October 2009 Farm Production

Ahhh, it's good to be back. I will say that as time away from the internet wore on (and on), I was getting more and more used to not having it around. But, I am glad to be able to check the bank account, look up a recipe, and keep up with others' blogs once again.

October was a busy month for us with all the building going on, but we still had quite a productive month farm-wise as well. Of course, as I said before, we welcomed our first, born-on-the-farm, calf to new-mom Caroline. She did splendidly, though I would've preferred a less bitter-cold night for calving! She is now producing milk jointly for us and for Norman.
Eggs collected: 220, or 18.3 dozen (about 7/day)
Eggs sold: none

Milk collected: 888 cups, or 55.5 gallons (about 1.8 gallons/day)
From that: 2 lbs mozzarella, 2 lbs ricotta, and lots of milk to the piggies
The pictures are from Norman's short time in our kitchen while we were trying to warm him up and get him started. The box is small, but it helped hold in the heat.

The garden is now put to bed for the winter, though I do have some cleaning up still to do there yet. We are still reaping the benefits of it, however, as we pulled in many, many bags full of green tomatoes to ripen inside. Every few days, we find more red tomatoes in the bags and are still, even past our first snow, enjoying fresh, ripe produce!

Produce preserved:

• 8 lbs sunflower seeds
• 8 cups of dehydrated tomato powder
• 5 pts dehydrated tomato slices
• 4 pts dehydrated hot peppers
• 9 pts tomato sauce

In addition to the produce, we also harvested some meat for the freezers. We butchered some older hens, new, young roosters, and our 2 goat wethers. We will miss those boys, but we are grateful for the opportunity to know that our food was healthy and happy in life.

Meat put away:

• 10 whole chickens
• 75 lbs goat meat

Unfortunately, we lost one of our bee hives. We have no idea what happened, but they all died. The other hive is doing well and though we weren't able to collect honey from them, we hope that they'll be off and running in the spring. And that's all from the farm!

Horn banding

We we got our goats, they had already been disbudded. This means, simply, that they had their horns removed in such a way as to get both any horn growth so far and bud, to prevent any further growth of horns. It is usually done with a hot iron made specifically for the job. The goat does complain, but it is thorough and over quickly. The reason horns are removed is to prevent any injury later on of either goat or human because goats love to play and butt. Also, goats can get their horns caught which is very distressing for the goat, expecially if it happens to get caught in an electric fence.

For 3 of the goats, this worked perfectly. But for Cocoa, it was not quite done right and she began to grow horn spurs. Horn spurs do not grow like regular horns, as we came to find out. They typically curl around and, as in Cocoa's case, get near to growing into the backs of their heads. We didn't do anything about it at first, thinking that we'd just let it alone and she'd be a 1-horned goat. But, as it got nearer and nearer to growing into her head, we knew we had to act.

I had read online about a method of horn removal called banding. It is very similar to castration, except of course that it is in a different place. We banded her and left it to work.

It went fine, but I do not want to have to do that again. As the horn spur got closer and closer to falling off, she began to get more and more "shy". She would stand back when the others would come to us and run off if we tried to go to her. I could feet heat generating from the horn and knew that her new disposition was caused by pain. The poor thing.

One day, Buckwheat jumped up and landed on her, knocking the horn the rest of the way off. She screamed. I felt so bad for her. She bled some, though not too bad, because the banding had not been able to work completely. The wound has healed now, though, and she is coming back to her normal self. You can see the "scar" on her left side below.She remained aloof for a while, but is now much more approachable. It does make me absolutely sure that when we disbud the goat kids coming this spring, we need to make absolutely sure that those buds are completely removed. I hate to see the animals in pain, but a short pain is so much better than a long, drawn-out pain. Cocoa agrees.

Goat toys

When you live on an old homestead, you are bound to find lots of interesting things lying around. I'm not exactly sure what it's from, but in one spot, we have a fairly large mound of broken up concrete. At first I thought it somewhat of an eyesore and wished to find a way to dispose of it.

