Crafting and Blackberry Picking

I am enjoying a coffee as I write this, with a couple inches of foam on top. The foam is created simply by the pressure of milking as I squirt it into the milk jar! Thanks to my sweet goaty goats, I get to have a cappuccino.

 We've been picking big ripe blackberries every day. The wild Himalayan variety is the tastiest. The plants are totally invasive but I am thankful for finding them along the roadside! One of the reasons I got goats in the first place was to eradicate blackberry vines from our yard. The goats have gone above and beyond the call of duty...

 Our mouths were purple from eating so many black and juicy berries.

Picking fresh food is more work but also more interesting than shopping at a grocery store.

 The chicks we got a while ago from the poultry swap are almost at point of lay. I picked out six chicks and ended up with only two roosters. Not bad.

 

I have been working on a few little projects, including the back to my Piano Keys quilt. I am going to embroider the full word "forgiveness" (from a song by Don Henley) but I am loving the active quality of the verb 'forgive'. Along with gratitude I feel like forgiveness is an important part of being happy and at peace, with ourselves and with other people.

 

I have been searching for the perfect sock monkey socks to make a monkey for my little guy. In the meantime I've been knitting up a pair of socks in an imitation of the common grey wool sock with a red stripe. There are a few variations but I haven't found any with a red heel, which is the key to making the sock monkey's mouth. Obviously I'm not going to cut up the socks I'm making but it is fun to make a homemade version of something that is mass produced.

 It is finally mercifully raining and cloudy.

Enjoy this day!