Dis-L-Do Homestead: Dinners, Vet home call, farm sisters, and a new farm visit

Do you have a drawer like this? Seems every time I go to the store I get one of those packages that make life easier. The only thing is I don't use them. So this week I decided to start to using them. I always need something fast and easy...especially this week.

Here was last night.

I had all these wonderful veggies just waiting to be used in the refrigerator.

They turned out marvelous. Dude gave it two thumbs up. It was super quick and easy.

Today, I had to get out of the house early so I thought something for the crockpot would work wonders, and it did. We made chicken noodle soup. You hardly need anything for this one. Just water, chicken, carrots, celery an onion and noodles ...oh and along with the packet.

We began the day early around 8:30am. The veterinarian came over to give our goats a physical and shots. Our vet is great but what animal doctor isn't?

Peppy was first. She came out with good marks. We won't know the results of the CL (tumors) until next week. Fingers crossed it is negative. We don't have any reason to think it would be anything but negative.

Next up was the big boy...Angelo. He has beautiful teeth.

But then he was given his de-wormer shot. He cried like a baby. He has to go on a diet. He won't be happy about that!

Dude smoothed it all over. Angelo just wanted a kiss.

Then I ran over to our farm-sisters meeting to make toffee. Ohmy it was grand.

The recipe is from one of the farm sisters' college home EC book.

The stove was going nonstop as we made at least 6 batches.

Perfect!

In between batches of toffee we talked fleece and yarn. Sunny, the farm sister you see here, raises her own alpacas, spins and dyes her fleece as well. She is teaching me a lot.

This is one of the shawls she is making.

Then the best part of my day was when we went to Boulder to check out a horse Dude was interested in. The owners were so awesome. They had a homestead and home they have been remodeling. The home was build in the 1870 and walls were of stone. They were so generous with their time and the information they have collected along the way.

We drove up to their drive and gate that was decorated with giant Christmas ornaments and tinsel. There property was surround by trees and there was still snow and ice on the ground from the recent storm. They are nestled up against the foothill. I am sure the mud and muck in the spring is replaced with beautiful green lush grass.

Here is the horse we are looking into purchasing... not sure why she was sticking her tongue out. She is 14.2 hands tall. She is a registered paint.

The other horses did not like her or get along with her so they stayed away from her. (see the way the larger horse's ears are pinned back? Yeah, they don't like each other.)

His guinea hens mocked us from the roof behind us. They had guineas and regular hens along with a rooster. They also had miniature horses and angora rabbits along with sheep.

Then he showed me what he fed his horses and sheep. It is grass he grows himself from seeds to sprouts. The seeds are sold cheap. It was just such a cool outfit. He was a wealth of information.

Here is the result. His horses love the stuff.

He also gets hops from local breweries to feed to his sheep.

The visit was so fun. I didn't want to leave but we still had one more place to visit. We still need a Christmas tree. We only like live potted trees to plant later but with our well water the only tree recommended are Austrian Pine. The pickings are slim. We will look again tomorrow.