Then, we got goats.You see, goats love to climb. And they are amazing sure-footed on all manner of rickety, uneven surfaces. So much so that one of their favorite games is to butt each others' heads while climbing on that broken concrete.And of course, being the lovers that they are, they are more than willing to play with some humans too.Even when those humans torture them.

Abby & the animals

Abby is a bit of an animal-magnet. When we take her out to see them, they practically mob her.Of course, whether the goats are more interested in her or her stroller is a mystery. In fact, on this occasion, they seemed to be most interested in the mail I had stuck in her stroller pocket...and in taking it out and eating it.Burt, who is usually very standoffish, even came over to check her out. Of course, at one point, he also hooked his horn under the handle of her stroller and nearly tipped her over...you have to watch that guy.See how close he got? Though about 5 seconds later, Abby moved her hand ever so slightly and he was gone like a shot. Silly bull, scared of a baby.

Annabelle came over too. She was less curious than Burt, since she is definitely more used to people. She was more interested in seeing if Abby was good for some petting. Abby so enjoys the animals. She has the same name for all of them. Unfortunately, it is a sound akin to throat clearing and so extremely hard to try to write down. In fact, her only 2 words so far are that, which isn't even really a word, and "yucky, yucky", which she says with great huge tongue motions. But she's working on it.

Luckily, she's fine that she comes in with all manner of animal slobber all over her clothes.

My good buddies

I have grown pretty fond of our goats. I never expected it. You see, I have always been a "cow person". You know the age-old "dog person"/"cat person" conflict? I guess this is the farming version of that. Cows are so sweet looking and have those big beautiful brown eyes. Goats were never that attractive to me. Those slitty eyes of theirs make them look, well, a little strange. They're not one of us. And you know in the Bible when the sheep and the goats are separated? Well, the goats are the bad guys. I just never expected to like them all that much.

But, I do. Perhaps the fact that I bottle-fed them throughout the night for a while when we first got them has something to do with it. Or, perhaps it is because of the time Benjamin had bloat and I spent nearly the entire night holding him and massaging his belly, encouraging the air to come out, from one end or the other.
I think, though, that the real reason I've grown to like them so much is because they like me so much.
These goats, more than any other animal on our farm, come a-runnin' when they see us. And not only do they run for us, but then they stand at the fence and call for us.
Maaaaaa.
And who wouldn't fall for those big 'ole floppy ears?

Ahh, goat love...who knew?

Beaten

There is a saying that in order to build a fence that will hold goats, you must build one that will hold water.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Goats are also known as escape artists. Goats are agile, stubborn, and exceedingly curious. They can jump, climb, and also manipulate things with their lips. We've been told that a latch on a gate must be operated by 2 hands, on the outside, and down at least 18 inches from the top of a solid gate. Otherwise, the goats will work that latch until they figure it out.

Until now, we just chuckled at these people. They must have goats that just aren't as well-behaved as ours, right? We raise our goats like we raise our children - to be obedient. Surely they wouldn't torture us by getting out every stinkin' chance they got. And they hadn't. Until now, that is.
Before now, one may get out, but it was always an accident. Usually, they got too close to the electric fence and when they were shocked, they darted into the fence and ended up on the other side. Since goats hate being alone, they'd just stand there on the other side of the fence and "maaaaa" until we came out and took them back in.

Now, however, they've figured it out. We've been beaten. All four of them can escape and they do it with such regularity that I may as well just stay outside and wait for it to happen again. Occasionally, as we're getting the last ones secure in the fence, the first ones are getting back out!
I guess I need to get started on that water-tight fence.

Green, green grass

Every day it gets a little greener around here.

I'm not the only one enjoying the green, green grass.
The goat's paddock looks like a nicely-mowed lawn, with very distinct lines of short grass in the paddock and long grass on the other side of the electric fence. Goats are, by nature, browsers and not grazers. They prefer weeds, brush, and trees. And they do spend plenty of time eating that. But, they seem to also enjoy the grass and have done a great job of chomping it down. And they are plumping up nicely.
In fact, Honey (the blond) has been so busy eating that she has stained her lips green!

I've also been impressed with the amount of dandelions covering our property. I know some of you folks may think it's just a weed, but around here, it gives my bees something to do as we wait for the big "honey flow" to start. Also, the color is a welcome sight after a winter of dullness and gray.

