Goodbye Girls

Last week was bitter sweet.

I sold my cows. It's sad because I miss them, it seems empty here, and I keep feeling like there's something I need to do, but I know it's just missing them.

But it's also good, because they went to a family with over a hundred acres outside of Fredricksburg and I know they will have access to lots of pasture,  I know they are happy... and they went together, that was non negotiable.

There have been many, many times when I felt it was unfair to them to not have pasture, I mean that's what cows are made to do, graze.... and I just don't have the room here for them..

I do believe they were happy here, but still... they are cows and they will be happy there too, they will adapt.

For myself, I needed freedom..

My mother is going to be 85 years old this January and I want to have the freedom to see her as much as I can... and the only way to get freedom was to rehome the girls.

I believe in the old days it was easier, because chances were your neighbors were in the same situation,
and were willing to help each other out, they knew how to care for each others animals...
Today it just isn't like that, it's nearly impossible to get away ...

So for now it will be empty, and I will remember the animals are better off..

I will always remember how special it was to have them, although it was hard work  I learned so much from them.. I can't even write this without tearing up...they helped me grow and appreciate things I really never thought about before...I honestly never really had thought about how much we humans rely on animals for our very lives..  they give so generously, they ask for so little in return.. and they are so gentle..

Maybe my path will come back to having cows again or some other dairy animal but for now I will take some time and just see where I go.

 I will enjoy my freedom spend time with my loved ones,  and see what awaits around the bend.

Update on the Law Suit

So I saw my Mom and sister for New Years Eve and they asked about our ongoing law suit...
and after explained the situation to them I decided to update you readers as well....

Here is the history in a nutshell.
Last February we were served with papers notifying us that our POA was suing us.
We responded that we wanted to work out a compromise.
We then were given a pathetic list of our POA's dream demands, including among other thing, we pay 4000.00 in attorney fees, a new survey (500.00), and pay 500.00 per month if we ever fell out of compliance with any rule again.
At this time a wonderful thing happened, Bill Davis, Lawyer fell from heaven and after reviewing our case
not only agreed to take the case but asked to take it....

Fast forward to now,
Our neighborhood did have a legal POA that was active in the 80s and up til 1994 when it was dissolved by the Secretary of State.
Under the law at that time the POA had 3 years in which to reinstate and they did not. Although they still carried on business during this time...( which was illegal)
Then is 2001 these jokers, in fact our neighbor, our president himself went and reincorporated another POA!! With a very similar name, in fact he only added an apostrophe to the last word, this enabled him to
use the same acronym as usual and none of the home owners were the wiser.
All on their own, with no homeowner votes or knowledge.
Their lawyer, John Lione of Austin is arguing that they simply reinstated the original POA...
Well, they didn't and they know it good and well and I believe Mr. Lione is milking the POA fund til it's dry...
his argument is flawed.... and hopefully he knows it or he really is a dud of an attorney...

So that is where we are.. we now have to pay to have our neighbor and president deposed, out of our own
pocket to try to get to the bottom of this can of worms.... 

You may wonder why we are doing all this, well it's because they are wrong, they are bullies and to be honest... criminals.... and they are going to be exposed....

We were given this job.. and were going to see it through.
I'll keep you posted

Homemade Pain Relief

 Yesterday, I smashed my thumb in the car door...all on my own.

I wish I could say some careless companion slammed the door on me,
but it wouldn't be true.

I was rushing.... my daughter had a piano receital, and we were running late. I dropped her off at the door, parked, got out and slammed my thumb in  the door and I had locked it as well!  I had  to stay calm
and hunt for the keys to first unlock the door to get my hand out.

Next problem was the blood and the receital... I tried to stay calm ( I think I mentioned this very crucial point)  and not get blood on anything, luckly I was wearing dark clothes.

Long story short... I made it, but oh, how it hurt!!!
I would have to use some very bad words to really get my point across. I do believe you can tell from the photo... then add your own ideas as to the scene....

Once home my son helped  me wrap my wound up
and my daughter  made dinner for me (very sweet kids) but everyonce in a while it hurt so much I thought I was going to black out....then I had an idea....

  A while back my husband had a toothache and until he could get to the dentist I put clove oil on a cotton ball for him to put on his gums... it numbs..
So... I got some almond oil, added some clove oil and swabbed my thumb with it... glory be to God!! It worked!!

