pole fishing

FISHING! Today we went pole fishing. I woke up at 6:30 am. This is very normal now and not early at all because we go to bed around 9pm once the sun is completely set so we end up waking up when the sun rising around 6am. I started the day with my usual routine of feeding the chickens and changing their water. The chickens have successfully understood that I don't let them out of the pen until they all lay their eggs. Now we have 6 eggs each day by 11am opposed to 6 eggs after 4pm. I have also noticed that they are eating a lot less concentrate since they are out grazing most of the day. My grandma came over around 10 am to milk the goats. I tried again to figure out how she does it, but no luck. I really don't understand why I can't do it. This morning the goats followed me! I was so happy. I couldn't believe they trusted me enough to just follow me around. I started running to see if they would follow and they did. Then I hid in Orlando's car and they went crazy looking for me. We have created a bond. They no longer run away when I come near them and they aren't scared when I pet them. They eat right out of my hands and cry when they don't see me. I am so happy that they are friendly with me. The only problem is since they are still adapting to their new surroundings they are still a little freaked. Every time a plane flies by the go crazy running and looking for shelter and whenever a car comes they try to get in it. They do know where their pen is though and know that their food and water is over there. I am worried because they seem to be losing a lot of weight and aren't drinking or eating as much. Today they didn't produce even half of the amount of milk they made yesterday. Their hooves are also looking pretty beat up and dirty. I'm not sure if that's how they are suppose to be or if they should be taken care of. My main worries right now are figuring out how to milk them and how to milk them in a more comfortable way so that they aren't scared anymore and also getting them to drink and eat more. Around 11:30am Patricia's dad came over. He told us he could take us fishing and we got really excited. He drove to the pier in Sag Harbor while we biked behind. When we got there he gave use long wooden poles to fish with. I had never fished in my life before, but compared to the other fisherman with "real" poles, we got more fish with the poles. The poles were just a bunch of sticks taped together to make a fishing rod and then a fishing line attached at the end with a bob and hook for bait. We were their for a couple hours and we went through a lot of bait.
We had some problems with the hooks being too big and too small and the fish just eating the bait and not getting caught to the hook. In the end we caught 2 small snappers and 2 porgies. We actually caught 5 porgies but there are size regulations for those and they have to be over 8 inches long. Once we used up all the bait and called it a day, Sylvia walked over to Provisions and picked up the 25 lbs of walnuts we had ordered as a back up. Lately, we've had plenty to eat, but the walnuts are a good thing ot have on hand just in case we are low on food. Walnuts could actually grow out here and we are calculating how much 25 lbs of walnuts really is in terms of walnute trees. We have also been cooking with walnut oil, which we could also make if we had a walnut tree.
Back at the farm, we wrapped the fish in corn husks and put it in the grill. We also cooked up some poached eggs and roasted tomatoes with kale. Yummy! After living off of quinoa and zucchini for a couple days I was very delighted to have this change in diet. Going fishing was a great idea because we really did need something to chew on. The chickens smelt the fish and came running over. They picked at the spine and ate every little piece of meat on it. They truly are scavengers. Our hefty meal really made us happy and helped us move along. The last couple of days had been very slow because we weren't really sure what to do. Milking the goats at night seems to be a lot harder than it is in the morning. I'm not really sure why that is. In general it is getting a lot easier. We were pretty full from dinner so we decided to save the milk and make cheese for tomorrow. I'm not really sure if its going to work, but its worth giving it a try. Rain! It started raining around 9pm, which is when we go to bed anyways so it wasn't bad. After such a long day, the night breeze and the sound of rain was just the thing to put us right to sleep.