Spring is such a fun time of new life and growth.

Sew Crafty Friday

So this may be a little outside of "normal" for a typical Sew Crafty Friday post, but I'm used to living a little on the wild side. And besides, it is my "normal", for now, anyway. I haven't had time for the fun and crafts, so this is my outlet.

I built a milking stand for our goats using the instructions from Mother Earth News dated way back in 1980, which can be found here. I did it all myself, with a little help from the kids. I can't express how satisfying it is to construct something like this. It was easy, but it still feels good to build something, knowing that you need it and will use it for years.

After I built it, I asked the kids if they wanted to paint it. Ho boy, they were all over that. All I could find in our cabinet of paint was purple. So, purple it was.

The kids love to paint. They aren't particularly good at it, but they love it.
Um, guys? You missed a spot.

Or two.

Well, anyway, you'll have to imagine it finished up because I forgot to take pictures. I touched up with the paint and filled in all the gaps. And then I added the feed box to the front.

It works very well. The pegs in the top (they aren't painted yet in the picture above) come out to allow you move the center two 2x4s. You get the goat's head in between them, where she then can eat out of the feed box, and then lock them back in place so that she can't remove her head until you are done milking.

We tried it out last night, as all of the goats needed their hooves trimmed. It worked very well.

The only problem was that since they are still very young, their heads could slip out as is. We had to drill a second, closer in, set of holes for the pegs to make it a little tighter for younger goats. Other than that, it was great.

The goats enjoyed their treat in the feed box and I was able to get their hooves trimmed with little effort.

Well, maybe next time I'll have something more normal to share. I do still need to get a dress made for Meagan with the fabric I scored from my Grandma. In the meantime, you can check out other Sew Crafty Friday posts at Waiting for Him.

Goat poses

Boy, is it hard to catch pictures of goats. I need a fancy camera with a fast shutter speed. Most of my shots end up with a blurry goat halfway out of the frame before the camera finishes the picture. Or, I end up with a goat in my face as I'm trying to take a picture of another one. They also like to come up behind me if I squat down and eat my hair. Maybe I need to just make videos. It seems like that might be easier to catch them with.

I did catch a couple of cute shots, though. Well, it's hard to not get "cute" when you are working with subjects like these...

Nine amazing years

Nine years ago, at 1:50am, my life became quite a bit more full. That was the moment I officially became a mother, and it has been a whirlwind of excitement, joy, fun, frustration, and blessing ever since. Caleb has now entered his last year in single digit numbers. It is very hard for me to believe. These years have gone so fast.

We enjoyed his choice of breakfast casserole earlier (my only requirement was that breakfast contain eggs...we have so many!!) and a banana muffin (for which I must post the recipe...it is delicious & no added sugar!) For lunch, he has requested steak, mashed potatoes and corn on the cob. Can we say "country boy"??? And for dinner, spaghetti pie. Both Caleb and Meagan just love that dish. It's a little time consuming, so I rarely make it, except for special occasions. When I do make it, I make 2 so that we can eat it again sometime without added work. And lastly, he picked out spice cake and cookies 'n cream ice cream. We all get a little spoiled on someone's birthday!

He is currently out playing Heroscape with Don and Meagan. He wants to take a long walk on the pasture today. We also have friends coming over after lunch sometime, which I don't think he knows about yet, so that will be fun. And, of course, he will be playing some Nintendo. All in all, it'll be a quiet but enjoyable day. His #1 request was to NOT DO ANY ROOFING WORK! We were happy to oblige...mostly because it is now FINISHED! Whoo hoo! That took so incredibly long. Don was determined to finish yesterday and did so as the temperatures were dropping fast.

A little goat update: Benjamin and Buckwheat seem to be completely healed. And it may be my imagination, but they both seem really attached to me after I spent so much time with them working their bellies. It's funny. I really tried to learn what I needed to know before we brought them home, but it is so hard to anticipate what you'll be faced with. For instance, I had read that oil was a good thing to give them for bloat (as a commenter on my previous post suggested). What I didn't know (and she explained) was that you have to use a syringe to force it down their throats. They don't willingly take anything by mouth when they are sick like that. So, since they wouldn't take anything, I didn't know what to do. Now I know. I wish there wasn't such a huge learning curve in farming, but there is. So much is trial and error. And even when you learn hints and tips from others, it really takes DOING IT to figure out exactly what you need to know and how to implement it. But, we ARE learning and before long, we'll know.

