31/21 - Last Day of October!!

It is the last day of October. I can hardly believe it! This month has gone by so incredibly fast. Between grandparents visiting, campaign work for the upcoming election, lots of ranch work and many other things, we have stayed very busy here on Liberty Ranch.

I have enjoyed blogging every day. . . for the most part. I hope I wasn't too boring!

Last night was a beautiful, calm night. My one grandma went back to California yesterday afternoon, and the other set of grandparents that were here left this morning. We had a bonfire last night - it wasn't too cold out and there was no wind. It was very nice. We sat around and talked, watched my little brother and cousin try to warm rice on a paper plate over the fire (you can guess how well that worked), watched the sun go down and the moon rise. We are very blessed to have each other.

Today it's fairly warm out. There is no wind and the sun is out. Some are doing work, some are doing school, some are cleaning, some are butchering hogs. Just normal random activities that go on at Liberty Ranch.

Remember that doe I posted about below, the black and white one that we just got with the 2 kids? Well, today I took her babies away from her. They are in a crate underneath the staircase, sleeping away. Tonight I plan on milking her and offering the kids a bottle. That way, they will be bottle babies and we will get the does milk!

Speaking of milk, it's Fall, which means the doe's milk production always goes down. I always hear the cry for "more milk" in the winter, since everyone is spoiled with fresh milk and milk products all Spring and Summer. Then suddenly, there isn't as much and everyone cries like babies (just kidding, they don't really). But you get the idea. So, every winter we don't dry up all the does. We keep a few milking, so we will get a little bit of fresh milk at least. Right now we have 14 does in milk... I think. We have been drying so many up it's hard to keep track.

In fact, we have had a doe in milk every-single-day since January 25th, 2007. So that's over 5 1/2 years of milking a goat every single day!

So anyway, back to the winter milk thing. This doe that I pulled the babies off of to turn into bottle babies - hopefully we can keep her in milk all winter until the does start freshening the end of January! God has perfect timing in letting us get this new doe that just kidded! Pretty cool!

October has been a great month. The weather has been good and lots of good stuff has gone on. I am thankful for it all! As usual, I plan to keep on blogging, just not every single day.

This weekend some of my family and I are headed to Nashville, TN for Music City Liberty Fest. It should be a great time and if you are in the area, try to be there!

Oh, also! We have been working on this song and dance for a few months now. We finally filmed it and I put the music video together yesterday. Please watch and share!

Peace!

Suriyah