog will have good news as far as rental and jobs go.

Until the next,

CC

Here’s few more pictures taken the last couple days at the farm. It puts a smile on my face just looking at them…I do not miss getting up at 2 am to check on babies but i do miss being around the goats and the kids. I must confess that i also miss my daily raw goat milk, yogurt and cheese…Boy, i got spoiled at the farm! It makes me think that i will need to have a couple goats on my own or get rich so i can afford to buy all these goodies.

CC

Derek and I left the farm yesterday and made it to McMinnville, Oregon where we are staying with Uncle Thom for a couple days. Leaving the farm (and Twisp) left us with  bittersweet feelings and overall, the internship was a great experience. I am very fortunate that we got to live and work at the farm, working with goats and eating lots of cheese. Taking care of animals is hard work but so rewarding in many ways. I enjoyed so much being around the goats (especially the kids) and as much as they can a pain in the butt, goats are so friendly and funny, that in the end, i forget most of the not so good moments. We probably had around 100 kids and i wanted to keep 20 of them…I was a real sucker for cute little babies; it is really easy to get attached to them, especially when you bottle feed them. I miss the little ones already and I hope someone is going to take good care of them (probably no one will take care of them the same way I did, i know because i was a bit doing it over the top…). We got to take some cheese with us when we left so we better enjoy every bite of eat while we can.

Being in the country made me really appreciate the slower pace of life, peace, quiet, tranquility, nice and friendly people: everything you don’t find in the city! Driving back to Oregon (especially around Portland) definitely made me miss the country even more: freeway packed with cars , noise, pollution, fast food everywhere, etc. I am a country lover and i want to get back to it asap. No way i am moving back to the city.

One thing that i really liked about the goats is that each of them had a unique personality, just like people. Some were curious, shy, sweet, mischievous, bully, daydreamer, pushy, Miss attitude, friendly, grumpy, etc. By the end i could recognize most of them. During kidding season, watching their rear was a daily task so i could easily recognize them from the rear end too. Goats also have different places in society (kind of like pecking order with chickens), with a couple older goats being leaders, always the first ones going to the milking parlor, with the other goats following them (goats would not follow just anyone), and some goats being at the bottom of the ladder, with other goats being not too kind to them, pushing them around. Little Lulu, the younger shy goat who gave birth to 3 kids, is at the bottom, being pushed around and being mostly a loner (it makes me sad to watch but it is the life of a goat).

Giving birth was also an amazing experience and i have both happy and painful memories. So rewarding to give or save a life, but also very stressful, sad and frustrating too not to be able to save a life too…I feel  very fortunate that i had the chance to do that once in  my life. Seeing some of the goats experience excrutiating pain made me really never want to experience birthing on my own.

The physical work involved with a dairy is impressive and i had trouble moving straw and hay bales around. I had to use the rolling technique (vs. the carrying technique), and to bring hay to far away places, i had to use the sled, even when there was no snow…Plus, all the other activities involved such as fixing fences, digging trenches, cleaning the irrigation ditch, etc. were very physical and demanding for a small/weak person like me. I still did the work though but i would not like to do it on a regular basis; no fun for me. Few days before we left, we had to trim the hooves, again, and this time i had to do some…i hated it and unfortunately, it is something you have to do every month. I guess it is true that whatever does not kill you, makes you stronger!

Having a dairy is a lot of work, 24/7,  non-stop; not only you have to take care of the animals (including special care of sick goats), feed them, milk them twice a day (that includes a lot of cleaning), making cheese every other day (also includes lots of cleaning); if you grow the food for the goats like they do at Sunny pine then you have to grow straw and hay and harvest it, irrigate, fix fences, and other random things (market, deliveries, supervising workers, etc.). All this work is to a warrenty to be successful; if you are lucky, you may be breaking even….

After working for three months on a goat farm, i am definitely not ready to commit to have my own dairy farm. Unless i am ready to give up everything else, and i am not, I don’t think i am ready to make this type commitment at this point in my life. How am i supposed to go to France for 6 weeks if i want too? I am so glad we interned though, instead of spending money and time trying to start a dairy, to find out this is not really for us.  

Working with Derek has been great and he is an awesome worker. Okay, i am a good worker too and i am confident that whatever we start together, we are going to succeed because we are motivated and we are hard working people. And if whatever we start does not work, then we will start something else. We are at a very exciting point in our lives, and even though it is scary to not know what is going to happen tomorrow, i see endless opportunities ahead of us. There is a saying that says that the sky is the limit, and i always wonder why the sky?  there is really no limit…

So that’s it, as far as the goat farm goes, but i am sure life has plenty of surprises for us and i will try to share and keep the blog updated so people can keep up with what we do. When i find out what is next for CC and DZ, i will let you know… Check back in a little while. Thanks for following our adventures; it was a good motivation for me knowing that people where interested in what we where doing and it was a real pleasure to share what we did, the good and the not so good part.

