When you homeschool, learning is a 24/7 experience.  Our lessons this week?  Things like herd/flock management, transplanting of trees, labor and economics, etc.  Biology, Zoology...amazing that you can experience these subjects, rather than just skim through a textbook writer's summary in order to pass a test and never again care about some of the matter.  Amazing!  Life on our small ranch is an investment in real life experience that weighs far greater in the balances than that contained within the walls and confines of the institution known as public school.  And we realize how truly blessed we are at this point in time to have the opportunity through the Lord's provision to be engaging in the experiences and activities of late.  While not all homeschoolers want or have the opportunity to do some of these things, God can and does bless and gift each family uniquely!  Some of the blogs I visit testify to the fantastic scenery and sights visited, experiences gained, and it's so much fun to travel those routes through your writings and photos...I hope those who visit here get a chuckle or two out of our experiences as well!

I thought I'd give a virtual field trip around the "ranch", giving an up to date view of the animals (more than 50 now, including goldfish...unless Crush gets a hankering for goldfish today!).  Likewise, the current # of trees on the property exceeds 50.  DH has been telling me we had room for well over a hundred, and I didn't stop to realize that he's right, until we took a gander!

The goat herd:

We gained a couple more last week, a doe and a wether.  They're small, not sure if they're pygmy, or mixed, or what, but definitely a small variety.  Dottie is the brown and white, and Matches is the black and white.  This brings our grand total to 6.  Oreo is our first, a doe, nubian mix.  Starbuck, the biggest, seems to be the leader.  He's a nubian and a wether.  The mostly black pair are Hershey ( a wether) and Tootsie Roll (a doe).  Not completely sure of their breed either.

The Gang!



Starbuck


Matches and Dottie


Arnold

...We haven't found a new mate for him yet since the demise of "Bac'n Bits" last fall.  One feed store sells potbelly pigs for nearly 150$...not gonna do that!  The main feed store we use sometimes has them, we'll see!


7 ducks, plenty of eggs!  Yum!


3 Turkey Chicks, approximately 1 month old.


3 more turkey chicks, a few days old.

No chicken pics for now!


Molly Puppy Rose Bud...great personality!


The babies...



And the parents!



And just for Kristy, a shot of Crush, along with *some* of his companions!



And another view!

Out front, we have 12 little pine trees to plant, holes being dug for those and another 12, which we hope to purchase and plant later in the week, as Star Nursery has a pretty good deal on them.  Of course, this means lots of work for the family, and Daddy is paying a per hole fee, so there's lots of motivation!  That's our family economic stimulus package! 

Additional work cropped up, thanks to a freecycle offer!  Someone offered their fruit trees, if we'd dig them up.  We ended up with 11 fruit trees to transplant out front.  A pluot, a pear, an apricot, a peach, a fuji apple, and several nectarine trees.  Monday, needless to say, was a HUGE work day...11 extra holes had to be dug during the day, we went and got the trees that afternoon (this went pretty quickly), and dh came home and planted, with the girls' help, while the boys and I went on to baseball practice.  Poor 11 yo was worn out by the end of it all, as he's playing catcher, and got little break during practice. 




So far so good! 


A couple of the fruit trees went in amidst a pine tree area!


And of course, the Salt Cedar, Mesquite, whatever exactly it is, is starting to get nice and green, which means that those gorgeous purple blooms are just around the corner!  We definitely have our own view of the 4 seasons here, and though the color changes aren't as spectacular as some places, it is lovely and interesting!  That's life as we work around the ranch, enjoy the weather, and gear up for a busy springtime!

Blessings!