Due to the ease and the ability to post videos on facebook. We have decided just to start a facebook page. See you all there.
The Meaning of Christmas?
Christmas time is near. And as I made my rare trip to the department store yesterday it was made very obvious to me just how commercial and lacking Christmas is for most people. There were people swarming like ants everywhere, all in a hurry, not really minding who or what they had to climb over to get what they wanted. So my quick trip to get a measuring jug to measure when preserving fruit and veg turned into quite an expedition. But also quite a reminder about the way the world views God and the birth of Jesus our precious saviour. John 3:16 “For God so loved the World that he gave his one and only son”. Christmas should be a time for all to remember the gift God gave us in Jesus.
Pizza YUM!!!!
Well he did it, Rick made mozzarella, then promptly proceeded to make a pizza to try it out. Well you can see from the photo that it was a complete success and a mighty tasty one at that.
Meet Bruce
Bruce is 3 weeks old now and growing so fast it won’t be long before he is of to the farm to live.
How time flies
We have been very conspicuous by our absence, sorry for that. We have been very busy lately plus a round of the dreaded cold virus.
Well to catch up will take a while so get a cup of tea sit and relax.
Last you heard we had paid for our new goat. Well we now have Jade, and she is a totally different personality than Lecy. She is more vocal, curious and very pushy. She has become the boss in the goat shed and tries to be the boss of us all. Jade often insists that she needs to be feed more than Lecy, and if we don’t she has no qualms about stealing it. Lecy takes it with quite a bit of grace and just lets Jade eat. However, we do not want that, as Lecy is our milking goat and Jade is yet to have kids and start milking.
On that note Jade is really filling out and it is lovely again to watch the new life grow within her and to see her getting bigger. They should arrive within about a month so lovely little goat kids for Christmas time. Yay.
In the mean time to fill the baby animal gap as all the baby rabbits have gone to the pet store as well, we bought a calf. Our daughter Meg named him Bruce. He is only a week old and already as big as the goats. Bruce gets feed a bottle 2 times a day at the moment and Meg is quite enjoying the job of feeding him. We are having a marvelous time watching the antics of the baby calf as apposed the the baby sheep and goats we have have previously. He is a lot stronger and my word what a huge tongue, and he sure does know how to slobber with it. He loves his bottle and comes up to have it, and after he has finished he takes a kind or circuit around the yard bouncing and playing.
Although Bruce is going to end up in the freezer, we all have no attachment issues because we know the cute 40kg Hereford cross calf, bears little resemblance to the half ton or more steer we pray he will be this time next year.
The other distraction that has kept us from updating you all, is that we also got our bee hive. Rick and Meg are working with them. Long, long ago, in a far off place, ( as Rick puts it) when Rick was at school he helped keep the bees at the school Ag plot. For the 2 decades that have passed since then he has wanted to again, and now we have some.
Bees are really the most fascinating creatures of all God’s creation, an hour or more can be lost sitting and watching their comings and goings! Opening the hive up and inspecting their work and progress as the nectar starts to flow is exciting too.
Apart from our hope of eternal life in Christ Jesus, we really do feel like God’s children here; He has lead us from desert places into a green and pleasant land, a land flowing with milk and honey! Out of context- probably, misquoted- definitely, but nevertheless, true.
I’m so excited!
Rick and I went and paid for our new goat today. Yay. She is a lovely Toggenburg, and even more exciting she is in kid. So I will have more kids soon. Gorgeous little bouncy goat kids. So for Christmas I will get baby goats. What else could anyone want.
Just have to organise the transport of Jade, our new goat, down here to Invercargill and she should be here tomorrow or early next week.
Our house this morning has a lovely smell of ham and bacon, today was the day that the bacon and the ham hocks came out ready to dry. It is such a pleasure to see your own homecured meats hanging up in the kitchen and to know that you have homemade cheese maturing in the pantry.
More exciting new, we will be getting our bees this month, shortly in fact.
Lecy Supernanny
Well what can I say but wow. Lecy has turned out to be an absolute super milker. We are getting about 5 Kg of milk a day. And this morning Rick milked 2.9 Kg just in the morning and if she milks what she usually does in the evening she should milk about 6 Kg of milk just for today.
Yesterday Rick made a 1 Kg block of cheese from 10 litres of milk. It is going really well. The day before I made a simple farmhouse cheese and also started the long process of making Chevre. An absolutely lovely soft but slightly mature classic goats cheese. Also made my first batch of yogurt which is absolutely lovely with the stewed rhubarb from our garden. So guess what I have for breakfast, yes you guessed it, yogurt and stewed rhubarb. All homegrown and produced. Now that is the way to eat. I know exactly what was in my food, all of it.
We are feeling so blessed and provided for in such an abundant way.
God Provides For all our Needs.
1 Timothy 6:17,
17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
Good Morning
It is 7.20am and I am just sitting down to my first cup of coffee. A very much appreciated coffee mind you, as I have so far this morning- milked Lecy , let the chickens out to roam, collected the dirty washing and put a load on the wash, put dessert cooking in the slow cooker. And since I still have an hour before I need to start cooking breakfast for when Rick gets home from night shift I am taking a few minutes to reflect on the day, God and what he would have me do today. I also thought it would be a good importunity to catch everyone up on what has been going on in the Butlers Good Life.
I really enjoy the early morning when no one else is awake and the world seems so quiet and peaceful. I can reflect on Gods handiwork and just enjoy his creation. It is interesting to watch the sun really come up and the world begin another day. A tinge of sadness is also there as God says in his word that “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.” Isaiah 45:22. John 3:16 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Yet there are so many that will be lost because they do not accept that Jesus died for them.
Yesterday was rather exciting, Rick and I and a reluctant Meg went to look at some goats and a few possibilities for a new goat for our family. Meet some lovely goats and their people. Since it is kidding season I could of just stood there all day watching the kids play, talk and bounce around. Made me a bit sad that I don’t have the boys anymore but hopefully we shall have a goat in kid very shortly, we are looking at a couple of possible lovely girls.
Johanna is still up in Auckland where she went to spend the holidays with the Wards, helping take care of their baby son and also helping at the church holiday program. She seems to be really enjoying her time up there, but it will be nice to go pick her up from the airport in the morning.
We are planning on going up with a friend to pick her up and then going on in to Dunedin to do a bit of looking around and to buy a few things that we are unable to get locally, or make ourselves.
I have made my first lot of cheese with the goats milk, and it is lovely. Rick has been taking some to work and it has been very well appreciated. And he took two big pieces last night so I think that it is a good reflection on how good our girls milk is. Lecy is doing rather well. Milking about 5 kg of milk a day. That is why I have made creamed rice for pudding and still have about 8 or 9 litres left to make cheese , yogurt , ice-cream and have lovely cold glasses of milk.
Well I hope that God blesses your day as he does ours. I have to go feed the rabbits and see if my lovely chookys have given me any eggs for breakfast.
Bereft.
I and Lecy are both bereft at the moment. The boys have gone to their new home already and we are both mourning the loss. Lecy looks for them and I keep expecting to see their lovely little faces peeking out from the fence to the goat yard. I must confess to shedding quite a few tears and feeling like I’d just given up one of my children. But from now on we shall be keeping kids till they are properly weaned and grown up. I am going to be selfish and enjoy the kids for as long as I can. I am so bereft that I am current searching all over the country for another pregnant doe to have more kids, and on the side more milk. Only problem is that that can be quite expensive, so pray that we can find one we can afford.
My comment to a friend at church was that “Who can be depressed when you have baby goats to play with’, goat kids beat Prozac any day.
thebutlersgoodlife