Until the next,

Peace.

CC

What a wonderful day we had today! It was a perfect Spring day: sunny, warm, blue sky. Derek and I left the house around 8:30 this morning to go to a couple garage sales, in hope to find good deals, and we did find great ones. I am just not sure everything is going to fit in the car when we leave next week! At this one moving sale, people were desperate to get rid of stuff and they were selling stuff for a quarter…can’t really pass on that. After that I went to get a cup of coffee at my new favorite coffee shop (Blue Star, if you find it please give a try to the espresso blend, a unique flavor), stopped at the farmer’s market and went to the senior center which has another Spring sale: they were giving away full bags of clothes for $1…well, not easy to pass on that one either. But i have to say that i am really good at getting stuff i need versus getting something just because it is cheap.

After that we drove around and enjoyed the beautiful scenery, with 360 degrees views of snow peaked mountains and lakes; it was breathtaking. Twisp and its surroundings are amazing and if we were going to retire today, i would move here in a heart beat…but it is a bit early to retire and we have to make some money so it may not be the best location for us right now. Too bad. Plus, if we move here, i will visit the coffee shop too often for Derek’s liking : )

This week went pretty well, with the regular milking and chores duties. We also got a couple big projects done like the  are and the irrigation ditch cleaned. We got the garden ready (about 1500 square feet) and spread goat poop all over it a couple days ago. Yesterday, Derek tilled, I spread fertilizers and raked it to make the surface smooth. It is looking nice but it was a lot of work just to get it ready. Too bad it wasn’t our garden that we were prepping! I guess now it is ready for planting.

Derek and i finished cleaning up the ditch on Thursday and it was physical work but i liked it: we trimmed branches, raked pine needles and made sure it was all clean. It took us about 3 hours to finish it. By the end of the day i was pretty tired and my back hurt but i was on night duty so no going to bed early for me! We are still waiting on about 5 younger goats to give birth so we still have to do the nightly rounds, unfortunately. And Ed hasn’t been in any rush of selling the 7 kids we have for sale so we still have to feed these guys at 10pm and 2 am; i think if Ed had to get up at night more often then the kids would probably be gone by now. I don’t mean to be bashing Ed but i think being a little bit more proactive on this issue would be great for everyone who has to get up at night : )

We lost a big kid this week, one of the keeper, due to constipation. It was very sad and Venus will sure be missed: she was a happy, curious goat, always running around. But glutony is what killed her (well, i better watch out because i like to eat too…). We tried many things to save her but it did not work (mainly stuff to make her poop such as drench through the mouth and enema, well you know where that goes) and she was gone in less than 24 hour. I went back to check on her and was with her for about 5 minutes when she started grasping for her and just died. I was glad i was with her but it is the second time a kid die on my watch and i don’t like that. Especially Venus looked liked she was in a lot of pain and there was nothing I could do, only watch her and pray for her. Right after she died, Annie (she does milking and cheese making) said she wanted to cut Venus open to find out if constipation was really what killed her. It was weird because i was having an internal battle with doing it or not….anyway i went with her (curiosity won over my disgust of doing it) and i said i will help holding the goat. I watched while she was doing the dirty work and we found out that she was in fact constipated and it has been a while by the way stuff looked in her stomachs (goats have 4 stomachs, i don’t remember the names but if you are dying to know i am sure you can look it up online); she had a lot of hard pieces in her stomach and she kept eating, stocking food in her stomach (if she would have stopped eating earlier we probably could have saved her but it was too late when she did stop eating). I have a picture so be aware it might not be very pleasant.

I made some good chili with spelt flour and honey cornbread-it may sound weird but it was delicious; and also a Moroccan herb and spices soup, which was delicious (i got the recipe from Marie, the french neighbor). I haven’t been cooking much lately, maybe only about once a week, i haven’t felt like it I guess. I have been on a weird diet of cheese, milk, yogurt and eggs…I guess it is time for me to leave the farm and eat more vegetables. I am not complaining though, i love it and i will miss all this good food. It is just that i have never been on such a fatty diet and I wonder how good it is for me (oh well, I have only one life right, so I might as well enjoy it….to a certain extent that is!). The weather has been warming up, with sunny and warm afternoons, and there is only a bit of snow on the mountains, not on the ground (except maybe in the shady areas).

Okay, last week on the farm; I will try to give a last update before we leave next Sunday.

Happy Easter!

CC

Last Tuesday I was hoping to get some sleep in between my checks and it did not happen: i was up until 6 am, helping for a complicated delivery that ended up with 1 kid alive and 1 dead. Nothing could be done, it came out the wrong way, with the head and butt wanting to come out at the same time…not possible. The mom is getting better and we took her away from her kiddo; she looks sad. I gave a lot of tea (uterine tea) the day after the birth to help her pass the afterbirth and it helps most of the time.  Passing the afterbirth usually happens within few hours after birth , but sometimes it takes longer. Just need to keep an eye on the goat because she can die from it.

