Wild Moon Cottage is a small working homestead in the pristine Ozark Mountains. We have dairy goats, poultry, organic herb and vegetable gardens, a start of a tiny fruit orchard, several black walnut trees, wild berries and fields of wildcrafting goodness. We raise our own milk, our own eggs, much of our own medicine and food. I do laundry by hand, make my own vinegar, candles, soap, bread, cheese ........ For a living I am an artist and herbalist. My goal for myself and our homestead is to be as self sufficient and self sustaining as possible.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

8.15.10

Only in the upper 80's today but more humid because of the hovering storms that seemed to have been dammed up. We had a tiny bit of rain last night I think, just enough to wet my milking chair. Wish i would have thought to check it before sitting in it.


All the goats are showing improvement (I'll post later what it is and what I'm using to treat them) but our poor old Anya is showing it much less and much slower than the others. Poor Thistle (the Typhoid Mary who infected everyone) is doing very well. I had dried her off right away but she's still producing so I started milking again. We'll not use the milk until I'm positive she's completely healthy but maybe she'll replace Anya as milker for awhile. I dried Anya off before we left because I didn't have anyone who was willing or able to milk for us. She is doing a bit better but not nearly as well as I wish she was. The others are at varying stages but all seem fine otherwise.


We lost almost the entire vegetable garden during the 5 days gone. Everything is dried up and brown. I've lost herbs this year to the heat that are usually quite hardy in the heat of summer. The Chamomile and Jasmine are all gone but for the tiniest bit of wik still in the Jasmine's lowest vine. What corn survived whatever knocked it all down is now brown and burned away. It almost looks like the garden was set on fire.


Next year, there's always next year.


For Family Feast (Sunday dinner) I've made a roast chicken (natural but not one of ours) on a bed of rice with ground chili peppers, garlic, onion, cayenne, cracked red, white, green & black pepper corns, a pinch of cornmeal and the juice of two very small Roma tomatoes. With that there is homemade bread (made yesterday) and canned corn from last year with sweet butter.


We are so very blessed. Blessed to have this food, to have made it home safely, that the goats are improving and in more ways I can count or ever comprehend.

1 comment:

Granny Sue said...

You have had a rough month, my friend. Perhaps now you will be able to begin renewing yourself. We can fix others so much more easily than we can ourselves, as you know. Blessings to you and Nic.