A long post

 On Friday we got a load of hay. We ended up getting 25 bales (that is what fit in the trailer that my parents lent us). We were hoping to get more, but 25 bales will last us a long time. We got it from a place in Riverton, although in the future we might get some hay from a place in Highland that we recently saw because it would be less driving. The big question is how much would the hay cost (the current hay is costing $9 a bale (which is good for the Salt Lake City area), and is very good quality)

I took it home and stacked it up in the car port. it ended up stacking clear to the roof (which means that if we had gotten more we would have had a hard time storing it).

As a side note, I discovered that you want to get hay from the second crop of the year because it is better for goats.

All last week I had been working on building a manger for the goats. I finished it Thursday and the goats have been enjoying it ever since. One benefit of the new manger is that it conserves hay, and another one is that it is large enough and sturdy enough that the goats are not likely to damage it (like they have with everything else I have ever made for them)

I built it after looking at pictures here. I have plans drawn up, so if anyone wants to know exactly how I built it feel free to ask. I had to make some modifications to keep the chickens from climbing up on top of it, but anyone with any chicken-fu would have been able to come up with any number of solutions.

Timothy woke up 7 times last night. Either he is sick, or he is having one heck of a growth spurt.

We got some food storage from my parents when their basement flooded (a little), and we decided to put it under the girl's beds. The girls really thought that that was fun (having big beds like mom and dad), and it was a good place to store the food, so we are considering it an all around success.

We also decided that we needed to do something about the milk that we have been flooded with. We made 4 lbs of feta on Saturday and still had three gallons of milk left over. I put up an add on KSL for non-culinary goat milk and got a buyer. We sold the milk for $3 a gallon (which was a great deal for the buyer), but the goal of getting rid of the milk was also fulfilled. We are going to save all the money we make from goat milk sales and do something fun with it.

We still have two gallons left (the goats make more milk every day), but we are going to make a 2 lb mozzarella and that should take it down to nothing again.

If anyone wants some feta (of some goat milk for that matter) come on over and we will hook you up. You can make soap out of our goat milk without the FDA killing me, and we drink the stuff (and make cheese and yogurt out of it) and the milk has not ever gotten us sick. If you want to trade vegetables or fruit from your garden that would even be better.

Last night for dinner we made some random Indian flavored food (it ended up being an Indian spiced stir fry with chicken, chick peas, pork, and paneer). We drank sweet lassi that I made, and also ate some moong dal halwa (we did not use this recipe) for dessert. It was a pretty fun meal that we made at a whim.

Alison has been going to a conference for three days for a homeschooling program that is called "classical conversations". She is thinking about enrolling our kids in it. She really likes the idea of classical education, and this community would be helpful to her in training them in it. The grandparents have been watching the girls while she went to it.

This week we also made a obi for Alison's kimono. For those who do not know, an obi is a wide cloth belt/sash that decoratively holds the kimono together (though it really doesn't do anything). We tried to make it long enough to wrap around a few times in the traditional method, but it needed to be longer, since I had no idea how long to make it. Either way, it is able to be tied, but not in the traditional knot.

Alison (as always) looks very cute in it.

Sara walked up to me last week and blew in my hair and said "Daddy, the wind is blowing!". She is so cute. She loves to "wrestle" with me (which means that I grab her and scream "wrestle!" and roll around on the bed/ground with her).

Rea has been such a good big sister to her siblings recently. She helps Sara out when she is having a hard time, and she tries to comfort baby Timothy when he is sad. Last night she helped clean up the entire front room and kitchen (after my third birthday party) and even offered to help dry the dishes.

Rea has been swimming most days this last week with Max. Both of them are learning to swim very well. They can both float on their backs, and they put their faces in and kick their way through the water. Sheila and Alison have been amazed at their progress.

We have been trying to get a picture of Timothy smiling, (as he has just begun to smile for real, but it has proven to be very difficult.)