No pain , the carrier oil, ( almond oil) protected  my skin in case the clove was too harsh.
I would recommend keeping Clove oil on hand in your home first aid kit. You can use any other oil, (olive, grapeseed etc.) as a carrier oil.

Hopefully you'll never need to use it, but you'll be glad to have it if you do!

My New Flock of Chickens

 I ordered 15 baby chicks in October.

It used to be when my kids were little we would get many kinds of chicks when we ordered them or went to the feed store. So we had all different kinds of chickens, which was really pretty and an excellent way to learn the behavior of many different kinds of
chickens.

The down side to this mixed flock way or doing things was that we never knew how old a bird was...
I mean we were always adding more and were never quite sure how old one each hen was, which is something you really need to know if they aren't exactly pets.... if you know what I'm getting at...

You see at some point we will eat the older hens, of course they will have had a nice long life, running free and just being chickens, but we don't have the room for girls who are too old to lay eggs..

So I got 15 Buff Orpingtons, and you always get one "surprise" chick. This time is was a Turken....
a bad thing to be in the winter, it seems to me.

This is my little flock now, at around 2 months, aren't they nice? They're just about old enough for me to let them run loose during the day with out fear of them being attacked by the older hens...

And around April I'll have more than enough eggs!

Busy Days

 Mattie's pretty far into her lactation cycle.
One of the nice things about that is milking once a day.

I still get plenty of milk ( around 2 to 2.5 gallons) each milking but I can choose when to milk according to my schedule.

While it's really nice to be able to milk at 9 or 10 in the morning and have a relaxing start to the day, sometimes a gal has to get moving early to fit everything in!


 And as it is, this is a really, really busy time for me..
In fact I've been pulling the early "farmer" hours.

Lucky thing Mattie likes the early pre dawn milk time....
She actually seems to prefer it... she gets her work done early and has the rest of the day to do as she pleases!

The only thing I've noticed is that she seems to like me to guide her with a flashlight...

Thought you would enjoy seeing her do her thing..

And please check out the Products for Sale tab at the top of the home page to see what I have up! 

Feedback is welcome and encouraged...

New Products

 I've been just about driving myself crazy with trying to get some of these wonderful products up on my "Products for Sale" page.

The thing is that I have to tie pay pal into the equation and I don't really know what I'm doing!

Hopefully before long I'll have them posted with working pay pal buttons to go along with them.

I'm offering 4 body products,

Body Balm
Udder Joy
Rosemary Body Bar Soap
Lavender Body Bar Soap


All of these products are 100% natural,
and (very important to me) not animal tested.

I'll be offering the balms and udder joy for 5.50
and the soaps for 5.00
Plus shipping.


 Or you can order all 4 and get free shipping.
What a wonderful Christmas gift it would make..
Really...

Hope to have them up in a day or so...

Please check back.

Cows Save the Planet

Recently I attended an HMI (Holistic Management International) workshop at Montesino Ranch in  Wimberley.

The focus was on water, and how to holistically manage a farm/ranch situation to adapt to our changing water circumstances.

Speaker number one asked if any of us had heard of the tree ring study, which actually I had... any way here is the gist of it....
Scientist were able to examine the rings of a a very old tree from central Texas. By looking at the rings they were able to get a pretty accurate idea of rain fall patterns from pretty far back, if I remember the tree was at least 500 years old.
Any way, what they determined is a little scary....
Our area of Texas has actually been experiencing an unusually wet period. The last 150 years, since the arrival of Europeans has been quite wet when compared to the period of time before...

So what this means is we actually don't have an accurate idea of what normal rainfall is in Central Texas, and  we need to relearn how to live in this soon to be very dry climate.

Enter farmers and ranchers. They have an extremely important task... how to raise our food and manage the land as rainfall becomes more scarce.

I could bore you with the details, but one of the really interesting points made was the role of livestock and grazing and the recently discovered value of grazing animals for the land,
please take a moment to look at the video in this link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxgDcBHTFm4


A lot of this information I already knew, but I enjoyed meeting some like minded individuals,
saw a gorgeous ranch on the Blanco River and felt
like the principles I learned could be applied even on a small scale.

I have to admit, the whole workshop was positive,
it's nice to be around people who understand.