The New Family Member is a Goat

We heard a knock on our door last evening, and when we opened it, we found our VERY EXCITED daughter-in-law Katie, son Kevin, and......... a baby goat.

 

The baby goat had been born at our neighbor's goat farm just a few short hours earlier, and the mama was unable to feed him. Normally, on our neighbor's goat farm, the girl goats get names, but the boy goats don't, because they all get sold.

 

But that's not stopping Katie, who promptly named this particular boy goat Teddy.

 

 

George got down on the floor to play with the goat, and they ended up head-butting. Must be a guy thing.

 

Teddy had eaten just a little from his mama, but it didn't appear he would get any more, so once they showed him off, they took him home to feed. Or try to feed. When we went to their house a little later, they had Teddy in their kitchen, trying to bottle feed him, with no luck.



Teddy was crying but was refusing the bottle. George and I found the situation very amusing. We told the newlyweds this is nothing - just wait till that baby is their own human newborn! Anyone who has had the blessing of caring for a newborn knows the helplessness of a screaming baby!

 

George (who grew up raising sheep) jumped in to help. But Teddy still wanted nothing to do with that bottle. (though he did think our daughter Jessica's fingers looked promising)

 

 

Finally, both Kevin and Teddy fell asleep. And George told Katie that Teddy would eat when he got hungry enough. Which would more than likely be in the middle of the night.

 

Sure enough, at 12:24 AM, Kevin sent this text to his sister:

He woke us up crying, drank almost 8 oz milk and wanted more, peed twice soaking up 10 paper towels, pooped once, and now won't quit crying because he wants to play.

 

Hee hee. Welcome to "parenthood".

 

And this may be just the beginning. Kevin and Katie own a VERY PREGNANT goat name Faith who should be delivering any day now. And by the looks of her, she at least has twins.

 

Keep that milk bottle coming!

Snowmen Insulators

Need proof that snowmen can be painted on anything?

I present snowmen insulators!

These are the old glass insulators that used to be on telephone poles.

 

When my sister saw the above photo on my Facebook page,
 she commented that I should paint some with black hats.

  So I did.

 

The second one from the left in the front row reminds me of something,

and at first, I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

 

Then it hit me........

Keystone Cops!

 

Please tell me I'm not the only one who sees it!

 

 

Shipping box snowman surprise

Look what I found when I started cutting open a box on a recent order:

Someone (probably in the shipping department) had drawn a snowman on the outside of the box with a sharpie.

It made me smile to think of someone anonymously spreading their Christmas cheer, one shipping box at a time.

It truly is the little things in life!

Sawmill slab pine trees

When we bought a sawmill a couple years ago, we planned on using it to cut lumber. Kinda obvious, don't ya think?

That's our son Kevin, the first time he used the mill. Timber is in his blood. His Grandpa owned and operated a business that included selling and repairing chainsaws, and he also heated his home most of his life with the firewood he cut each year. Kevin's PapPap had his own sawmill, selling lumber as a side business. Kevin's love of the woods and timber runs deep in his veins.

Anyway, as I was saying, we bought a sawmill to cut lumber. And lumber it does indeed cut. But we're finding some other uses, besides strictly 2x4's, or 1x8's.

 

If you picture a log, it's round. Those rounded edges have to be cut off to square up the log.

 

Some of the slabs are just right for cutting pine trees! It's hard to see in the photos, but each tree is somewhat rounded on the front, making each tree very unique.

The 2 trees in the above photo are very thick. So thick we couldn't cut them with our band saw, or even a saber saw. George ended up cutting them with a chain saw!

 

 We let the slabs dry out for over a year, and the bark dried out and fell off most of them, but we had a few pieces with the bark intact. It may fall off eventually, but that will just reveal the smooth wood underneath.

 

 

The scraps were big enough to make some small trees. No two are alike, it just depends on the curve of the wood.

 



 

This grouping of trees is in the display window, and shows the size variation. These range from 3 or 4 inches to a couple feet in height.

 

                           

As they are using the mill, George keeps an eye out for slabs with "tree potential". Surely there will be a few that work in this pile!

 



Scraps and more scraps

What do you do with some scraps of wood, and some scraps of an old cutter quilt?

 

Well....... I made a snowman family.

 

And what do you do with scraps from an old chenille bedspread?

 



  Well......... I made them into trees.

  So many scraps, so little time.