...and on his farm he had some...goats

All week the girls have been picking blackberries from our bush in the back. We've been saving them for today to make a big blackberry crisp. They had a huge bowl full of berries...and there are many, many more berries to come. We just read up on freezing them - the girls want to freeze them so we can have some to make a berry pie for Grandpa John when he comes!

Working hard as a family on a home for our chickens, turkey and goats. Sadie is working especially hard.
Nate worked hard playing with this bag of nails. Earlier in the project, it was a box of nails that Nate dumped out, and then filled over and over. Don't worry, I sat with him so he didn't eat one or poke his eye out. I was thouroughly entertained watching Nate play with nails. I could have sat there for hours watching his little mind so wrapped up in filling this box of nails...and then quickly dumping it out to start over again. He was sooooooooo happy shaking this bag of nails. He thought he was so funny, too!

Sadie working hard again - trying out the chicken door.

Of course, we had to celebrate our day of getting a goat with goat cheese. I was pretty excited about our "fresh" lunch. We got goat cheese that morning from a farmer's market (from a lady who milks her goats and makes the cheese), tomatoes from our neighbors' garden, and basil leaves from someone at church. It would have topped it all off if I made the bread...but I didn't.
Dave worked hard all week on this project. Every night after dinner and then he worked til all of the light was gone. Dave worked all day Saturday, and by 8:00 that night, it was ready (Dave still wants to do a few finishing touches to make it look nicer, but the animals could be fenced in, and that was the important part!). The left side is for the chickens with a little door. The right side is for the goats. Meet...don't know her name yet. We're still working on it. We planned to get 2 boys, but the ones we looked at were too big (they were only half pygmy) so we decided on this 7 month old, and are getting another girl tomorrow. We had decided to NOT get a milking goat, but now we are a bit tempted to breed and make our own goat cheese. We'll see...
Nate about went nuts watching our new goat run around her little house. And then chickens running around everywhere...was about more than he can handle. I know most kids like animals...but I'm having a feeling that Nate just might be an animal lover like his dada (which name, I might add, Nate says. Hmmm...when will he say mama????)