Lincoln's New Salem..........

We as a family are very interested in history and are fortunate to live in an area with several historical claims.  We are close to St. Louis and all of the rich Lewis and Clark history and we are also close to Springfield with all of the Lincoln museums and such. 

Last weekend The Man and I went to Lincoln's New Salem in Petersburg IL.  Neither of us had been there since our grade school field trip and we'd been wanting to go back for a long time.  The Youngun wasn't along as she was spending the week with The Aunt, The Uncle, and The Cousin. 

It is a lovely historic village albeit a bit rundown due to lack of state funding and volunteers.  There are gardens and a few re-enactors around.  I'm sure during festivals there are more people there.  I wish we lived closer so we could volunteer!  It is still a lovely day trip and I got lots of nice pictures. 

This is the Lincoln-Berry store where Abe was a part owner (and he wasn't a very good store-keeper either!)

This gentlemen was making those chairs you see.  The one on the right was finished and he was making the one one the left.  He makes them entirely by hand with period tools.

The inside of one of the cabins.

This is the mill.  Very interesting and it's a ways away from the village and you actually walk on a covered bridge across the highway to get to it.  This is where we got horrified.....The decay of our society as a whole never ceases to amaze and dismay me.  Adults with no respect are raising children with even less.  This is an historic site and a treasure to our state as well as our nation.  I'm going to show you a particular piece of grafitti and please keep in mind that this was the LEAST of it. 

Most of it wasn't fit to photograph.  Obscene drawings and writings, along with the standard names and such.  Awful.  The Man said if we ever won the lotto we'd donate money to places such as these so they could install security cameras and punish these people to the fullest extent of the law.  And the litter as well.  Good grief people, do you just toss trash all over your homes?!?  It made the both of us very sad. 

All in all it was a nice trip though.  On the way home we wanted to stop and eat at this cafe but it was closed.  I'll leave you with a picture of the outside of it.

Morning Star Cafe

Till next time, I hope you are all fit and fab!

Our New Additions.......

One can never have too many goats right?  I love spotty goats and have wanted spotted Kinders ever since I got my first Kinder goat 3 years ago.  Yesterday the Youngun and I loaded up at 6:30 AM and headed up to Granny Bob's house.  From there we loaded into her Jeep and began our journey to Prairie Fruits Farm in Champaign IL.  About 2 and 1/2 hours later we arrived.  We were greeted by Aaron, herd manager of the farm.  Aaron is a wonderful young man who promptly showed us to the nursery which was filled with baby goats of all shapes and sizes.  Nubians and LaManchas were everywhere!  After picking out our two kids, Aaron graciously took us to the back pasture to meet the ladies, then on a brief tour of the milking facilities.  Such a nice set up they have there and it was wonderful to learn how they do things. 

Then it was on the road again with our precious cargo in tow.  2 1/2 hours back to Granny Bob's house where we let the kidlets out in her fenced yard to stretch their legs before getting in our truck to make the 1 hour journey home.  A long day, but well worth it in the end. 

Without further ado, allow me to present..

Prairie Fruits Farm Millicent

Prairie Fruits Farm Heather

Both are ADGA registerable, both have moon spots, and both are adorable! 

In other goat news around the homestead, Lightning got wethered last night.  He has already, at not quite 8 weeks, begun spraying himself, and licking "himself" so he had to be wethered!  Silly boy!  He was pretty funny with his tongue flapping, and buck talking. 

Goodwife Farm's Lightning - wether

Osiris and Carl are both soo very nice, in different ways that I'm really struggling about what to do with them.  I think I will keep Osiris though instead of Carl because Osiris has nice long legs.  I don't like short stubby goats and that's what Carl is.  He is a beautiful example of a Kinder goat, just much shorter than what I like.  The worst part about breeding goats is that you just can't keep them all! 

Goodwife Farm's Osiris.....keeping for a future herd sire and will use him on my Nubians

Till next time.........God Bless!

Garden update, hubby's birthday, and a nice day trip!

