What do eggs, milk, and coffee have in common? Well, they can all be used for a variety of things and we often have them on our grocery list but right now they are also on my morning chores list. (Hopefully, 2 of the 3 will soon be off the grocery list.)

I know I’ve told you all about our chickens … we might have a few more than we had when I wrote my last post. We also bought a few laying hens who haven’t started laying for us just yet but we are anxiously awaiting eggs any day now.

On the way to get the laying hens, we made a quick stop at a cute little farm to get a few goose eggs. We would like to have the geese as ‘watch dogs’ for the chickens and I’ve always loved geese. My older kids have already named a gander if we happen to hatch one. (Oscar III)

They are on about Day 10 in the incubator and looking great! We can’t wait to see these little guys/gals and add them to our flock. **See bottom of post for updates on the geese!

Then my dear husband brought home a baby goat. I’ve been wanting some milk goats and he did his research to find a good dairy goat. One day he happened to see a post about a baby goat for sale and he secretly purchased her.

He thought she was about 8 weeks old but it turned out that she was only a few days old… big difference! We made a trip to TSC and picked up some necessities for bottle feeding.

It’s been a crazy few days with her but now she is a milk guzzling machine and she literally thinks she is one of the kids. She runs after me hollering ‘Maa-maaa’ and little Shyanne runs after her saying ‘no, my mama!’. They are just too cute!!

She lets me know when she gets hungry too as she will come and butt my leg. If Mama isn’t quick enough she’ll butt someone else and maybe give a little nibble to their leg.

Little Pearl goes where I go around the house. She helps feed chickens and weed the garden. She really loves trying out different weeds to see which ones she likes best. I’m sure Shyanne will be following me around soon enough as she is getting more and more confident with her walking skills.

Every morning I get up early to fix my coffee, warm some water in the microwave to warm a bottle in, and turn/mist the eggs. That’s my new ‘before regular chores’ routine… then I head out to feed the birds and weed a bit in my garden.

We did get some temporary watering systems in place for the raised beds so that doesn’t take very long at all. I weed down one side of a bed every day and then take the few little weeds to the little chickens.

We’ve already been harvesting some tomatoes, lettuces, kale, and radishes. There are several little squash babies and the beans are starting to flower. The cooler weather has helped the cabbages and they are forming heads so maybe we’ll get a bit of cabbage before the heat kills them.

This weekend we started several more seeds for planting next month including a ton of flowers for our pollinators. Some of the flowers are ones I’ve never really heard of so this will be a learning lesson for me. I’ve also mapped out our current beds and ‘banana grove’ so we have a better idea of what us growing and where… there are still a few mystery plants as the dog took all of the plant markers I had left in the garden earlier.

We have plans for more raised beds but there are a ton of other things that need to happen before then. We have a few people on YouTube that we have been following and they have inspired us in many ways. Some of them include Self Sufficient Me, David the Good, Wild Floridian, Justin Rhodes, Roots and Refuge, and a few others I can’t think of right now but they are all really good to watch and learn from.

We’ve also been super busy getting our chicken coop/run built. The weather hasn’t been cooperating and then Mr. Awesome has been working out of town some so there are some things that just need two people and we have to wait. I paint and do whatever I can to make things go faster when he is home. The goal is to get the run opened up this coming weekend though.

On top of all these tasks we also have our weekly square dancing and other daily life events. We’ve just finished up our 2022-23 school year so I’ve also got to get our next year planned out. I’ve been working on a post about our new school plans so I’ll get that out just as soon as I can.

Just when we didn’t think things would get any crazier we got a letter saying that our home owner’s insurance was going to be cancelled because of our chickens, ducks, and dog! We’ve since been in contact with a new agent, as the old one wasn’t responding, and hopefully have a new policy in the works.

It’s just complete chaos here… as always but we are loving life and we are so blessed to be able to live this life! We pray that you all had a wonderful Easter and that your life is abundantly blessed!

Now it’s time to get back to my coffee… and maybe not. I think the flies found it and decided to go for a swim! Yuck!!!

All 4 eggs hatched! We still aren’t completely sure what the sexes are but it seems that we have at least one gander and possibly 2-3 hens… Yay!