Clearing and Cleaning

Yesterday, Percy worked at clearing off the garden. He gathered all the dead grass into piles to burn. They burned all through the night, filling our house with smoke. We all smell like we’ve been camping.

I spent the morning cleaning out the duckling pen. Shawn and Seth helped. We’ve been using wood chips for their bedding. It should serve nicely as mulch now.

Sadly, the neighbor’s pigs came over and rooted up my new flower bed, destroying the tea bed, also. I was pretty upset about it, but I’m trying to hold stuff with an open hand.

The lecheros took their cows away again. They’ll be gone for more than a month. But they left their pigs here to roam free. Of course, the pigs refuse to stay in their acres and acres of pasture. They want our stuff. It’s a frustration.

I took Steph to town. Anne had a filling a few months ago that has been bothering her lately. Steph took her in to get it checked out. It had to be redone, poor girl.

In the afternoon, the children and I cleaned out the bodega. I am always astonished at how messy it gets in such a short amount of time. The children are getting very handy at putting things back in order quickly.

Magog went running off with a group of dogs after a female in heat and came back the next day limping, bleeding, and stinking. He was very muddy and simply smelled foul. So, I gave him his first bath. He didn’t like it at first, but he settled down. He smells heaps better.

We had a short rain and a lovely rainbow in the evening. We haven’t had heavy rain in about a week, which is unusual. Percy says this year has been different with lots more snow on the mountains and less rain in the valleys.

Milking is taking longer now with ten goats in production. We have lots of milk. Steph is working at making it into cheese and yogurt, which I hope will sell at market this Friday. We’re going to give it a try at Inquilpata and see what happens.