At that time, I wasn't sure I believed him. That prayer sounded nice in theory, but in practice? Really? Will everything get done that needs to get done?
As time passes, I think it just might all get done.
We milked today, for what may be the last time for a while. The 24 ounces of milk hardly justify the time spent. Phil had the good idea to test the brix (pronounced "bricks") level. The brix level measures sugars in a food; the higher the sugars, the more nutrients are in the food. (Why? It just is.) The better food tastes, the better it is for you. So those mealy apples you've sometimes bit into? Not worth eating for the nutrients: the nutrients aren't there.
Great milk, apparently, has a brix level of about 16. We haven't purchased pasteurized milk in several years, but all the raw milk I've tested has been in the 9s and 10s. I appreciate that the raw milk is a living food, but a brix of 9 or 10 isn't worth getting excited about.
Our milk, straight from the cow, was 12.1. Which makes it, I suppose, the best milk we've ever had—scientifically verified, with the refractometer, our tool that measures brix. Fun! (After setting, the cream rose, and the cream's brix was 16.2. Yes!)
For Easter, Abigail got a jar of caterpillars. All grew fat and made chrysalises. I made the box for the remainder of the project. What an amazing moment, when the butterflies emerge. I look forward to it.
We planted five cherry trees today, and marked the sites for the remaining 79 trees. I purchased 408 trees the first few weeks we were here, long before we had the area mapped. Six of my trees didn't make it out of the nursery, but I am amazed to see, as we marked the spots for the final trees, that every tree should fit in the upper pasture: all the pomes (apples and pears) on the north, all the stone fruits (cherries, peaches, plums, and apricots) on the south. With no space left over. But no trees left out.
Who planned this orchard, anyway? "Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain that build it."
Phil finished the second beehive. That looming task: completed. On time.
Phil finished chipping another brush pile. Another big one in the south orchard; a small amount of downed trees in tne north orchard.
We docked the tails of the three babydoll lambs. Little Bo Peep may have wanted to find the sheep's lost tails, but on most wool sheep, the long tail they are born with is a liability. Fecal material gets trapped underneath, and flies lay eggs there, and maggots and horrors ensue.
As folks who like to be in sync with nature, we wondered about docking tails. Why would God create tails that needed docking, anyway? I read a possible answer in sheep! magazine: basically, the tails sheep have today have probably been bred into wool breeds over centuries. Sort of an unintended consequence of breeding for wool production.
Some "heritage" breeds, the sheep that can trace their lineage back quite some time, have almost hairless, skinny tails. And there are "hair" sheep, that don't produce wool, that don't need docking at all.
I'm not sure about docking. One book said to do it at about 24 hours, but when we tried that with our first sheep, I thought they seemed too fragile. But now, docking at ten days and older, I think that's too old. I think their nerve endings were more developed. We'll figure it out. I'm glad Phil did it. (I held the lambs while Phil did the docking with the emasculator.)
The children kept busy. In the middle of planting, we looked down the hill and saw Jadon, Isaiah, and Abigail carrying a 40-foot tree through the homestead, and down into the woods. (Note in the first photo, you can't even see Abigail yet!) What were they doing with it? I'm not sure. But they were having a good time.
On a really disgusting note, Phil discovered some ticks on Chloe yesterday. We do tick checks daily, and usually find one or two among the seven of us. They are small, maybe like a grain of millet, and, so far as we know, don't carry Lyme disease this far South. Thus, a nuisance more than a threat.
But poor Chloe had some ticks for a long time. Incredibly, they swelled from the size of a grain of millet to the size of an almond. One was even as large as a grape. As I said: disgusting.
Finally, as far as I know, Jonelle and Gracie both are doing pretty well. She is one tiny baby.
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