{Life and Pictures} Goat Herds

Please, don't run scared because this post is going to be about my goat herd. They're very amusing and fun :) I hope you don't find them THAT horribly boring :)

I got my first goat in 2010.

She was really little, so we assumed she was a pygmy goat. That shows how much I know about goats :) Turns out, "Lucy" as she was named, was actually a baby. She had a lot of growing to do!  She's not a very fancy goat, and is probably a mix of breeds. But judging by her ears (yes! They're really like that!) she was probably American Lamancha-mix. American Lamancha is a dairy goat, and Lucy certainly wasn't built like a dairy goat, so it will be forever a mystery. Haha!

The people we got her had named her "Bait". Yeah. Apparently they got a baby goat to be bait for some animal they thought was getting their cows. It didn't work (I'm glad) and we got a goat.

We planned to tie Lucy onto a really long leash attached to a tire, so she could weed in a circle, and move around often. Once again, we really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. She could wrap herself in KNOTS around ANYTHING. I was unwinding her at least every hour. She could make an obstacle out of anything. At one point, it was getting bad enough that she was almost strangling herself. We tried so many different contraptions, and made it through the first summer. During the winter she spent in pen. No knots. :)

The second summer went better. We built an electric fence. Then my aunt and uncle started getting goats. (this is the kind of goats they got!! They are so hilarious.) So Lucy spent the winter there. Freddy was her first baby:

Baby goats (kids) are pretty adorable! :) Even if they have funny ears.

That spring (2012) I got two bottle baby goats:

Lainee

LooLoo

This spring, Lainee and Looloo had their first kids.

Lilac

Lilac and Larkspur (and Tyler!)

 And we sold Lucy. So I now have a goat herd of four, and I "goat-sit" for my aunt and uncle.

That was probably not very interesting, but goats are one of my hobbies. I hope you got at least one "Aww!" out of it! Those little faces and long ears just melt my heart :)

~Bethany

By the way, here's an interesting link for you today: Touch Wood 
I really enjoyed watching this!!

{Recipes} Lemonade Pie

My family does try to pick healthier-ish foods, but only TRIES! NOT all the time. Really. (Hannah- are you listening?!) If you talked to my dad or my older brother, you would probably think they NEVER have anything with sugar, anything that tastes good, or anything unhealthy. My theory: The unhealthy things are gone too fast to remember. It's true. Things like this lemonade pie... you're lucky if it lasts more than two days. :)

I've never been a huge fan of cakes. I like a few, but mostly, I don't really care for them. For the last few years, I've had lemonade pie instead of cake on my birthday. My birthday is smack in the middle of summer. It is ALWAYS hot... usually it is miserably hot. (Note: I'm a wimp when it comes to heat.) Lemonade pie is sour, and FROZEN! It's perfect for summer... and winter... we'd eat it in the fall and spring too :) It is definitely a family favorite.

Note: This recipe will have several variations.

Lemonade Pie
A Family Favorite

This recipe makes two pies. A single recipe only uses 1/2 can of sweetened condensed milk, so obviously they should be made in pairs! ;)

2 Graham cracker crusts
1 (14 oz) Can of sweetened condensed milk, seperated
2 (8 oz.) Containers of cool whip
12-18 oz. Frozen lemonade concentrate (1-1 1/2 cans) (Pink lemonade is fun, and tints the color a little bit!)

Directions:
For a sour pie: Mix 1/2 can of sweetened condensed milk, one container of cool whip, and 12 oz. lemonade concentrate.  This will be VERY sour. I like sour, but some people prefer a sweeter pie. Pour into one graham cracker crust, and freeze for several hours (overnight is great).
For a sweeter pie: Mix 1/2 can of sweetened condensed milk, one container of cool whip, and 6 oz. lemonade concentrate. Pour into one graham cracker crust, and freeze for several hours (overnight is great).

You may have too much filling for the crusts. We usually freeze this in a little container, and save it for my gluten free family members :)

For perfect serving:
Let the pies thaw a little bit before serving. Not too much, or you'll have lemonade soup! (That tastes pretty good too!) :)

{Life and Pictures} Summer Adventures

I have now posted an "introductory" blog post. However, that post did not live up the the 300 word expectation, so I'm going to try again. :)
 Summer is over, but I'm going to give my summer in review (with pictures, because I love pictures!).

The biggest thing for me this summer (which also took up most of my time) was my vacation. I went to Aniak, Alaska for a month! (Go ahead, say "WHAT were you in ALASKA for?!") Well, my aunt lives in Alaska. AND two of my little cousins! So I went to the END OF CIVILIZATION to babysit for a month. And I had so much fun. Trust me, being away from my family for so long was hard, and I definitely couldn't have done it if I hadn't been with family as well. My aunt does come to visit, especially more recently since my cousins have been born, but the two weeks she usually stays really isn't enough time to get to know someone very well. Off I went to adventure in the wilderness :) I left Kansas in the afternoon and finally landed in Anchorage Alaska (where my aunt and her family met me) at about one A.M. our time. They are three hours behind us. From Anchorage to Aniak is about a one hour flight, but my aunt graciously met me in Anchorage for a mini-vacation. This also meant I didn't have to stay the night by myself at the airport. (Flights to her village only go at certain times.)

A little about Aniak: 
Aniak is only accessible by plane, boat, or in the winter snow machine. Yes, they do have electricity, but life is VERY different there! Aniak has a population of about 500. And, yes, like the map shows, the runway of the airport is longer than the village :)

Virgin Creek Falls Trail

At the top of Mt. Alyeska

Pictures from our mini vacation about 30 minutes outside Anchorage in a town called Girdwood.

