Dirt Hog

I am a bookworm. There's no denying it. Other members of my family have those nifty things like Kindles, and Nooks, but I've always stuck to the real deal where reading material is concerned. Not that there's anything wrong with technology, mind you, I just like the feel of a book in my hands, getting to turn pages, dog ear and highlight favorite parts, tuck notes and stuff in the spine, and then eventually get the pleasure of taping my copies back together because they're so well loved.

And today I finally had to start taping together one of my favorite books; pages 105 through 122 fell out! It's titled 'Dirt Hog', and is written by one of my favorite authors, 'Kelly Klober'. This guy is neat, and I love his writing style. 

 While taping my book up this afternoon, I skimmed over the back of the cover, reading about the author. Same words I've read hundreds of times already, but this time something stuck out: The blurb mentioned that Kelly Klober lived in Middletown, Missouri. Huh... I had no idea where Middletown is, and I knew MO was a good sized state anyway... But I was curious. How far away is Middletown from where I'll be, come December? A quick search on Google Maps had me beaming; turns out the Middletown is only an hour north of where I'll be! ^_^ Way cool! I wonder if he'd allow a crazy farm girl like me to visit his place someday and pester him with questions. I think I'm going to have to find a way to ask. :) I would love to shake his hand someday and talk hogs with him. 

Missouri is starting to sound like a really neat state. :)

January's Book Stack

Now it's time to return these to the library and get a stack for February. (And yes, most of these books were re-reads.) 

Under the Weather

The day after Christmas, I woke up feeling terrible. My dear, lovely sister-in-law decided to share her cold with me while she and my brother were here for their visit. Thanks Sis. So since Wednesday I've been talking with only half a voice (I sound like a frog; don't ask to hear me sing), and have been forcing myself to take a spoonful of honey 2--3 times a day. I'm not even sure that this is even a cold, but I don't know what else to call it. I'm just rather lightheaded right now, tired feeling, and wishing I could talk normal. Don't know what you have? Call it a cold. Don't feel good? Say you have a cold. Seems like logic to me anyway. 

Today however, I had two fun things come in the mail that managed to distract me for a couple hours.

One was a most coveted item:

Photo courtesy of www.rareseeds.com

Every December I look forward to my newest seed catalog from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. Sometimes I think I might be more excited about this catalog than I am about Christmas. All of my fellow gardening enthusiasts had gotten their copy, meanwhile I had to listen in agony as folks were saying, "I got mine today! It's so beautiful!". Torture, I tell you. Pure torture. I checked the mail every day, waiting for my copy. Days past, weeks past. And then right when I stopped thinking about it, it came!! Now it's MY turn to exclaim over how pretty this year's book is. 

The second piece of mail was a book I impulsively decided to buy myself. I say "impulsively" because I very rarely buy books for myself. I adore books, and the best gift you could possibly get me is a book, but I always feel strangely selfish when I buy a book that is not a gift for someone else. There's always that nagging thought of how the animals need more hay, or I need to buy more milk filters, or the money should be saved for something important (like a nitrogen tank! Someday I'm going to get one of those for the goats!), so I rarely buy anything for myself...

But then I saw a book I wanted. A book I wanted really bad. It was eleven dollars... I argued with myself for three days about buying it, and then during a streak of hotheadedness, I bought it. Yes, I am pathetic. Maybe someday I'll grow out of it. 

The book in question?

I've been reading online about aquaponics for a little over a year now. I'm intrigued by it to say in the least. I'm planning on getting a small hoophouse built as soon as funds allow it (hay prices are astronomical this winter!), and I thought it might be fun to try this whole aquaponic thing out when said hoophouse is finally something more than words and wishes. 

The book itself has been fabulous, and definitely worth the $11 I spent on it. :) Some of the chapters are a bit hard for me to fully grasp right now, in my fuzzy-headed state, so hopefully I'll get over this virus-y bug soon!   I'm so, so ready to be back to my normal self. To be able to sing out in the barn without sounding like a toad on steroids, and to be able to get back to writing on here. There are so many posts I'm dying to write! I have three that are halfway done, but still in draft form. I just feel that I can't focus enough right now to do them justice. Sorry guys. :-/ Maybe I should start taking more honey...

But I have things to share, and that's the truth. I want to show y'all how big the Pumpkin Hulseys have gotten (It looks like I ended up with a stag and a hen!), my new fodder growing system that I got during Thanksgiving week (I know; you're all wondering WHY I haven't shown you sooner... Long story.), and then there's all the other fun stuff like how to winter out your livestock in Salatin-style, a review on a Baker Creek seed collection, the end results on the Freedom Rangers, an update on the pigs, the next chicken breed I want to take on (the blackest bird you've EVER seen)... Sometimes I sit down at the computer and feel so incredibly overwhelmed at what all I need to blog about. And then when you're not feeling good, like this week's state that I've found myself in, it about makes a body want to cry. Okay, full confession: I did cry today. That's how not-good I'm feeling right now. I was so tired this afternoon after reading through my catalog and book, and my brain was saying "you need to blog!!", that I broke down in a most ridiculous manner. So I crawled into bed, not caring that it was 3pm and I should have been doing something constructive. I woke up at 4:50pm, and felt slightly better. I'm at least not crying anymore. I ate some chocolate (makes everything better), and felt perky enough to sit here and ramble about everything that came to mind. Which brings us to the present moment. I think I've run out of things to say.

