Prayers for Joplin, Mo.

Joplin, Missouri was hit with a devastating tornado yesterday which has resulted in terrible damage and many lives lost. The people of Joplin are certainly in my thoughts and prayers today and I hope they will be in yours as well. Joplin is only about an hour's drive from our farm and I have been there many times. I don't even recognize it now in the terrible pictures and videos of the town that have been posted since yesterday.

I don't believe the people of Joplin had much notice of this tornado at all. It is very scary and my heart goes out to every person that has been affected by this terrible disaster.

If you would like to help you can donate to the American Red Cross and The Salvation Army. There has also been a Facebook page set up at http://www.facebook.com/helpjoplin and a website at http://www.helpjoplin.com/. Blood donations, especially Negative O blood are also needed. The helpjoplin website says to go to the Springfield donor centers to donate blood.

And the Winner Is...

There was supposed to be a video of my husband picking the winner here but after he picked the winner's name out of a bowl and I tried to load the video on to my computer it would not play. I could not figure out what the problem was. So sorry about that but the name he drew out of the bowl was Lydia! So congratulations Lydia, you are the winner of the two bars of goat's milk soap!

I want to thank every person that took the time to suggest names for the baby goat! We went over the list of all the names suggested and it was hard to pick one out of so many great names. (many of which I am sure we will use for other goat's names in the future!) In the end I decided to use Flartus's suggestion of "Zoe" and add a Y. I have been calling her "baby" (what all unnamed baby goats get called here) and she comes running for her bottle now when she hears it so I thought "Zoey" sounds a lot like "baby" so she should still come running when she hears it. The name also seems to fit her very well.

I also want to apologize for being a couple days late announcing the winner! Things have been so hectic with new baby goats and trying to get the garden going with some pretty strange weather this year.

There had been lots going on here on the farm with new baby goats, the garden and getting ready for the farmer's market not to mention remodeling the kitchen and dining room. More on all of that later! Thank you all!