Updates and Musings

From the inception of my writing about our family's journey homesteading, I have enjoyed sharing our life with you. I appreciate your encouragement, comments, and suggestions. Visiting with you brightens my day and keeping this record has been beneficial for keeping me motivated to continue to make improvements. Every day I learn something new. I do not compile and regurgitate other people's writings, though I do certainly pass along information with convenient links to sites that I have found helpful and think you will enjoy. This blog website has never been set up to be a "how to" type of site where I share a self-proclaimed vast base of wisdom. Rather, I share our personal experiences with you. Sometimes they are successful, sometimes there is loss, but always, always I open our lives to share with you. I hope that you find encouragement to tackle projects of interest in your life, that you laugh along with us in joy and learn from some of our mistakes so you don't face the same heartaches as we sometimes endure.

Today's post was going to be a simple update about our littles, Molly and Samson. But, as I was sorting images and editing video, thinking of what I wanted to share about Molly's progress with her training, I realized something important had happened in the past two weeks. I have been working hard training Molly, but she had been training me right back. How? Among other lessons, Molly is teaching me to stop working, to look up, and enjoy playing a little.

See, I can be a little, shall we say, "obsessive". This can be a good thing. I tend to be driven. I work hard when I have a task in front of me. I plan things to the Nth degree and then WORK my tail off to achieve the results I want. I hate to say, "No, I can't." because in my heart I believe I can help out and do whatever is asked of me, whether that is realistic assessment or not. I often take on more than I should. I confess, there are times that HOURS pass with me working diligently on a project. Engrossed, I forget everything else. I get so focused and caught up on what I am doing, I forget physical necessities, like eating. Sean comes home and only then do I notice my back aching from bending over my work all day. It can be good to be focused, but balance is wanted. I am working on it. And, THAT is where Molly enters the picture.

Caring for a young puppy forces me to stop what I am doing every couple of hours, to get up, move about and refocus. Molly needs to go outside every couple hours for a few minutes, which means I have to go outside every couple hours. Molly eats 3-4 times each day, which means I am reminded to have a little something to eat through the day, also. And, Molly needs to exercise and play. She needs to learn and be trained to behave acceptably. I have to stop what I am working on and focus on her. I've only had her for 2 weeks, but such a difference she is making in my life. It seems MY training is coming along just fine.

How is Molly's training progressing? I am happy to report that Molly is very nearly completely house trained. She always goes to the door to be let outside. And, she whines to let us know what she needs. The only accident that happened this week was due to human error. We fed her and then got distracted by the phone and failed to catch her cue in time. We were a full week without accidents until Monday night. Yesterday was accident free, so we'll start our count again. Molly comes when called for about 75% of the time, on the first call. She always eventually comes, but sometimes it takes more than one command of "Molly, Come." We are still perfecting that. This week, I started playing catch and retrieve with her. It took a couple days, but now that she has the hang of the game, she is progressing nicely. I taped a short snippet of us plaing this morning to share:



This video is a perfect example of Molly training me. Notice the soap making supplies on the table and the cleaner. I was in the midst of cleaning the kitchen to prepare for soap making. I still worked, but taking 10 minutes to play catch and bask in Molly's fun added to my joy. Such a little thing, but so important.

As promised, I have some images of Samson to share with you, too. Samson is spending all day with his Momma and they are doing much better. Ellie, Abby, and Sam are all staying in our "milk room" for now. We moved our milk stands upstairs into storage back in December, so our trio has a nice airy place to be. We won't be milking for a couple more weeks and keeping them in this area is convenient.


Abigail is still not 100% on board with being Samson's Momma, but she is allowing him to nurse. His dropping have changed from the tar-like meconium to more goat-like specimens and I observed him urinating twice today. That, coupled with his energy level, are good signs that Samson is thriving. Sean and I go to the barn every couple hours to check on things. These are some images I captured from when I checked on them earlier this morning.

I appreciate your visiting with us today. Thanks for stopping by.

~Sonja ♥