I was on chores duty on Thursday and i really enjoyed my day. I like to take care of the goats and give them their medicine, teas and special remedies. I also gave a couple shots of selenium (needs to be done after each birth) and it is fairly easy to do, under the skin. Derek is doing the real work with giving shots (Vitamin A, E, D and C) with big serynges, I do only little ones. I am a light weight and could never be a real nurse: don’t like blood and cuts and things like that. I guess i am doing okay for being around lots of blood and delivering babies!  I had a couple challenges that day. The first challenge was to catch two goats (Flower and Patti) in order to give them some milk maid powder to help them produce more milk: they do not like to be caught, are pretty quick, and do a great job at staying away form people. They made me run all over the place and it was more frustating than funny; Derek had to come and help me and i guess he had a good laugh watching me struggle with the goats for a while! The second challenge was Sandy, a sick goat with staph infection: her skin is getting better with hair growing back but her udder and teats are still miserable (hard and lumpy) and the poor thing is probably in so much pain; milking her twice a day is not an easy thing. Tonight she was literaly trying to climb the fence, kicking her back legs and it was very difficult to milk her. I hope her infection is not that contagious because I am literaly leaning on her hard to try to keep her still and some of my skin is definitely touching her infected area… Now i understand that she must be in so much pain…i mean if you could feel her udder and teats, she gotta be in a lot of pain. I wish we could be doing something….or at least not milk her but it is not possible. Poor thing!

My days with the goats are (mostly) good, but some days are more challenging than others. I wish i would always stay calm, like Ed, but i am not perfect and i get frustrated and angry (like trying to catch the goats or try to keep Sandy still). It is probably because i have expectations (that everything should go a certain way) and sometimes things don’t go as planned and i get frustrated…i am aware of it and trying to work on it. Life with no expectations should always be a happy one!

I do catch myself talking a lot to the goats, or the sheep, and also to myself…isn’t it a sign that i am going crazy? Now, i don’t have a full conversation with myself, i just speak aloud, kind of like to keep me company when i am alone or with the animals. Hope you will still like me when i go crazy. Wait a minute, I am already crazy, Derek says so all the time! I am getting better during the night shift and I am not as scared as at the beginning. I don’t know why i don’t like to be in total darkness. I always try to shut my mind off so I don’t spook myself with little noises I hear…or so I don’t freak out when Hunter or Brewster jump in front of me out of nowhere (i always see these 2 cats in the night; keep me company). Anyway, there have cougars around here, and a couple years ago, few goats went missing because of them so i know they are around here. They captured two of them on the farm. I saw the picture and I don’t want this big cat jumping in front of me at 2 am…It is a very impressive animal and try hard to not think about it during my night rounds….

I’ve been eating so much cheese lately! I have cheese with almost everything: the best is a baked potato loaded with chevre…yummy! We haven’t gone back to help with the cheese making yet but we’ve done our share of eating and tasting it. We just tried a new cheese called “Oval peak” (a local peak), a round goat cheese with a crust like brie but the inside is kind of creamy and hard at the same time…so good. Reminded me of cheeses i had back home. For the yogurt, i like to pour it on my oatmeal with some honey…the best breakfast ever. Derek makes a mean oatmeal with raisins, coconut flakes and almonds; I think i will keep this man a bit longer : )

We are short one person since today and we are leaving next weekend. So far they have only one other person coming sometime next week so they are going to be busy. I guess once we are done with birthing (5 mothers left), it is going to be less work as we won’t have to do the night checks and we won’t have to feed babies every four hour. It was set since the begining that we wpuld leave on that date so no big surprise. Ed has offered to stay if we wanted to, or go to Spokane for a while and then come back if we change our minds. I guess the doors will alawys be open here for us so it is a nice offer. I think Ed and Vicky want to retire and are looking for someone to take over the dairy…they think Derek and I would be great for that so the offer is on the table. There is definitely something about Twisp and things have been happening lately that makes me think that the town is sending us messages so we stick around here.  We both like it here a lot and if we thought we could make it happen financialy we would probably not hesitate about staying here. It has everything we are looking for (beauty, nature, good community, etc) but only 1000 people. Last night, Ed invited us to a dinner with his church and we met wonderful, nice people. A lot of the people we met are from here or were also attracted to the area years ago. Well, we don’t have to make a decision before we leave; we can always go as planned and come back here if we want to; I like it like that. It is funny how life works sometimes: i’ve never heard of Twisp before and it is one of the most amazing place i’ve visited. I was not expecting anything like that. And I also like that there is not fast food joints, no franchises, etc.