Happy Easter

Hi all,
Hope everyone had a joyous Easter. Ours was pretty good spent here on the farm with Amanda and Pat. We got in a nice video chat with Colleen and the boys. Wendy cooked us a delicious ham dinner and we totally over stuffed ourselves.
 It has been pretty quiet around here, we haven't had any new goat babies in a while. We have begun mowing the lawn and the garden is looking pretty decent.

We had seen some action around the bluebird house I had made two years ago. After seeing a nest and egg in side I made a few more and have been seeing activity near them.

 This week I spent time building a few bee traps. They have these large carpenter bees that are really damaging some of the wood around the shed. From what I have read these bees are not good pollinators so hopefully we can just get them to lessen some of the damage they are doing.

 The last couple weekends we checked out a couple area festivals. A strawberry fest was held in Starke, a nice medium sized festival they had a good amount of craft booths, some music, and of course we got in on the strawberry shortcake. Wendy even picked up a flat of berries so we got to spend an afternoon making some homemade jam.

 This weekend we found a catfish festival at nearby Branford. This was only about the third year and still pretty small. We did get a good catfish lunch and heard some local musicians that were good.
 Hopefully our plans for the upcoming summer can start to unfold. I have appointments at Mayo clinic in Jacksonville and although there will be no definitive answers we hope we can get a better idea of where I stand now and for the future.

Heating up

 Hi all,
Things are starting to heat up hear in the southland, daytime temps in the 80s are the norm with an occasional 90 mixed in. Evening and morning temps have been pleasant so if we have outside work to do or we want to walk that is the time to do it.
 The past few days we have been finishing off the garden, we had a hard freeze that took out some of it and a couple bunnies that pigged out on new plantings. We erected a fence and replanted now we can wait to see how it goes.
 It's not all work here, we mixed in a couple fun days to. A trip to Amelia Island State Park on the north side of Jacksonville with Amanda, Pat, and his mom Gayle. This beach was a bit different as the tides create serious currents so no swimming allowed, but is very popular with the fisherman. It is also one place where you can drive your vehicle right to the waters edge. But, beware four wheel drive is required and that tide really moves in fast so don't walk off and leave your vehicle for any length of time.

Parking on the beach

Amanda & Gayle

 Another day Amanda took us to the Gulf Coast Livestock Auction in nearby Madison. This is a two day event as they sell not only standard livestock but exotics to. They say if Noah had it on the ark you might see it here. Amanda was a good girl and didn't expand the farm today.

  We did have a couple new farm experiences this past couple weeks. One day we got to assist with the alpacas getting sheared. A lady came in and sheared, trimmed the hooves, and lower teeth of the three alpaca. Anne Shroeder came from Maryland. She travels a big circuit and really knows her job. She explained really well so we knew how to help with no one getting hurt.

Taking care of the teeth

One done, one more to go

Pat holding Jazzie

 She also does it so smoothly and quickly to not stress out the animals. It was all pretty neat, and Patrick was the only one who got spit on, Haha we had fun with that.
 The other newbie for us was Amanda had bought her first alpaca in November and it was suppose to be pregnant due in March. Turns out not the case, well the seller was good on their word and brought a male over on Sunday for breeding.  So we got a whole lesson in how alpacas breed. The females don't go into heat but need to almost be put in the mood for the act to take place. Pretty funny as the lady who brought the male actually had a recorded breeding to get the female into the mood.
 Saturday Wendy, Amanda, and I ventured to Tallahassee for the annual Springtime Fest. They had craft booths, music, and lots of good food. We were quite impressed with downtown Tallahassee and need to plan more time checking it out.

Capital

War memorial

Large parade. Lots of beads

 After spending time there Amanda drove us the gulf for a peak at one of the beaches she had used. We also checked out St Marks Lighthouse that dates to 1842.