We had found a source for agri-lime at a reasonable price, not too far from here. You can purchase it by the truck load, ours being a pickup one. We knew that any supplements of this type had not been applied to the land for well over 50 or more years. As that is how long it has been since it was farmed. We decided when we moved onto the place that we were not going to use artificial fertilizers. We want the food that nourished our food sources to be pure and not a petroleum byproduct. So we have been using aged manures and compost to feed our vegetable garden. Using loads of chicken manure to fertilize the pastures. Our grass seed sowings haven't been as successful as we had hoped. So finding this source for a natural soil conditioner was heaven sent!
Lon and I drove over this morning and purchased a 1 1/2 ton load of the stuff. Plans were for a friend to come over tomorrow with a tractor equipped with a spreader to dust our horse pasture. We tried to spread some with a little push spreader we had first, but the limestone is ground so fine that it kept clogging up. There was no recourse but to hand strew the powdery miracle ourselves. And that is just what Lon and I did, all 1 1/2 tons of it! Darkness caught up with us and we were still throwing lime by the security light before our sore arms declared quiting was necessary. The remaining wheelbarrow load will go on the garden area tomorrow. We are hoping the rain coming this weekend will soak this goodness into the ground. And within a few days to a week we will see the benefit of our aching backs and arms in the tender green blades of new grass.
The other thing I wanted to celebrate about is that we have started back milking! I know many of you are shaking your heads and thinking about the work involved. After going the past 5 months without fresh milk, we are glad to be back at it. We were not without some goats milk during that time, as I had froze some all along for our Winter use. But you just can't beat fresh goat's milk. The milk I supplemented our stash with from the grocery store, had steadily raised it's price to well over $6 a gallon. It was putting a serious crunch on my grocery budget and had to go.
We are presently milking Anna and Sugar just once a day. As they are still nursing their 2 month old kids. Separating them at night from their mommies gives us a chance to milk in the mornings before turning everyone out for the day. The babies handle the evening milking for us (grin).
Sugar & her twin sons ~
They are not cheated out of the yummy milk and neither are we. The kids are growing well and have started consuming more grain and hay. So it won't be long before they will no longer need the milk. Plus as each of the remaining does gives birth and reaches that time we can start milking them. We will repeat the process and gain even more milk for our use. More work is ahead of us, but so is more yummy treats.
Sporting a milk mustache with a smile,
Deborah
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