With all of our goats dry (not milking), we’ve had a little bit of extra time this year. We’re certainly missing the raw milk, but we are grateful for the opportunity to think about the coming months and year and how we may be able to accomplish more next year than this one. If not even for the chance to plan, this rest from milking was realistically even necessary – we went from having 3 boys who could eat, use the bathroom and get dressed on their own to having 4 boys, one of which cannot do any of the aforementioned tasks. We are so blessed to have Peter, but there is a season for everything, and right now, he is our season!

So, in the free moments we have (ha) we’ve been doing things to have better gardens next year. And on our property, that means clearing brush. But clearing brush is not fun! Goats, peach trees, hatching eggs, maple sugaring – now those things are fun! I know, I know, but unfortunately, we have to do ‘not fun’ things so that we can do other things that are fun. So much of the woods behind us is a tangled web of fallen trees and branches that are further strung together by vines of poison ivy and wild grape that we actually have very little for workable land. Goats love poison ivy, but we have to make it easier for them to get to it. The photo sitting as the header for this post is the path I’ve started. It doesn’t look like much yet, but after having the goats through to eat up all the brush along the way it will better take shape.

To be sure, I’ve had to cut down very few trees to make this happen – most of this is just clearing out the vines, removing dead wood and occasionally cutting down a couple of saplings. Anything that can’t be gotten with either pruning shears or a hatchet I’ve let be.

The extra time I’ve had hasn’t just been spent working outside, there’s also been more time that’s been spent on reading and researching on how to start future projects. Consequently, this has been my bedside reading as of late:

I know, I know. As a proponent of the backyard goat I’m almost ashamed to admit that I’ve been reading this. To be sure, anything of the bovine nature is out of the question for at least a few years (for reasons of economics, logistics and otherwise), but reading this book has nevertheless been fun.

Is a cow in our future? I don’t know. I’d like to think so. I think I’m still smarting from the fact that out of our two milking goats this year neither of them turned out well. The idea of having 1 cow to milk to get 4-6 gallons of milk a day instead of multiple goats is tempting. If that sounds like a lot of milk, I assure you it is not. The six of us can go through a gallon a day between drinking and baking, and if we want cheese, yogurt or butter, well, it winds up being a lot more milk than you might think.

As wonderful as it all sounds, there’s a lot more to take into consideration. A cow would need a much larger fenced in area, a way to keep 30-50 gallons of drinking water unfrozen in our climate, and some way to manage the manure. Goat manure is small, dry and odorless. Cow manure is… not.

Still, in having some extra time on my hands it’s been fun to read about. We will be sticking with the goats for the time being and are thankful for them. Half the fun is daydreaming about future endeavors anyway, so we’ll enjoy that part of homesteading for now.