My Dairy Goats & Making Cheese

These are my very own dairy goats and they are both in kid. I bought them about four weeks ago and tomorrow I am going to a goat dairy farm to milk goats and make cheese, I am so excited I feel like a little kid myself. I have been wanting to get dairy goats for a long time now but because they have been  too hard to find or have been too expensive I felt it wasn't the right time but one day Dave found these pair advertised not far from us and so cheap I felt that's it, I'm getting them. They are friendly and have been in kid and milked before so I'm hoping all will go well. I went to our local Field Day a couple of weeks ago and met this lady who has a dairy farm and makes cheese so I booked myself into her course and I just can't wait. I think I have about another 4-6 weeks before the goats kid and I can start milking so I'm trying to learn as much as possible to look after them, the kids as well as milk them and make cheeses. If you have any advice or links I would love to hear from you. I will be taking pictures and telling you how the day went.

The Fire

The fire was now out of control, once it gets in the roof it spreads very quickly.My two neighbours and Jess's partner tried to contain it but it was no use, but fortunately the local fire brigade had just arrived and it took them no time to jump into action. They cut down the fence and started pumping water from the dam onto the flames, mind you during this time some of them where pulling out as much of our furniture as they could. Some of the guys knew the layout of our house so they worked together dragging out beds, cupboards, chairs, appliances, clothes, toys, baby gear, pictures whatever they could put their hands on as quickly as possible. Mind you it did start to rain later on in the evening, I remember snuggled up to Dave in bed at a neighbours place listening to rain and thinking of our furniture under makeshift tarps in the rain.

The Kitchen area


During this time my daughter had been trying to contact Dave and myself for about half an hour, we were oblivious to what was going on. Jess had rang her brother and sister and they were trying to get hold of us, I had put my phone on silent as we were at a study group. During our break time I notice my missed calls and as I picked up my phone Jess rang, she was telling me the house was burning and I'm saying don't be silly only because Jess sometimes jokes around and I had spoken to her forty minuets before, anyway she starts crying and then I hear my neighbour talking on the phone and my jaw dropped and my heart sank as I heard Jess crying in the back ground..
 Note: I am never putting my phone on silent in my bag again.

The spare room

After pulling myself together and relaying to the people around me that my house was burning down and that Jess and Bentley were safe at a neighbours house we had a prayer together and then just literally hit the road. I tell you it was a long drive home and thoughts were running wild in my head. As we drew closer my heart was pounding and we were anticipating what we were going to see but as we turn the last corner the flashing lights of fire trucks, police cars and ambulance were just like something you see in a Bruce Willis movie. ..................TO BE CONTINUED



My littlest granddaughter is just getting over a stay in hospital with tonsillitis, a chest infection and possibly asthma. This winter has seemed to have hit nearly everyone hard some way or another and I know for one  am looking forward to some good rain and warmer weather.





Life

I really enjoy my blog, and I like sitting down and updating what has been going on, like my dairy goats, my veggie patch, the task of rebuilding a new house etc but some days life is soooo full of many things that you need to just sit down and reflect on what is precious to you and how you can treasure every moment the best you can. This week one of my granddaughters was in hospital with a chest infection, tonsillitis and possible asthma. She has been sick on and off for a few months with chest infections and having chest x-rays and I think her immune system has been run down but thankfully with a spell in hospital with a intravenous antibiotics and on Ventolin she is now on the road to recovery. I looked after her on Thursday while mum had a work commitment and we had a lovely day together, she is absolutely gorgeous with a infectious smile and beautiful red curly hair.  While I was down there I went to see my son, who has been upset with the recent death of a very good friend last Saturday night. They were out with a group of his friends  and this young man decide to walk home and was accidentally ran over by a taxi. He was 33 and had two young girls, his funeral was today and I went to pray for and show respect for his family and to support my son. My son is finding it difficult understanding why such a caring and great guy could be taken so young. Life is full of so many hard and difficult questions yet thankfully there are many opportunities for them to be answered.
On my way home, which was like a three hour trip I had the opportunity to pick up a cot from one of my suppliers for my littlest grandson, who as been sleeping in a porta cot since our house burnt down some eight weeks ago. To his mothers delight he is now snuggling in his warm and cosy bed and hopefully will blissfully sleep through the night. As I started this post my thoughts are to remind myself and encourage every one to be thankful and enjoy everyday you have and to show love to those who you love.

