Goodbye to the goats, what's from the garden and dehydrating

Spent some time this morning at my friend's homestead.  She teaches me to spin wool. She has alpaca and llamas. She also owns Felonious and Peppy, two of our old goats.  We stayed to say hello to them. 

My heart is broken. The goats have gone to a new home to be pets for someone a couple of towns over. I love goats. I am married to an old farmer who believes we can't afford freeloaders. I understand and he was kind and gentle about it... hugging me as I cried when, even Angelo, was loaded up....saying, "Honey, you knew this was going to happen and this man just wants something for his new property and kids."  I love Angelo but Dude says he has gotten mean to Wilbur , our wool ram (CVM Rommeldale), ramming him and taking him to the ground and then stomping him. Plus it gets expensive raising nonproducing animals, especially when someone else want them.  Our goal is to raise sheep and wool ...not goats.  Dude can no longer eat the animals he raises other than chicken and turkeys... birds. We will expand the gardens plus we still raise bees. I understand but it still is so very hard. I stayed in the house and cried, unable to say goodbye. About the only thing making it okay is they were going to a place basically to be lawn art and eat the weeds, people want the appearance of homesteading. The gentleman was kind enough to say we could come visit anytime.

Wilbur spent the day looking for them and calling out. He sounded like the ghost of Christmas past calling out for Billy Blues and Mrs. Periwinkle. Finally he settled in with the horses.

He stayed for a bit taking in a few good hugs.

We will be looking for a wife for him. 

One day a year we are allowed to work from home to finish up yearend work. 

It was unusually warm today so I chose to work outside. It was wonderful and it' amazing how much you can get done without distractions.

The mint is still growing in this warm weather so I made a drink of cranberries and mint. 

The rest of the cranberries went into the dehydrator. Some of them will stay dried fruit and others ground to a powder.

Dinner was hamburgers and spinach and hard boiled egg salad.

I am still harvesting mint. 

Late evening snack... popcorn topped with melted butter and dill pickle powder (made from pickles we dehydrated last month). I will save a bit to take to work tomorrow. 

peace