Pete & Teri’s Next Big Adventure

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Can you find the goat in this one?

Here she is:

These are not goats:

Lulu and Zoe:

Nikabrik:

Tobacco isn’t easy. The seeds are minuscule and take a long time to germinate. The seedlings are fragile, and grow fairly slowly for the first few months. Properly preparing the tobacco after harvest is an art, and requires an area that has the perfect temperature and humidity naturally or is climate controlled.

Sherazi tobacco curing in 2007

In 2007, I impulse-bought a packet of Sherazi tobacco seeds, and this hardy Turkish variety survived my bumbling first year of outdoor gardening, growing to five feet tall. Inexpert curing left this already very strong variety almost unbearably harsh, and the part that turned out best was only smokeable mixed in with some American Spirit. Most of it ended up getting mold on it as I shuffled it in and out of the house in the late fall, when the outside humidity is about a zillion percent and the inside humidity, thanks to the wood stove, is pretty much a negative number.

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Sigh.

Apparently our girl was experiencing false labor for the past approximately 36 hours. She was still having mild contractions when we checked on her during the night, but by this morning they were no more.

And even more surprising – her ligaments are back. Those ligaments near her tail end are the biggest predictors of impending kidding – they go soft to let her bones separate enough for birth. Yesterday we couldn’t feel them – except for a couple of times when I almost thought I could, but then they would disappear again – today they are soft, but they are clearly there.

She is up and alert and enjoying the mid-70s and sunshine on pasture with the other goats. Her actual “due date” is this Friday, so we’ll be keeping a close eye on her over the next few days, waiting for the real thing.

Here I am with Drama Queen…that’s Koko’s ear and nose behind Drama’s head, and Aberdeen behind me.

It might sound silly to someone who always got eggs from a supermarket, or who always had chickens, but today we ate “homegrown” (home laid?) eggs for the first time, and it was a thrill. It’s amazing that these pigeon-sized bantam hens lay such big eggs.

The shells were very firm and thick, so they cracked neatly with no shrapnel. Yolks were the deep orange, high-domed ones we’ve gotten used to from real free-range eggs, and unsurprisingly the omelet was delicious.