This is a picture of our rooster Mr. Cackles with two of his hens patrolling the property for bugs, worms, larva, and other yummy chicken delicacies! That's our sweet corn crop in the foreground, it's disappointingly short this year as we have had a LOT of rain and it is also planted in newly broken ground. This fall we'll put lots of good horse, goat, and chicken poop on it and till it under, then next spring I'm going to plant my cool weather crops in that patch because it is in partial shade. It should be a great location for my lettuce, spinach, beets, peas, cabbage, and other cool crops. I'm not going to have enough corn to can this summer, but we will have lots of corn on the cob to eat fresh. Next year I plan to plant twice as much corn and hopefully the weather will cooperate. God knows what He's doing though and I'm not complaining. The rain and cooler temps have been wonderful for my onions, peas, and lettuce crops! I've canned beans three times for a total of about 36 pints. I've got lots more to do of course. Green beans are just about the only green veggie my hub-unit will eat so we have them almost every night! I need LOTS of pints of green beans!

This is a picture that my daughter took of myself and my husband on July 3 (his 36th birthday). We got him two shop lights with bulbs for his shop, and a new tow strap cause he already broke the one that we bought him for Christmas! He was pulling stumps out of the fence row and pop, broke it the first time he used it! lol. After he opened his birthday presents we went catfishing again, but didn't catch anything this time. :( We still had a nice time enjoying the beauty of God's world and being together as a family!














Here a picture of The Youngun and her daddy on his birthday!


















This is a picture of The Youngun with a Bald Eagle at the Bald Eagle exhibit at Dixon Mounds in Lewistown IL. Saturday was rainy, rainy, rainy so since we couldn't do anything outside, we decided to take a day trip to the mounds. We are very interested (as an entire family) in the history of our wonderful world. It's really exciting when you have wonderful historical elements right in your own state! Cahokia Mounds is very close to where we live and we've been there a few times, but had never been to Dixon Mounds.

It was a long drive but well worth the trip. We enjoyed perusing the artifacts from Illinois' prehistory. We love to imagine what our state looked like before power lines, litter, and modern buildings. I think it would have been amazing to have walked our state when it was pristine and unsoiled. That said, there is something for living in our modern times as the average age for a woman in the Mississipian culture was 35.........that leaves me 3 years to go! We finished our day trip with a wonderful supper at a diner in Central Illinois. Then it was on to home to get Tulip milked, eggs gathered and rabbits fed and watered!



Our town's Independence Day celebration was postponed due to rain so we went and watched fireworks on Sunday evening. EJ and I reflected on how so many people call it "4th of July" when it is and should be called Independence Day. That is the day that we celebrate our Independence..........an Independence that is slowly but surely being taken away from us. But that is a whole nother can of worms, isn't it!

Till next time................GOD BLESS FROM GOODWIFE FARM!

Hubby is on Vacation....

this week, so we've been busy doing lots of fun family things as well as some of the heavier chores around the homestead. We went to Cameron Cave on Monday and took the lantern tour which was very beautiful and lots of fun. We got to see three bats snoozing the day away which The Youngun absolutely loved!

We also saw some really beautiful formations in the cave. It never ceases to amaze me the wonderful, beautiful world that God created for us to live in. And it never ceases to amaze and disturb me how little we value and take care of it. Big Daddy P found a candy wrapper deep inside the cave. Here we are 100 feet down in the depths of our amazing earth and some jerk felt the need to toss his trash on the ground! UGH! People like that infuriate me. But anyway, the cave is a beautiful, mostly unspoiled bit of God's handiwork and we had a great time!

Here is The Youngun standing in front of a really lovely formation inside Cameron Cave.


This is a beautiful little pool of water inside the cave.





God created this wonderful amazing place for us to live in........yet more proof of His abiding Love for us! Thank you Lord for the wonders of our world, and thank you for letting us be alive to experience those wonders!



GOD BLESS FROM GOODWIFE FARM!