Having not grown up in a community or family accustomed to Nannies, I have a hard time understanding what sort of characteristics to associate with Female Goats.  Now baby goats being called Kids, is highly appropriate: loud and high-pitched "MAAA!" carries across fields as though a young child has gotten himself in a tough place.  And Billies, well, now there's another subject to be addressed in the fall... Let's suffice it with a - "Wild and Crazy Guys!" - for now.

Joern came home yesterday with 3 sweet yearling Nannies, all 3/4 Nubian, 1/4 Saanen.  The hope is that our fine Billies, JarJar Binks and Chewbacca, both full blooded Nubians, will have some female companionship, and that we can start getting Farm Fresh Goat Milk next Spring (not forgetting the addition of a few spritely kids into the mix). 

The 3 little ladies came with P- names.  We altered one, who was Pickles, but is so sweet, she had her name changed to Persimmon.  The other ladies are Popcorn (all white) and Peanut, with marbled browns and whites, and a "Peanut-y" disposition.  
As sweet as they are, these little Nannies are a noisy gang.  I guess we'll give them a few days before issuing a final verdict on this, as they need some grace while adjusting to a new home -- and one with some "wild and crazy guys". 

It's April, and new life burgeons everywhere - mounds of ephemeral flowers, the golden green of new leaves, a new queen in the hive, and baby chicks!

Now these little balls of cuddly fuzz have entered their 5th week of life, having replaced the cute but impractical fuzz for mature feathers, allowing them to get out of the brooder into the chicken yard.

Eleven birds have joined Betty, Buffy, Louise & April; a mix lot of Auracana, Buff Orptingtons, & Barred Rocks. Hopefully, they will turn out to be all hens!

When thinking of Spring, ideas of New Life in all its shapes and forms fills the mind and imagination.  
A glance across the landscape whispers the lines of Robert Frost's Poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay", 
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.

 
This gold of spring is short-lived, but a wonder to behold!  

Even the preciousness of baby chicks last only for a brief moment, and then somehow they transform from the sweet, cuddly, tiny balls of fluff into wild birds.

It is apt that we celebrate the Birthday of St. Valentine in the middle of February.  This holiday reminds us about the importance of love when we need it most -- when tensions are on end from Cabin Fever.
It is cold outside, a humid, deeply penetrating sort of cold, one that penetrates through many well-intentioned layers.  But, it is Beautiful!!! The cold beckons us back indoors, but only once that curiosity of snow, frost and ice is satisfied.  
Snippets of Bramberi -- From Icicle capillaries protruding from exposed soil through frosty morning sunrise to the shroud of snow that blanketed us this morning.  Life is beautiful, isn't it?  The small things and those so grand that they cause a sigh of awe.

There's a lot to be learned.  Growing fruit Holistically is an uphill journey, as we seek to understand the environment, the pressures from pest and disease, the climate, and the effects of the topography and neighboring woods and crops.  

While pruning blueberry bushes with a friend this week, he was sharing about the process of Creation, and how God speaks and things happen, so why the process?  The world, the universe, and Life itself are INTRICATE.  Biochemistry teaches us of the amazing intricacy of genetic codes, of the vast volumes of information encoded on each strand of DNA, so vast that it has taken decades and innumerable researchers to transcribe the code, and resulted in so much information that it takes a Mega Computer to store the data.  

So why should I be thinking that raising healthy crops should be easy?  For my MS research, I worked on a disease complex in Strawberry, call Black Root Rot.  From this work, we came away with the deepened understanding of the necessity of a rich soil ecosystem, a robust community of microorganisms, arthropods, protozoa, earthworms, fungi, springtails, things seen & unseen.

During undergrad, I had a couple of soil classes, which were great introductions to soils & soil water. But the organic layer was typically understated, and looked at as a percentage, a very low but meaningful number (in Georgia, soils are typically 2-5 % organic/humic matter, which turns over or burns up so very quickly because of the heat & humidity). The humus was there.  And it was supposed to be nurtured, but as to why, this was not really addressed.

In my first Soil Ecology class, the Professor passed out a brochure put out by the NRCS, Soil Biology Primer.  And from there on, I started to see things differently, understanding that minerals themselves, whether derived from humus or soil particles, do not make a healthy system.  So here you go:

Here, at Bramberi Farm, we are taking steps to feed the soil, not with mineral fertilizers or special tillage practices, but with Life!  After all, God did form Mankind from the Soil, infusing Adam with His Life-giving Spirit.  Hence, shouldn't we, of all creatures, seek to steward the soil as a priority, an obligation to nurture that which nurtured us?

Here comes the complex problem: How to help steward a truly Healthy Soil (the foundation) which then leads to truly Healthy Plants, then Healthy Animals, and Healthy People?!?

Having grown up in the Great White North, I find myself, at this time of year especially, longing for the guilt-free excuse of staying indoors, sipping pipping-hot cocoa, and being enchanted by the starkness of a snowy landscape.  But, here, even in the Foothills of North Georgia, the growing season hasn't really ended, just ask Miss Blackberry, who even now, is protesting the fact the calendar, even the Sun declination itself, is proclaiming "It's Winter!" Miss Blackberry doesn't mind these voices, her ear is tuned to the reverberating pulses of heat through the crystal blue sky to the dark soil.  She hears the Thermometer chime out, "It's 50 degrees and all is well!"  

Tomorrow night's temperatures will cause some quaking, but will she allow it to affect her?  Miss Blackberry went through the deep chill in November (we had a low reading of 14F) without much of a set-back.  I'm praying she'll be singing a goodnight lullaby this week, so that we can give her a winter cutback without weakening the lot.

The other Berry Ladies don't quite agree with Miss Blackberry.  Madame Blueberry settled into winter's rest, and allowed a gentle pruning, yielding up the excess canes and twigs yesterday, a gorgeous, shirt-sleeve of a day.  Many-a swelling bud was pruned off, in hopes to leave the survivors all the more juice and energy to grow big and SWEET!

The Ladies Raspberry are reluctantly complying to Winter's Rest.  The Summer-bearers were pruned after they fruited, and are ready for Spring to awaken them.  The Fall-bears are slower to rest, but will soon have to submit to a Winter pruning, removing all of the canes, so that they can put their energy into NEW canes, yielding sugary berries in the cool of Autumn.