Flu frustrations

I got it. The dreaded flu: fever, cough, muscle aches. Here it is spring and I have hay to move, mulch to spread, crops to plant, hooves to trim, stalls to muck out, a milking stanchion to build (goat kids are due March 30!) and all I can manage is to watch my farm from out my window. So frustrating.
I also missed the bee symposium and the California rare fruit growers meeting this past weekend. Lucky for me, my rare fruit growing angel sent me a link to a video of the meeting!! Thank you Spidra!

The other thing I’ve been able to do is order goat supplies. I found a great website, Hoegger's, where I ordered, from the comfort of my sickbed, all manner of goat-related items. Goats are prone to various kinds of worms, so I bought a natural de-wormer, made with Worm Wood, Gentian, Fennel, Psyllium, & Quassia. They also had buckets of goat minerals—calcium, phosphorus, salt and magnesium, selenium, and vitamin E. I picked up a kid bottle and some colostrum in case Bebe has a million babies. Finally, I got a bag of kelp in bulk—I’ve noticed the goats love wakame, but at $5 a bag, it was breaking me, so this should do the trick. In other goat care madness, I made them their first batch of sauerkraut. My goater friend Jim tells me goats love the stuff—it’s full of B vitamins—we’ll see how Bilbo and Bebe feel about it, they don’t seem like terribly adventurous eaters.

P.S. Here’s an article I wrote for SFGate about a foodie who doesn’t have much money, yet manages to eat well by growing her own, dumpster diving, and buying wisely.