As some of you may know, I keep a small herd of Saanen milking goats, and these lovely ladies provide me with yogurt, cheese, ice cream, meat and of course milk! I currently have four full-sized milking does and two miniature milking does: Now when each one of the big girls produces rough a gallon and a half of milk per day you end up with a lot of milk! I use it all, but that's another story for another day.

In order for these lovely ladies to produce their copious amounts of milk, they have to kid, or have babies. Well, my rental property is backed up against the freeway, and on a flat area in the valley that gets quite a bit of wind, so I needed some way to keep these ladies and their babies safe, draft free and warm during kidding season. I couldn't afford a nice barn and those rent-to-own deals all have floors so I wasn't left with too many options.

Enter the West Virginia side of the family - AKA my dad's side. All the siblings were born, and with the exception of my father, raised on the multi-generational farm in West Virginia where everything from tail to snout (animal, vegetable, and mineral) was used, and then re-used! These ideals were never abandoned, and to this day I have one uncle who keeps a "museum" of old stuff for self-reliance, or because he thinks it's cool, or when SHTF.

Lord love my uncles and father, because they all came to the rescue when they heard my predicament about the goat barn. Salvaged lumber from previous projects was furnished, old
greenhouse siding was unearthed from the back-40 and given, posts from our sustainably harvested range/forest land were cut and gifted, and tin sheet-metal, which has seen the side of more than one building was compiled and donated to the cause.

Dad collected and loaded all these materials up and headed the five hours down to my house on a

Thursday after work, and by Sunday we had a functional shed for the ladies to utilize. We started with bare ground and went to a post-in-the-dirt, roof and sides covered and LOTS of "ventilation" holes from previous projects. This past Sunday I put up the very last pieces of the siding to close in the barn from weather. There are a few things I'm planning on adding when kidding season gets closer, but until then the ladies are enjoying their space out of the wind!

Times they are a changin'.....

Three years! It has been three years since I posted on this blog, and let me tell you it has brought some big changes.

1) I took a job that moved me back to the Yakima Valley in Washington. I worked in a completely new career (agronomy) for a year and a half. Everything was going well, my custom livestock raising business was beginning to take off, I was asked to be a panelist for a Women in Ag conference, I found a place to rent in the country that was perfect and had an easy going landlord, and I finally graduated with my Masters degree! Then I was called into the boss' office one morning prior to a conference and was told I was being laid off. Holy crap! So I took some time to regroup and began a new job search.

2) I decided I didn't like the sales portion of my previous agronomy job and started searching for a position in Extension once again. After all, it has been a dream of mine since I was 16! So I claimed unemployment, raised animals to fulfill the contracts I had in progress and for my freezer, and applied for jobs. Once the interview processes began, I was ping-ponging all over the Western United States! In the month of April 2014, I was only home for 17 nights. I was one tired lady!

3) I accepted a position with the University of Idaho as the Small Acreage & Production Livestock Extension Educator for Canyon county. I am in my 2nd month of the job and so far I'm loving it! It's the perfect blend of concepts to satisfy my inner hippy and yet also my practical side by working with area dairymen and cattlemen. I have kept my goat herd and one breeding pair of sheep and plan to begin anew with my custom livestock raising project. I have been laying out breeding plans, and tracking down bottle calves and hay for the winter.

I am happy to be working again and be able to follow my personal vision to operate Cherryview Creek Custom Livestock in Fruitland, ID and I promise to do a much better job blogging! :)