Talk about Frustration

I have been going crazy trying to publish my posts, I have been searching the help lines for weeks and with having no clue at all but somehow today I must have done something right because it now works. So much has been happening and I haven't been able to update my blog so now I'm trying catching up. I will be continuing my story about "The day we will never forget" as well as updating the progress on our knock down and rebuild story. Our Insurance Company has been fantastic and the gentleman, the assessor for the company was so professional and caring it was unbelievable.

This is the first of three demountables that were lent to us by a friend from Church, amazing, from being homeless one day to having a friend lending us these huge rooms to live in as long as we like is surely amazing. It took them two days to transport them and set them up. One is our bedroom which is pretty large, the other a lounge room and the third is a kitchen/bathroom.

 We had to rearrange the back yard a bit to fit them in but we are thinking about buying them off our friend and making it a permanent cottage for guest, sounds good hey!

We had a neighbour come up with his tractor to move these big boys together and put them on supports

I will be posting more upto date photos of the demountables and how we have set ourselves up while we build later on. Hubby wants to make ourselves comfortable while we rebuild.
We have been pulling down the old house in pieces so I will be posting about that in the next few days and I want to tell you about the two dairy goats I bought a few weeks ago, I'm so excited and guess what they are both in kid, more of that to come. I'm so glad I can now post again I have so much to put on here my head is going to explode.

Meet Bentley

Hi Everyone, I would like you to meet Bentley. Bentley is my 4th grandbaby and my youngest daughters first baby. It was Jess and Bentley that were home alone on the night the fire broke out in the roof. Bentley was laying in his bouncer on top of the kitchen table in front of the fire playing with his turtle and Jess went out to get more wood for the fire. As she return she looked up and saw flames coming from the laundry roof and ran frantically inside scooping up Bentley, rang tripple "0" and ran out the door screeming for help while running down the street.

Our next door neighbours, Nick and Hendo were packing to go away, Hendo was outside packing the car and thought he heard a fox screaming and it wasn't until he took off his beanine that he could hear Jess screaming. Hendo looked across to our property and he could clearly see our house now in flames, he yells out to Jess if she had the baby, Jess screams back that she had. I know my heart beat skipped when Jess told me about this. Nick and Hendo jump in their car and raced to our house and Jess continued running down the road with Bentley in her arms to another neighbours house. We live near a village so there a few neighbours in the street but this night most of them were either out or had gone away, Jess went to a neighbours house banging on the door but no one was not home, their door was unlocked so Jess went in and grabed a sheet to wrap Bentley in because it was the coldest day on record for the month.

By this time the the call for tripple "0" had reached our local fire department and the firemen (our neighbours/farmers) are called out, the fire trucks are in our village next door to the house Jess was in at present. When one of the neighbours received the call for the fire and was getting in his car his to go his wife heard Jess out in the street in distress and went to her aid and took her and Bentley inside out of the cold.

Jess's partner by this time was on his way home and he said when he came around the corner and saw the flames coming out of the house he couldn't believe his eyes.
TO BE CONTINUED........

The Day We Will Not Forget!

May the 11th is a day we will probably not forget, it was the day my daughter was home alone with her baby and the house caught fire and after ringing tripple 0 ran down the street screaming for help.

Life has been busy and I haven't had time to keep my blog upto date but now I would like to over the next few months share the day the fire devour our house, the amazing people who came to our rescue, our neighbours and friends who have shown love, generosity and their time through the last few weeks, our Church family who have prayed and supported us. Another thing I would like to share is the demolishing and rebuilding of our house as well as our lives.

Time for a Break!

Bentley's hearing test, how cute

I'm really sorry for those who occasionally look on my blog especially friends and relatives, but I have been so busy with running a business, church life, the farm, my poor neglected veggie patch, running an every increasing household and enjoying my little six week old grandson who just had his first lot of immunisation needles today :( but he is fine and will probably sleep (hopefully) well tonight.

I'm not sure when I will be back full time on my blog, I have a lot of photos to down load of our extension and renovations. I usually show off my vegetable garden but it is not happening at the moment, but I will be getting it ready for a winter crop. I would like to get the paddocks ready for lambing this season as we should be getting a lot of lambs, which I am hoping to take a lot of photos of.

My daughters partner is a mechanic and now has his own work shop of the farm and has been working on his 4WD, which he loves and loves to take visitors 4 wheel driving all around our 100 acre property in. Maybe a video of that would be good:)