One week from today...

we will be done milking Trudy! It's been an adventure and we've mostly enjoyed drinking it and (Scott) making different cheeses. We've all learned a lot and that will help it to be easier next year once she's had her babies. This year we were a bit scared of hurting her at first, but she's shown us that she's pretty easy going and given us a lot of milk to work with. It'll be interesting to see what the little goats do without her around. They've grown a lot over the summer and they all have horns. They're quite playful and enjoy butting each other, running and jumping. Thankfully they just butt each other and leave us alone:). I think we'll have to do a batch of goat's milk soap next week to keep us through the winter and that will complete our milking adventure and experiment for this year. I don't look forward to the price of milk in the grocery store, but I'm thankful that we have that option for the months Trudy isn't producing. The kids have been asking if we'll buy a milk cow, now that we have the barn, but I think we might wait another full year with the goats before making that decision. The cow is a LOT bigger and more responsibility. Plus there would probably be more milk than we would know what to do with. One goat has kept us quite well, for which we're very thankful.

It froze hard last night, which is another reason to be thankful that we're almost done. Milking in the winter months would be REALLY cold! Scott and the kids brought in a big bucket of carrots from our garden, some leeks and also some parsnips. I think that just leaves us with the potatoes to pick sometime in the next week or so. It wasn't a bumper crop year, but we thank the Lord for His provision and look forward to trying again next year! Praying that it's a milder winter, but deciding to be thankful either way. We'll have the new baby to keep us occupied after Christmas, so we'll enjoy all the extra snuggle time:).

That about wraps it up for this week. We got a lot accomplished and look forward to seeing what the Lord has for us this weekend. Til next time...