Life on the Ranch

I recently joined the Good Cook Book club and was able to get some books that have to do with self-sufficient living and a homesteading lifestyle. I only paid $15.71 for the 5 books below and I only have to buy 1 more book in the next year. The books I ordered were Homesteading  by Abigail R. Gehring, The Backyard Homestead  by Carleen Madigan's, The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It  by John Seymour , Garden Anywhere  by Alys Fowler ,  Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It and Other Cooking Projects  by Karen Solomon       If you are interested in getting in on this deal, just click the link below to go to the Good Cook website:

This has been one cold winter so far. Life has been made a little more challenging . . . with frozen water outlets, frozen hoses, cold animals, etc.        BANG! BANG! BANG! Is the sound heard every morning as I try to break the ice on the water buckets with my foot . . . a rock . . . or a big stick. We have also used the dump cart to take hot water out to the animals - we have a hose that hooks up to the bathtub and reaches out the front door to the dump cart.        Here is what one of the waterers looked like after I broke through it this morning: Ice chunks on the ground from the water buckets yesterday: Icicles hangin' from the hay feeder this morning: These last 2 pics are funny ones. Our front door is metal and gets some condensation on the inside. Well, it has been freezing some but, it also drips just enough water down to drip into the lock of the door. So, when the door is opened, the lock gets stuck. The pics show my way of fix...

Here are a few pics of some of the bucks. I was wanting to get some recent pics of Ace for his previous owner, Angel, to see. So, here you go. Here is Ace eating some hay this morning. This next picture show Ace with our little wether, Rocky. The 2 of them are buddies. Rocky is the only other goat that Ace will let eat out of his feeder! Here is one more of some of the other bucks gladly chomping down on their hay. It has been so cold out that we have been feeding out extra hay just to help keep all of the goaties warm!

       Almost 5 years ago, I gave birth to a set of boy/girl twins. The boy has Down syndrome. We decided to write a book called Down Syndrome - What You CAN Do!  This was because we were given such a grim outlook about what our future would be like with this little boy with DS. Well, years later, all I can say is it has been a BLESSED and GREAT almost 5 years. None of us in our family can imagine life without our little happy man.        Our book is 589 pages long and is $22.73 for the printed version and $5 to download as an e-Book. The proceeds (which are very small) from the sales of the book will go towards purchasing more books to be able to get these into the hands of doctors, hospitals & the public. We also hope to make some brochures about the book for Down syndrome associations and for public awareness.       The finished product can be bought from and seen at http://stores.lulu.com/gotdownsyndrome ...

          A few years ago, we came into contact with a family that has a child with Down syndrome. This was because we were in the process of writing a book about Down syndrome. This family has a home business where they sell essential oils. These are some of the highest quality essential oils out there. Here is the link to their website - Heritage Essential Oils  . You can check out their website for more info about the oils they sell.        Here are a few pics of some of their oils:

     It is hard to believe that it is 2010. I remember when I was a child and it seemed like some kind of sci-fi thought to think of the year 2000. Now, we are 10 years past that. Time just seems to fly by.       This is our second new year in Oklahoma. I am soooo thankful to live here. It is a different life than what we lived in the desert land of Southern CA. It seems there are more opportunities here to do the things I like (raise our goats, have other livestock). Plus, we are learning and doing other things that we were not able to do - gardening, hunting and making things off of the stuff on our land.      At the moment, I am researching gardening ideas. I ran across this website that talks about winter-sowing seeds outside. I am still learning about this method. I am also on the hunt for old freezers and things like that. I am hoping to use them as raised garden beds. The beds we made last year got rather compacted by the end of...

WOOHOO!! The first kids of the new kidding season are here. We had been bringing Little Maggie into the barn stalls at night for the past several days. In the day, we had been letting her be out in the goat yard. Well, tonight when we went out to get the milkers, there were 2 kids standing in the doe barn (the third was found dead a little later, most likely a stillborn). Soooooo, this is the beginning of many (Lord willing) kids that should hit the ground. Time for some sleep . . . . . . even though we have 2 more does in the stalls out the back door with big bellies and big udders!