Summertime, and the living is busy

It's been a crazy week over here, and I haven't had time to do any posting in days. I will try to squeeze in a quick update before the madness begins for the day.

Fruit season is well under way, which is my favorite time of year. The blueberry bushes are loaded, and while ours don't produce enough to do anything more than happy grazing, there's a huge blueberry farm down the road where I generally go to pick twenty pounds every summer. I am hoping to get over there this weekend once things have calmed down a little.

The goats get pretty excited when I'm out in the garden, because there are often treats for them. They did get a few berries while I was picking, but they would have preferred that I move the fence and give them the whole bush.

The blackberries are ripening everywhere, and one of the biggest perks of my job is that I can take breaks from clipping the canes and do a little grazing. The goats shouldn't have all the fun.

I haven't had the time or energy yet to go harvesting on a large enough scale for a batch of jam, but that's on my schedule for the next few days too. For now I am reveling in the fleeting pleasure of eating blackberries right off the canes, still warm from the sun. There's really nothing that compares.

The brush goats are eating their share of berries as well, so I don't feel guilty for eating in front of them. They are almost done with the area they've been working on, and I have started clipping a path through the wall of berries on the other end of the hill. Once they finish the next section, they will be done with this job and I will hopefully get a short break before they start their next job, which is a big one.

My friend's peach trees are in full swing, so it's been all hands on deck to harvest and process them. The peaches have a very short window, so any we want to use and not feed to the wasps have to be picked quickly. It's not such a bad chore.

Yesterday I made the first batch of jam of the season. Peach jam is like summer in a jar. I will make another batch as soon as this post is done. I don't usually do any canning before morning chores, but these days it's the easiest option.

The little herd is plowing through everything I give them. One of the benefits of keeping the smaller guys in their own group was supposed to be the relative ease of keeping them fed. What I apparently didn't factor in was that without the bigger goats pushing the little guys out of the way, there's nothing stopping them from a solid day of eating except for their need for the occasional nap. So I've been moving their fence every couple of days. Sigh.

After adjusting their fence yesterday, I took a short break and just lay down in the alder grove and looked up at the trees. There was a gentle breeze blowing the tops around, and the sound the long branches make when they brush against each other is almost musical. I might have fallen asleep there if Screech hadn't come over to check on me. Eskimo kisses with goats are very cute but not really sleep inducing.

Well, it's 6 am now, and time to make some more jam! I will close with a shot from my friend's dock the other evening. I take a lot of pictures from this spot, but it's always beautiful, so I can't stop myself.

Have a wonderful day, everyone!