This was just along side the road.

This, also, was just a stream along side the road.

This was near Girdwood glacier. There was about 2 feet of snow still on this road. Yes, it was June. :)

This picture is of Prince William Sound in Whittier Alaska. My younger cousin (Jena) and I climbed down these rocks to get a better view for me to take pictures from. I had JUST finished warning her to be careful not to slip when I lost my footing and splashed into the water. Things to be thankful for: (1) I caught myself on a rock, and only got one foot/some of the bottom of my pants, and my sleeves wet. (2) I barely got my camera wet (I was still worried- it was salt water. But my camera is still functioning!) (3) I got to experience the ocean with all 5 senses.
I still had to walk around for the rest of the day in only a t-shirt. It was much too cold for that!

The dike in Aniak.

Okay, so after four days, I had adjusted to a new time zone and we flew to Aniak. This spring, when the ice on the river broke up, it moved up the dike toward the town. The picture above was the amount that was still left after about a month.

The Cabin:
My aunt and uncle built their cabin. (It's the second little clearing from the left) As in, bought a saw mill, cut down the trees and built their cabin! It is only accessible by boat or snow machine. This year, they added indoor plumbing! They heat and cook with two wood stoves. (They also have a small propane cooking stove that can be used if they don't want to heat up the house. But it is difficult.)

Woodstove cooking- rhubarb pie. (ignore my bad photography!)

Adventures:

Bald eagles nest

This is down the hill from the cabin. Their "dock". It was about 75o that day, and my little cousins were going swimming.

Bear claw print in the mud. (With a little-girl print in the middle)

While I was there, they had "record high" temperatures- 89o. But there was also some cooler days. Nighttime was always chilly.

Baby moose. This is one of my favorite pictures from the whole trip. I saw about 14 moose the day I took this picture.

My cousins watching their "pet moose" (it was young, and wasn't very scared of humans. So it would come near the cabin often.) The green nets are mosquito nets.

Mosquitoes:
This summer was one of the worst summers in awhile for mosquitos. As a result, we didn't go outside very often without our trusty mosquito nets. They are NOT fashionable, but it was totally worth it. At night, when the house was quiet, you could HEAR the mosquitos buzzing outside.

Nighttime:
During the winter in Aniak, it gets to the point were there is only a few hours of dusky-daytime. During the summer, it's the opposite. I was there for the longest day of summer. There wasn't actually any DARK. It got dusky for a few hours, that was it.

The End of My Adventure:
After a month, I was soo excited to go home. I left just after lunch from Aniak. Then I had a 12 hour delay in Anchorage. By myself. My aunt had signed my up as an "unaccompanied minor", which means they made sure I got to the right plane at the right time. (They also gave me free movie players!) Anyhow, I had to have a guardian to sign me in at the Anchorage airport. My aunt TOLD me that she had a friend who was going to meet me at about 10 P.M. to sign me in before my flight. I innocently got off the plane, trying to figure out what I was going to do for 12 hours (toting a 50 lb bag.). As I got off, I saw someone video taping the people getting off the plane. I COULD NOT figure out who was being video taped on a plane coming from a village of 500?! (the most exciting thing in Aniak is the "4th of July parade". Which consists of about 5, undecorated four wheelers. I'm not kidding) :) I was soo shocked to see my dad waiting for me. :) Yes, I was REALLY close to crying. He has a video :) He took his first trip to Alaska for 24 hours to pick me up, so I wouldn't be by myself for that whole time. We tandem biked around Anchorage, and went to the botanical garden. Then he took me out to eat at a really nice restaurant. (Which was pretty funny, we were a little bit more casually dressed than the other diners :) We had a 9 hour delay in Seattle, Washington. We flew in at 5 in the morning, and walked to the space needle, where we had breakfast. (Which is what he originally wanted to do. I had told him I wanted to see the space needle, so he decided to take me!) We finally got back to Kansas in the afternoon. He was gone for exactly 48 hours! :) 1 month, 2 cousins, 6 airplanes, 16 moose, 800 some pictures later, I was finally home! I'm not sure if I'll do it again next year. But I am so glad I did this summer.

This was a few hours before we got there.

Anchorage, AK

Space needle at sunrise :)

Aside from that? My summer has been usual :)

Thanks for hanging in there!
~Bethany

This was from my aunt's front yard. As close to "sunrise" as I saw.

First Blog Post

Welcome to my blog! I have never blogged before, so this is an all new experience for me. So far, just choosing the template and designs has been so fun ;)
The title of this blog is a work in progress. I'm guessing it will change about one hundred times in the next two weeks. Maybe after that, I'll slow it down to once a day or so. ;) I want a blog name that will leave me plenty of space to write about many different things. For now, I'm leaving it at "Rubber Boots and Lemonade Pie" because rubber boots are my favorite shoes (after tennis shoes) and lemonade pie is what I always have instead of cake on my birthday (I'll share the recipe soon). "These are a few of my favorite things" refers to my favorite movie when I was younger (The Sound of Music). (Chip in some other title ideas if you have any!) In all honesty, I have no idea what my blog posts will generally be about. I love to bake (and I do it quite a bit. My family has the talent of going through food crazy fast!), so there will definitely be some recipes. However, describing recipes in an interesting "fill-a-blog-post" way, is not my gift! That's were day-to-day-life-at-the-Marteney-house blog posts will come in. You might also see projects I've worked on, or just blog posts full of pictures I've taken recently. This will be... diverse :) So thank you in advance for sticking through it :)

~Bethany