So that's where I'm at right now. I sound like a frog, I feel like I'm in a fog, and I'm itching to be back to my normal self. Rain, rain go away, come again another day... I should end this post here before I think of something else to say. You never know what might be next...

Inquiring Minds Want To Know

I have a question for y'all that I'm wondering if you could help me with.

Would you be at all interested in a book that told how you could have a successful farm with only ONE acre of land? A book that told how you could have two cows (well, let's say one cow + a calf), goats, sheep, pigs, rabbits, 300 - 500 broilers (meat chickens), 100 - 200 turkeys, bees, and a garden? Again, all that on one acre of land. Perhaps this book would even have some detailed how-to's on sprouting and fermenting grain, building a pallet fence, a $60 chicken tractor (that will hold up to pretty much anything except goats), a $100 greenhouse, and would explain intensive, rotational grazing for livestock, winter animal care, and who knows... There might even be a chapter on training and using draft goats. 

Would such a book interest you? And moreover, would you buy a book like that? This inquiring mind would like to know. 

What Do You Mean, "You're Getting Suspicious"?

I don't know what you guys are talking about... I don't see any theme here. ;)

In the "book box" this week...

In The Book Crate This Month...

I honestly don't know how I manage to find time to read all of these books... But somehow I do!

In The Book Crate This Month

Confession: I am not a fiction person. ;) I enjoy learning too much, I guess...

Write It Down

I'm supposed to be knitting right now... But that's pretty much all I've done today, so my hands are going to take a little break here. :)

 One thing that I find to hold true in life is that if I write a goal down, it is much, much easier to make it come to pass. If I can see the words with my own eyes, rather than just knowing that it's in my head and in my heart, it causes me to realize that it's not just a dream. It's a reality that I will make happen. Someone one said to me that they perceived me as a dreamer: That I have big ideas, but I never actually accomplish anything. That remark stung for a little while, but then I cast it aside. That person doesn't know me very well. I AM a dreamer. But I'm also a do'er. And a person who knows when to bide her time. I have a list of things that I want to accomplish, and some things on there have reached that stage of accomplishment. Some are still in the midst of being finished, and some still need a couple years of waiting. But I know from experience that since I've written those things down, I have a much higher chance of having them come to pass.

 So right now, I'm going to write (er, type) something down that I want to happen, and I see it happening, but I need to see these words to keep me going:

I'm writing my first book.

I would really like this book to be titled, "To Sing With Goats", but titles are something I save for the end, so it may end up something completely different...

 Part memoir, and part 'how-to guide' about dairy goats and raising them, I'm trying to create a book that's written on a more personal level than most goat books are, these days. I want it to have a feel of having a conversation with an old friend, but at the same time be informative and accurate.

 I've been working on the manuscript a little bit each day, and it's gone from a far-of-and-away dream, to something that is taking on a material shape. In my mind I am starting to see the pages... I see the pictures and where I want them. I can feel the book. Smell the ink... It's growing into something more than a thought and a hope.

 But it's also very challenging... I am certainly not the best writer in these parts. Shucks, when I sit down at this computer, all the words I wanted to say just fly out of my head! I love writing though. I like seeing how my thoughts can go from something in my head, to something visible. Words intrigue me. I like seeing them come together to form sentences and paragraphs, as well as comparing writing styles from various authors. But then I wonder if writing is something I can truly do, and be good at. My hands and my head have for so long honed in on physical work. I can butcher livestock, milk dairy animals, help assist animal births, garden, buck hay... Can this workaholic of a country girl really tame herself enough to conform to the rigors of writing? I see people who say that they make it a goal to write at least 1,500 words each day. I'm not going to tell you how many I've been doing. It's nowhere near that number. My excuse for the moment though, is that it's because I'm so busy making the knitted goats. But sometimes, when I sit down to work on that manuscript, I feel a case of writer's block come on. I will have an entire chapter figured out in my head, and then I sit down and --- forget it all!! Argh!

One goal is to give the book a more "fun, and personal" flavor to it. Almost like a blend between this blog, and my goat workshops. A small example would be my Table of Contents. I'm only going to share a few with y'all, and these are still very tentative, so they may change, but at the moment I have chapter names that look like this:

•  To Outwit A Goat -- Goat Behavior and understanding it
•  The Ol' Nosebag and Fodder Box -- Feeds and Feeding
•  Loose Shoulders and Toeing Out. Huh? -- Dairy Goat Conformation
•  Smelly Bucks and Swooning Does -- Breeding
•  Band-Aids, Baking Soda, and B-Complex -- Health
• The Ultimate Goal: Milk. (Now, how do you get it out of the goat?!?) -- Milking and handling raw milk

Again, those titles are pretty tentative, but it gives you a small idea of what I'm talking about.

The going is very slow, but maybe someday it will really turn into a book. For now, I'll have to depend on you guys, and my written list to keep me at the grindstone...