DIY -- Doing a Great Deal for a "Great Deal"

Where has the summer gone??
I've had blog ideas accumulating, but I just haven't had the moment to write.  I have a few minutes, let's see what I can get on the screen.

I haven't talked about the garden lately, but it is doing quite well.  Tomorrow, I will put my pumpkins out to cure in the sun, I haven't counted them, but there seem to be quite a few.  The tomatoes have been making up for last year's poor showing.  This year's favorite is green zebra, nice and tangy. As they say a picture is worth a thousand words, that is a nickel under the tomato(es).  These are two tomatoes that merged to form one massive tomato, (fraternal conjoined twins??) it was 5.5 inches across:

It was yummy, we ate it within 20 minutes of it being picked, most of the 20 minutes was spent trying to get a good shot of it.

The goat lease is moving forward, here is the goat who will be providing out milk. I should have taken a bird's eye view of her, she is is probably carrying triplets and from that view it really shows.

One of the reasons that I haven't had time to write is that after getting a "great deal" on a dining table and chairs, I had a great deal of work to do.  The chairs needed new foam and upholstery, the whole set needed a good scrub and a coat of paint.  The couple I bought it from referred to the set as "Nana's table".  Well, it appears that Nana was a two pack a day smoker, the chairs had a thick coating of tar and nicotine.  Some of it came off and some of it didn't.  The mustardy colored set appeared to have originally have been off white, with off white seat covers.

After washing

The deconstruction, the beginning

Hadn't seen a chair put together like this before.

STAPLES!!!

 After spending an hour or so washing the pieces, I spent about 10 hours pulling all of the staples out of the seats (not kidding, there were thousands of them). 

Making progress with a little company.

Nasty Chair Cover

Cup-O-Staples

Then I had to order foam on the internet for the cushions, find fabric, find the right color paint and...a month after I started I have now finished, this is how I spent my summer.  This is why I haven't had time to write.

Next  the window treatments, eventually.

For the vicarious poultry keepers:

11 weeks old

Rent-A-Goat?

We've taken a step back from buying a goat.  As I said in the final line of my last post, I was feeling like this goat was taking over my life, and I wasn't liking that feeling.  We were talking to a goat farmer who mentioned that we should register any goat we bought in my daughter's name, because she would be showing it in 4H.  Later my daughter took me aside and asked quietly if having her name on the goat meant that she had to take care of it.  It gave me pause.  She clearly does not understand the meaning of showing animals through 4H and everything that entails, because, yes, she would need to care for the goat. 

I realized that my daughter wants to be the goat's "auntie", not "mommy".  She wants to play with it, brush it, shave it and trim nails (if she feels inclined that day) and then leave it with someone else to clean the barn, nurse it when it is sick, and to do the drudge work of feeding and watering it every day. If we boarded it most of that would be taken care of, but the farmer did note that most people end up taking the goat home, because they get tired of driving back and forth all of the time.  I knew that I would end up the primary caretaker, even if my daughter did do much of the physical care, it  was going to be up to me to provide the necessary nagging to insure that it actually happened.  Goats can live 14 years, my daughter will probably be home for seven more and then be sent off to college.  In order for goats to give milk they have to have babies pretty regularly, I could see the future, the passionate pleas to keep the cute little babies,  and me left with a full herd to care for.

I spoke with the farmer and let her know that I needed more time to think about it and that I didn't think that we were ready to make the jump.  She suggested that we lease a goat instead, we can legally drink milk from a goat we are leasing.  I haven't seen any paperwork yet, but it sounds interesting.

As I said before, all this for pudding!