No Spoiled Cats in Our Home

At lunch time today, we had home-made Goat’s milk Ice-Cream, and my cat simply loves Goat’s Milk Ice-Cream. His tongue grows almost double its length, and if you could only see the look on his face – he’s in pussycat heaven! He also loves Carrot Cake, roast goat and cheese, and even has his own chair - he’s sitting in it!

This is the cat that curled up underneath my hair and went to sleep the day that we picked him up, so I decided that he was the one that could come and live with us, and after we brought him home and he started to grow,  he bit and scratched anyone that dared come near him, and definitely didn’t like being held.

He is the one that was bitten by a brown snake and survived the assault, but also the one that ran away from a HUGE rat that my daughter’s cat, Moonlight, brought down for him. Moonlight was trying to teach Jeremiah how to catch rats and mice – I’m not sure that he ever did succeed.

He is the cat that sleeps on the end of my bed and keeps my feet wonderfully warm during the cold winter months, and believe me, it gets really cold here during winter – down to -8°C (yep, that’s minus eight!) during the depths of winter. During summer, he’s the one that hid under the bed every time that the ceiling fan was switched on, and would scratch, yell and cry like a baby if you took him anywhere near the ceiling fan when it was going.

He’s older and wiser now, and doesn’t mind the ceiling fans these days. When he arrives back from his nightly sojourns in the warmer summer months, he lines up for his bowl of fresh goats’ milk, and will sit and stare at you if you don’t take the hint.

He’s such a big softy these days, and very different from the little feral that we brought home.  He’s our 10½ kilogram bundle of adorable fluff – not a fat cat, just a gentle giant, and I love him to bits. There’s definitely no spoiled cats in our home!

Not a Bad Day’s Work, Eh?

This is the end result well, nearly the end result of our productive day collecting firewood – it’s going to keep us warm twice more – once when we stack it into the shed and then, finally, in the combustion fire. My son and husband went out to an abandoned farmhouse (with permission from the farmer) to cut firewood, and they came back with a trailer load of firewood. The wood that they cut is fallen wood – there are no trees felled during their wood-cutting expeditions.

After they arrived home, we had lunch, and then my husband put the wood through the sawbench, which saves using the chainsaw, and it is cheaper and quicker to run. He only has to sharpen the saw blade about every six to eight trailer loads, whereas the chainsaw needs to be sharpened every load. This is about a week and a half’s firewood for our home.

I think that the men folk have done an excellent day’s work, don’t you think? Praise our heavenly Father, for we are going to be warm this winter.

Highlights of Our Day

Today my daughter and I created a birthday card for one of our friends. Card-making is so much fun, and best of all, it can be included as a part of your homeschooling programme under design and technology, especially if you design the inside of the card using the computer and a programme such as MS Word.

After we had finished card-making and cleaning up, my daughter galloped off outside and came back in a short while later with some beautifully ripe blackberries, and she informed me that there are hundreds more on the vine that are nearly ripe. Praise God for His provision over us!

What was my son doing while we were otherwise occupied with card-making? He loves our bantam chickens with a passion, and he was out photographing them. The bantams are growing so quickly, and they love spending time in our back yard. He snapped a photo of them sitting near the grape vine – aren’t they ever so cute?

New Life Skills

Yippee! My husband is teaching our son new skills – skills that he will need when my husband has the much-needed operation on his knee. My son is learning how to milk our goats – Delilah, Jemimah, Ruth, Cleo, Deborah, Esther, Aquila and Priscilla. Praise God that we have the most patient goats, and they have been extremely tolerant of a novice milking them.

Some of our goats have tiny little teats and are difficult to milk, while others like Deborah, Aquila and Priscilla have wonderful teats for milking.  Priscilla is one of the most patient goats ever, and she has LOTS of milk. My daughter has also expressed a desire to learn how to milk, and her small hands would definitely be an advantage in milking some of our goats.

Today my husband and son went out to cut firewood, and they came back with a HUGE amount of firewood in the shortest time ever. What does my husband think of his new chainsaw? He ♥♥♥ it, as it makes the job of cutting wood so much easier, and my son loaded the trailer for him while he used the chainsaw.

My husband was going to show our son how to use the chainsaw, but we have a slight problem. The chainsaw is too heavy, and when you rev it up, it kicks back- maybe next year??? I love homeschooling, as there is so much to learn – new life skills everyday!

With the Dust…

There was a yell from my daughter, “Shut the windows – there’s a dust storm!” We couldn’t even see the paddock across the road, but we managed to shut the windows just in time to stop the dust from pervading every square inch of our home, and just as quickly as it started, it was over. With the dust comes the rain, and the temperature has dropped rather dramatically outside. Mmm, I love the smell of the rain on the stubbly paddocks.

SO

We are really looking forward to a good downpouring of rain, as our rainfall for the year has been only about ten millimetres. Praise God that He knows what we have need of, before we even ask!