Six Ounces of Triumph...

...look just like this!



Yes, it's only 6 ounces. Six very hard-earned ounces! In fact I can honestly say that I haven't sweated and sworn over an amount of milk this bitty since I was the one lactating.

I would have taken pictures of our inaugural use of the Henry Milker, but even with my three assistant goat wranglers, things were hectic. Gertie was the least willing milker, Chardonnay the least fruitful (I seriously think she shut her milk ducts DOWN) and Fritzen the easiest and best producer. Considering her long history of pig-headedness, who'd have thought?

Our does' milk supply is beginning to wane, so this milker got here just in the nick of time. Now, if I can train my goats (and myself) to be up for using it twice per day, we might just be in business.


My fellow milk maids, enjoying a post-milking water balloon fight.

Container Growing - Hits and Misses

I came across a link on Dr. Earth Organics' facebook page about how to grow your own ginger root. Cool! Ginger is one of the more expensive, oft-used flavors in my kitchen, so this could potentially rock for me, right?

The instructions are super easy (find them here). Essentially, buy some organic ginger and plant it in good potting soil in your container of choice. Don't let it get too hot/cold/wet/dry, and in a few months, you've hopefully doubled your initial investment. Can it really be that easy?

This is me we're talking about. Does anybody remember the re-generate your celery thing from last summer? That gave me about 3 inches of new, skinny, pale celery before it up and died. Not one of my greatest hits.

Last year's container grown spuds didn't exactly wow either. But that was owing to a few things beyond my control, like my protective bird netting being mercilessly hacked by my chickens, slugs falling from the sky, and us selling the house and moving before the spuds had rightly finished up, amounting to 2 pounds of seed/waste potatoes producing 1 lb, 13 oz of sad little micro-spuds. I guess that the slugs and the hens got the difference.

In spite of my track record, I'm going to give the ginger a shot. It sounds pretty low maintenance, which is half the battle when you're a plant/pet/hairstyle of mine.