It's raining!

The littlest gal is sleeping, Kali is researching the rainiest places on earth, and Jason is reading a chapter (we'll see if he sticks to just one) of the book he got stuck in on our vacation and I recently picked up for him at the library so he could finish it. I just rescued the laundry from the line as thunder rumbled all around and it started dumping as Kali and I were folding it. The new planting of beans and peas should be happy, and I feel a little silly for carrying 8 watering cans of water to them this morning!

It seems a good time to at least introduce the newest Tangly Woods' members. As a bit of a backdrop to this post, I must note that I still have a big knot in the pit of my stomach as I think of trying to catch our blog up to date. I am typing from a new computer and the pictures I feared were lost by my recent computer crash were in fact saved! However, yesterday as I was getting this new computer set up to download pictures, I inadvertently lost 199 of the 200 files I was intending to import from our camera card (complete with the last few days of our Maine trip and seeing family on the way back, getting our goats and recent fun times with visiting family). Jason's perspective on the mishap is much healthier than mine. I realize, with some remorse, that my eldest has a good dose of me in her as I staged a pretty tried and true meltdown (behind closed doors with Jason as my only witness) with some rather fatalistic thinking. I recognized in myself what I see at times in her - a real challenge in letting things go that we really can't do anything about. No amount of crying or stomping or berating myself was going to get those files back. And, no, we were not going to try to recreate any of the situations from which those photos were taken. So I had a good chance to think about my own reactions to the relatively minor unfortunate twists and turns of life (or in this case clicks on a computer) and am clearly still working on it since I still feel grouchy just sitting down to the computer. Surprisingly, Kali wasn't mad at me and didn't even get upset, especially once I clarified that I had not lost ALL our photos (her worry was about pictures from when she first got her ducks). So today still won't be the Maine trip posting - if there ever is one.

It seems important that not too much time pass before Oreo, Cookie Dough and Brownie make a debut on the blog. They are pretty cute and all of us are enjoying having them around. I will admit to being the one that is probably the most "bothered" by them - bothered in a maternal kind of way in that their cries do a similar thing in me to that of a baby - a very strong urge wells up in me to make it stop! So the fact that Brownie in particular lets a cry out about every time we step out the door of the house may get a little old. So far the girls are loving feeding them autumn olive branches and other treats, and they are happy to oblige them by gobbling them up. Alida is getting more and more confident being with them, no longer trembling with an excited nervousness when they approach her and saying, "I'm scared!...are they going to eat me?" Now it is hard to get her to leave after a short visit.

So here they are!  It won't take a rocket scientist to figure out which name goes with who.  We decided to leave them with the names they came with, as it seemed pretty clear that they were already somewhat familiar with them.  There is plenty of bonding going on and so I imagine this blog will include future posts as we all work out the role of goats long term on our homestead! For now they are enjoying doing just what we hoped they would like doing - eating lots of brush!  Just as soon as we get collars, we will be showing them all the tastiest poison ivy spots on the property that we hope they will assist in relegating to history!  It's been very hard to let beautiful handfuls of wineberries go, due to them being surrounded by poison ivy (as good as they are, it just isn't worth it).

And especially not worth it when we enjoyed a family wineberry picking outing yesterday with friends, that made our small patches seem rather puny.  There are 7 quart containers stuffed full in the freezer along, and Alida helped me put away several new batches of wineberry jam on the root cellar shelves this morning. It's that time of year where the shelves start to fill with color and the ratio of empty jars to full ones begin the fun shift!