Gardens and Goats

Well, here goes! I am officially taking the plunge into the blogosphere!

I am off for the month of May from my job teaching Oral and Written Expression at Thiel College in Greenville, Pa. I hope to be back in June teaching summer school, but so far only one student has signed up for my class. In the meantime, I am trying to get the garden in.

I spent the day in the greenhouse. A few days ago, I transplanted tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, broccoli, and bok choi . Today I started squashes, melons and cucumbers. Emily and I will start some flowers this weekend.

On Tuesday, I spent the day rearranging the milking area so we can start using the electric milking machine we purchased recently. My husband has arthritis and he can't milk be hand anymore, so we bought a milker on ebay. Before we can use it we needed to put in a cabinet to hold it. This meant moving the milking stand.

I never realized how conservative goats can be. Bonnie, usually the first in line to be milked, absolutely refused to go anywhere near the milking stand in its new location. She dug in her heels and wouldn't go near it. Sarah didn't have any problem that day, but Bonnie still refused on Wednesday morning and then Sarah wouldn't get in either.

By Wednesday night, Bonnie was in agony and we managed to lift her bodily into the milking stand. After that, she's hopped right up, but I think I will wait a couple of days before springing the electric milker on her. If she doesn't like it when I move the milking stand three feet, the milker is really going to weird her out!