I cannot believe summer is more than half way over. As always, there are a million things going on here from harvesting vegetables out of the garden to canning pumpkin puree (ALREADY?!), canning fruits, and blackberry harvest. I need to get my hands on a good food dehydrator before next spring. I’ve heard dehydrating food preserves the flavor much better than freezing (makes sense), especially for goat milk ice cream purposes. We’ve also tried our hand at soft cheese making quite a bit this year. Turns out its pretty easy! Next year we’ll probably work on some harder cheeses since we’ll be milking quite a few more does anyway.
I do have to say that I really enjoy picking blackberries. Our does seem to enjoy the process as well. The goats take a walk with me to the back of the property and eat the lower blackberry leaves and berries (if I dont pick them before they get to them) while I pick the berries higher along the fence line. Kind of a “kill two birds with one stone”. I pick the berries and they assist in keeping the vines behind the fence and from taking over the field. When picking berries, I feel like I’m doing the “one for me, one for you” with Karine. She’s so funny, and thanks to her, our other LGD Bo, has become MUCH more friendly. Karine will sit next to me while I pick berries and bat her big eye lashes, scooting closer to me with each berry I pick and each one I don’t give to her. The super squishy berries are generally the ones that don’t make it into the bucket (since they’re the best for straight eating and not the best to use for canning or freezing anyway). It seems Karine has an idea for which berries will make it into her mouth instead of the bucket also, because before I can even offer a berry to her, she has her mouth propped open to have one thrown in. You’d have to see it to appreciate how funny it is. Karine and Bo have also become masters at killing ground squirrels. They then pack the dead squirrels to the barn and “protect” the goats from the big bad dead ground squirrel. I’m still not sure how they do it. Every now and again I’ll watch them tree one and wait at the bottom of the oak tree for quite a while, but how the squirrel goes from being in the tree to dead is beyond me. Realistically, they should be too fast for the LGDs, but after dead squirrel #5, I think the dogs have a pretty good operation going on down there. Whatever keeps them busy in their down time 
Last month, we took the horses down to Pt Reyes for our annual trip. This time instead of staying at the Inn and Stables, we wanted to camp in Olema with the horses and ride over the mountain so we didn’t have to trailer everywhere. The first day, we took the horses directly to the beach since we arrived later in the afternoon, the second day we rode over the hill to the beach and back from camp then went home the third. What a blast! It was 60 degrees and freezing. Quite a difference from the 110 it’d been at home and really glad we took blankets for the horses. I’m sure it was a shock for them as well. We had a great time riding and spending time in town at the shops and restaurants but we really got a kick out of all of the wildlife. The first night we were there, Shane ran to town for some forgotten supplies while Stormie and I took a quick ride down by the creek. As usual, we diverted from the heavily used trail onto a smaller trail which turned into no trail at all. We were pretty close to camp but somehow got ourselves stuck in the creek bed and didn’t want to ride back through the poison oak the long way when we were sure to find a path “somewhere”. Sure enough, we managed to have the horses crawl up a side of the bank (riding 2 with 1 ponying behind) and back onto a dirt road. Right as we emerged from the creek, a very large doe stood about 5 feet from our horses casually chewing her cud.
As we rode back into camp, we noticed quite a few raccoons scurrying about (getting into the large trash bins) as well as a nosy
fox and other creatures of the sort. After riding the next day to the beach and back, we sat down for an early dinner when a fat raccoon came waddling out of the bushes. Mind you, it was still daylight, and as raccoons are nocturnal, were concerned about rabies or EPM etc. This was not the case. She simply wanted a piece of whatever we were eating. Feeding wildlife is normally a big”no no”, but this girl had been around the block, knew the secret, and I’m sure us not feeding her would have stopped her from begging at someone else’s camp. It was a pretty entertaining experience to say the least.
My sister decided to come up this past weekend and bring two of her horses with her to ride around and up in the mountains for the weekend. The same day, the guys were planning on going out back to go coyote hunting. Well it was more or less going out back to have a cold one as all of the horses we’re neighing at each other over the fence to the point where there was going to be nothing coming anywhere close to the house. Ah well. They had a good time as did Stormie and I riding in the field despite the high pitch whinnies carrying on.
On a last note- it is now breeding season for the goats. Our first does will be kidding the last week of January and on from there. Looks like we will have around 15-20 does kidding this year. Keep an eye out for the blogs of me pulling my hair out More does kidding means more milk, more cheese and more customers… in addition to more mouthes to feed and keep track of. We asked for it and we got it 
