All In A Day's Time | Annies Goat Hill Handcrafted Soaps

Archive for the ‘All In A Day's Time’ Category

Hold Onto Your Hat Saturday

Posted in All In A Day's Time, tagged Goats, Nature on May 9, 2009| 7 Comments »

Ms. Akira has funky ears…and they are really funny in today’s wind! It is a definitely a hold onto your hat folks type of day!

Akira is a doeling born to Bonnie, an alpine, and Emery, a nubian buck, last season. She is a large girl, and one that loves to chatter. I truly appreciate her. I am hoping for a nice sturdy girl on the milk stand someday from Ms. Akira.

I did not sleep very well last night, and some time during the night I heard little peeping noises. I would hear one little peeper, then silence, 20-30 minutes later I would hear another. I thought, “The goslings are hatching.” Sure enough, there are 6 little fuzzy geese following mom and dad around today. I am always relieved when the eggs hatch, no smashing, no turtles bothering the eggs. The pair of geese come back and visit each spring. We love to see them return, and are sad when the family leaves.

I cannot get very close to the family today, so I tried a photo from across the pond. The babies look like specks, but they are scattered behind and below their proud and watchful parents on the ground.

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Ever Have One Of Those Days?

Posted in All In A Day's Time, tagged Reflections on May 4, 2009| 9 Comments »

Do you ever have one of those days where you feel like you are out of sync?

See the doe in the photo with her tongue sticking out? Yes, she was bellowing at me, “Maaaaa…you are feeding kind of late, and I am growing impa-a-a-a-tient!”

Yes, it was one of those kinds of days.

There are two very significant things about me. I work hard, I am honest, and I have a good sense of humor. Wait, those are three things that I just let out of the bag!

Because I work hard, I get into a lot of funny predicaments, and because I have a sense of humor, I can laugh at it all (eventually), and many times during.

When I start my day with breakfast (peanut butter on 2 pieces of whole wheat bread every morning, with black coffee, followed with a bottle of water) and I drop my butter knife 3 times on the table, bang, pick it up, bang (you get the picture), then proceed to wad up my napkin and place it in my cup of coffee…somehow I begin to wonder if my day is in trouble. Yes ma’am (or sir) IN TROUBLE!

When you try to delete pictures from your camera, but a few moments later realize that you have your phone in your hand, you are IN TROUBLE.

It was one of those days, thank heavens this out of sync feeling is not an every day thing, and now the day is almost over. Life is a grand thing…and I feel there is a reason for everything. Perhaps this sort of disorder is to make us laugh? Perhaps!

Now I need to fumble through the dozen Post-It-Notes that I have scattered across my desktop, all from today, good random thoughts, that somehow I just could not seem to organize into anything that gelled.

I had a father in the military, I hear the evening call, “Day is done…gone the sun…!”

Have a good evening…and stay in sync, believe me, it helps!

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Ahhh…Spring’s Promise

Posted in All In A Day's Time, General Reflections, tagged Spring on April 26, 2009| 5 Comments »

Tyra and I spent a few moments outdoors a bit ago. The day promises to be another bright and sunny one, filled with warmth, and the promise that we can enjoy the outdoors again for a while, which renews me inside and out!

We have a number of older lilac bushes here, 5 perhaps. They received some freeze damage this spring, but they still smell wonderful, especially in the early morning cool!

Heading outside with a cup of coffee to enjoy the birds and solitude.

Tyra agrees…she says, “Lets stay out here for a while!”

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No Blues Here

Posted in All In A Day's Time, tagged Collectables, Goat Milk Soap on April 16, 2009| 4 Comments »

What a glorius day!

A day to mow the grass, one of my favorite chores. It isn’t a chore when you love to do it, right?

A day to enjoy the blue and purple spring flowers.

A day to reflect on the old red white and blue on the front porch.

A day to enjoy the husband in the blue coat loving one of the last bottle babies. What a beautiful nubian cross doeling she is.

And finally, a beautiful day to make soap, blue and purple, and other spring and summer colors (green, gold, pink). The scents, mmmm, I made the soap right before lunch and I can honestly say my stomach was growling by the time I took the photo. The soap smells wonderful! I will cut them tomorrow and tell you more.

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The Big T Time

Posted in All In A Day's Time on March 26, 2009| 2 Comments »

It is that dreaded time again…the big tax preparation time! Uncle Sam is looking for his money.

One of my goals this year was to have all of the paperwork sorted, bundled, in report format by the end of February. Oops. The date is now…um…March 26th. Gulp.

Actually, I started on the taxes yesterday and have about 2 hours of input remaining. Not bad, not bad at all. My goal is to drop printed reports to the accountant for his final tax preparation on Monday.

I received an application today for a local Artisan Folk Fair. Photos of products, a photo of (me) the artisan making the product, and a completed application must be sent (to be presented to a jury panel) for approval. If I do participate in the fair, I will be wearing period costume clothing at my booth. That brings me to one thought, what type of clothing to wear? Would it be a pioneer type of outfit? The letter stated “country” attire would also be appropriate. What to wear, what to wear?

