​Over the last year I have been through a lot!  First, as you all know my mom passed away from Covid.  Next, mom's computer crashed about a week after she passed away, so for the past year ever time dad needed a label I had to dig through the wreckage or create a new one to the best of my ability as quickly as possible.  Sometimes it was hey I can't find a recipe.  OK the labels were not hard to do, but the recipe, oh my how am I ever going to figure this out?  I have never got to help mom do any of this, nor did I really want to.  It was her thing I had my job and family.  Lesson learned mom; you taught me a lot even after your gone.  Pay attention to what other family members care about, you never know what changes are coming.  Anyways, I found the recipes over the last year, and had to interpret some of the scratches I saw.  I think I found every recipe now, and I think I have a label for everything.  After getting that started, I took over making the soaps and anything that falls under the bath and body products tab on the website.  So yes, I was making products and looking for all these things at the same time.  I had no idea what kind of task this all would entail!  Trying to juggle family, work, finding labels and recipes, and making these products some days have been over whelming.  I am thankful dad kept doing the honey, beer bread, cheesecakes, wine mixes, and spices because there is no way I could have done that too.  Kris has been the beekeeper; he owns all the hives right now.  Now that brings us to today.  I have constantly asked God how I am to keep up with everything going on, he gave me an answer I didn't expect.  The company I work for decided to close the facility I work at and gave us all a severance package.  I am going to see what I can do to make this business take off and grow so I can make this a full family business.  God blesses people in ways they don't expect and sends them down paths they wouldn't normally go.  So, to wrap everything up here, people have seen some stagnant things happening with the website, it has not been watched as well as it should have.  I am truly sorry for that; I don't fully understand website management yet.  I didn't have time to take care of it because the core business was the most important thing to conquer first.  Now the website is getting looked at.  I did find I can't do as much as I want to with it yet, but I can still make some major changes that will appeal to people.

Yes I woke up to a little bit more snow.  April Fools I know.  Just a tease this morning to let us know we live in Iowa and that the weather can change in a instant.  There is not enough snow out there that it will be gone when the sun rises high in the sky.  The weather a bit cooler.  
As I look out my kitchen window I see the horses grazing out back and 4 deer at the corner of the timber.  I know it won't last today, but I am tired of snow and now mud from the melting snow.
During the last month, I have sold all of my older baby goats and have 2 more new ones who arrived during the last month. On 3/11/2013 The little black roan doe was born.  She was tiny but oh so cute.  On 3/23/2013 the brown spotted buck was born.  He was a big guy as big as the 12 day old doeling.  They don't have names yet.  I kind of name them on personalities. Even though she is a purebred Nubian she seems to have more airplane ears that fly as she runs around the barn yard.  They both are now running around and kicking up their heals running and jumping. (The picture below is shortly after he was born and still getting his legs under him)
The chickens have really begun to lay now.  I get at least 12 eggs every day and  occasionally I have gotten as many as 21 so some days a few are sluffing off their duties.  Can't wait until I can plant my garden and the farmers markets to start.  

It is now 2 in the afternoon and the sun is shining and all the new snow is gone..  The bees have been flying the last few days.  I checked them and found a couple of more dead hives yesterday.  Not sure why they died as I didn't tear them apart yet, but they still had plenty of honey. 




Since I have sold the older kids earlier this month, I now am milking and making soap each day to get ahead for sales this year. I made lemongrass and mint and cactus flower Friday and am making another batch of Red Clover Tea today.  Also have a few lotion bars to make along with running low on lip balm. 
Our son who is in Afghanistan called last night, was good to hear from him.  Hopefully will make it back her sometime in August safe and sound.  Well have a good month and I will try to update you on what is going on around here next month.

March 1st and will it come in like a Lion or a Lamb. 
Last Thursdays snow storm was minimal for all the attention the weather men and women were saying.  Major snow storm coming we didn't know if we were to get 10 or 20 inches ( we live in the 20 inch prediction and only 4-5 came.  Now on Monday they predicted a mere 1-3 inches and received around 10 here.  No snow predicted for today, but it is snowing again. We will wait to see the amount we get.

The chickens have finally begun to lay again so I have eggs for sale again. Still have 3 goats to kid.  The 2 young ones have udders swelling, I am not sure of their due dates so it is a daily checking now.  Hope it warms up before they kid. 

The last warm days all but one of my hives were flying, 1 loss is not bad, hopefully the rest will be ok when the next warm days appear.  This is the time of the year bees starve to death because of cold weather they can't move over to more stores of honey and also the queen is laying and more mouths to feed.  We need to make sure they have plenty of honey left, if not we feed them emergency feed of sugar until the dandilions bloom and the willows put out their pollen.
Still snowing now ( flurries they say) we will see what we get.