It has been a very busy week. We are still very much in the adjustment period since Kevin left his day job, but we are finally starting to form some sort of routine. I am in the middle of wedding booking season for the photography business, we are working on our new goat milk soap laundry detergent, contacting stores about carrying our products, building up our soap supply, and taking care of the farm. Busy, busy, busy, but we are loving working together full time.
Last Wednesday we took Tina to have her hooves reshaped. She foundered this past Summer and we spent months controlling the crazy growth and lowering her grain intake to slow it down. I finally felt like we got her back to (somewhat) normal, so we took her to a farm in Culpeper who were going to use a grinder to get her feet back to the correct shape. We didn’t breed her in the fall because we were dealing with getting her feet comfortable again. We honestly were debating whether we were breed her again at all because we weren’t sure if it would be too hard on her, but the farmers in Culpeper didn’t think that her case was anywhere near as bad as others that they had seen and she was cleared to breed again. She went into heat on Monday and was bred to Warner. Her due date will be June 25th, much later than we are used to, but it could set us up for a year round milking schedule. It would be nice to not have periods of the year where we are without fresh milk coming in… We have two chest freezers of frozen milk for soap (it must be frozen to be used in the soap making process), but it’s not the same when it comes to drinking.