I also got word of a local farmer’s market firing up each Wednesday evening from 3-7 PM. They are looking for crafters and produce producers. Could also be a fun time for a soaper.

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Antique Chest and Goat Milk Soap

Posted in All In A Day's Time, tagged Collectables, Goat Milk Soap, Goats on March 16, 2009| 3 Comments »

Occasionally I share something fun that I furnish or decorate with. I found this one at a Goodwill store a year ago. When the attendant told me I could have the chest for $25.00, I quickly loaded it onto the back of my pick up truck! Someone prior to me inadvertently painted the chest. What you are looking at, in the darker areas, is painted leather, hand nailed so neatly to the chest when it was crafted. Such a shame. I cannot see removing paint from leather. But I do not care. I saw value, not so much monetary. There are other places on the chest that someone prior painted yellow and silver (on some of the wood slats across the top), again, I do not care, it is a treasure to me! I love the thing! Inside is wonderful silky-cottony fabric lining, in excellent condition. Makes me smile! It appears to be either an old passenger train chest (tiny wheels up inside the base), or an old steamer chest, and I even saw one on a Western movie, being unloaded from a stagecoach (I doubt that mine is that old). I love these types of items. Some have a history that we know of, and some, as this one, was used without knowing the history, not known by who or when, but I can use my imagination vividly and see it!

I posted yesterday that I thought Annie was in labor, false alarm. She ate much better today. I need to go check on her again. She appears uncomfortable, probably just big with kids. Today is day 145. I am less concerned, but still very watchful.

I worked in the shop today! I whipped out a batch of lavender/plum colored soap with a scent that smells fresh. It felt good to be working with soap again, very good!

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Rest for Success

Posted in All In A Day's Time, Health on March 11, 2009| 5 Comments »

Yesterday I talked about how skin care goes to the wayside when I am in the middle of kidding season, and last night, by the way, I whipped up some beneficial body butter! The other malady during kidding season is a lack of sleep.

Without sleep we find ourselves with less control of our thoughts and our emotions. It becomes difficult to focus, and it can even be dangerous to be a “walking zombie,” as I sometimes call it.

My dear beloved sister recently expressed the humour that she finds in my very short and beneficial naps. To prove my napping point I did some research!

There are 5 stages of sleep. The first stage, drifting in and out, lasts approximately 10 minutes. The next stage, when the brain activity slow, lasts about 10 minutes as well. The 10-20 minute power nap is so very beneficial because it carries a person into the stage where the brain is no longer hard at work. It has been noted that when a nap exceeds 30 minutes, it can actually cause the napper to not be able to shake off the grogginess, stemming from the napper entering into too deep of a sleep (past stage 2).

The most beneficial power nap time is between 1PM and 3PM for most folks, when the afternoon dreariness sets in.

While researching naps, I remembered some very successful folks that also take a daily power nap. The nap that revives the person so they can concentrate, and be successful throughout the afternoon. One such person is George Armani, I recently read about his mid-day power naps on his blog. Albert Einstein was another that swore by power naps, as well as many past presidents, and Thomas Edison.

To wrap this up, if you need a nap, you are not being lazy, you could possibly use the 15-20 minutes to slow the brain down a bit and revive! I wish you great success with it!

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The Geese Are Back

Posted in All In A Day's Time on February 21, 2009| 6 Comments »

Each spring a pair of geese arrives at our pond. We like to think they are the same pair, and they likely are. Geese choose a mate for life.

I tried to get a pic of “our” geese for you this morning. With the overcast, and early morning light, and the distance down the hill, couldn’t get a good focus. So, for now, you got a canned pic.

We always enjoy the sounds of the geese, and even more so, totally love seeing their goslings hatch. The fluffy little yellow things, wobbling around, watching mom and dad teach them all about life. They are amazing beings!

This morning the pond is once more iced over, and we have snow on the radar about one hour away (which means satellite might be down later today). Seeing the geese walk on that ice makes me think they arrived a bit early this year. I would imagine they will leave again, but we will see them back.

Have a great Saturday!

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The Red Day

Posted in All In A Day's Time, tagged Recipe on February 20, 2009| 7 Comments »

Today was the day to take something red and healthy…and make it into something warm, inviting…and not so healthy…

Fresh Apple Cake

1C vegetable oil

2 C sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 C flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

3 C peeled, diced apples

1/2 C nuts, optional

Cream the first 4 ingredients. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda,

and the salt. Add apples and the nuts.

Bake at 350%, 45-50 minutes, in a greased/floured pan.

The house was a bit chilly today, and I had apples (which is my favorite health food) on hand. Was a good day to bake. Took the chill out of the air and made for a wonderful warm scent throughout the house. By the way, if the apples are lacking in tartness, I add a bit of lemon juice to the apples before adding them to the batter. This recipe makes a very thick batter. I had to use my hands to spread it out in the baking pan.

By the way, I have not removed the red covers from the exercise bicycle yet today, nor have I used the red weights, but I will before I climb into bed tonight!

And speaking of red, Alix of Casa Hice, recently mentioned strolling through the gift shop at Cracker Barrel. My hubby surprised me with an item from that store a few years back. One of my favorites…