Another thing that I learned was to avoid milk replacer. I took the advice of my neighbor and put them on replacer (gradually switching over from cow's milk). She had never used it, but thought it must be better for goats than cow's milk. Well, it wasn't until they got sick that I started to research milk replacer. Wow. The stuff is avoided like the plague by most goat owners. It causes lots of health problems in goats. So, now I know. I put them back on cow's milk and took the replacer that we hadn't used back to the store. Lesson learned. I'm just sad that the goats had to suffer for my ignorance. One incredible source for goat info I found was Fias Co Farm. They are so generous with their information. I spent hours reading it all. (Hours that I don't have to spare, by the way!!) Anyway, the goats are all better and we are learning lots as we go.

sooo...tired...

Yesterday evening, when we went to shut the goat's door for the night, we noticed that Benjamin was acting strangely. He wasn't running around or chasing us out the door. We looked closer and saw that his poor belly was really distended. The poor boy had bloat. Being goat kid owners for all of one week, we called our neighbors who also have Nubians and asked for help.

Long story short (because I'm about to fall asleep...), Caleb and I stayed in with him until 11pm last night, came back at 2am, and again at 6am. We did a lot of massaging his belly and getting him to move around and work out the gas. And, we played a lot of "I Spy" to occupy ourselves. And prayed...hard.

When we came back at 2am, Benjamin seemed a little more chipper, but now Buckwheat was acting strangely. Sure enough, he was also experiencing some bloat. We did the same for him and went back to bed, hoping for the best.

By 6am, Benjamin was not distended anymore and Buckwheat was looking better. Neither of them would eat their morning bottle, so we were still concerned, but hopeful.

By noon today, they were both acting much, much better. Both of them took a bottle at 2pm (at their normal feeding time), which I added yogurt to.

They both have some diarrhea tonight, but it seems to be tapering off as well. We are still praying hard for the little guys. They aren't quite out of the woods yet.

Raising goats is like raising kids. Except the nighttime vigils are in the barn.

The makings of a Nubian herd

As I mentioned a few days ago, we came home with 4 new Nubian goats. They are so precious. But, before I go into detail about ours, I'll give you a little primer in goat facts.

Baby goats are called kids. Females are does, "intact" males are bucks, and castrated males are wethers. When referring to babies, people often call them doelings, bucklings or wethers (wethers are wethers no matter how old). Goats are social creatures and therefore really need to be housed at least in pairs. A single goat will be a very unhappy goat. However, bucks really need to be kept away from does in order to prevent the does from being bred too young or at the wrong time of the year. (It is much easier to deal with newborns in March than in January, weather-wise!) So, in order to keep a buck happy, they are often housed with another buck or a wether. Does can be housed with wethers as well, as there is no chance of breeding, obviously. Bucks can be quite a handful. As they mature, they can become quite aggressive and have the interesting habit of urinating on their heads in order to attract the does. Bucks are not recommended for new goat owners. In our case, we will wait on a buck until at least next year. This coming fall, we will breed our does with our neighbors' buck. So, there you have it. You can say you learned something today. Unless, of course, you already knew all that. If that is the case, I'm sorry you had to suffer through that!

So, we bought 2 does and 2 wethers. Caleb is the owner of the 2 younger ones, a doe and a wether, and Don and I have the 2 older ones.

The first one I'll show you is Honey. She was 2 weeks old when we brought her home. She is 3/4 Nubian, 1/4 Saanen. She's a cutie. The other 3 act like complete maniacs with their bottles, but she is much more dainty than that. Meagan usually asks to be the one to feed Honey, but we all enjoy her sweet disposition.

Up next is Benjamin, Honey's brother. He is chocolate colored with a cute little star on his head and one little white spot on his side. He is named for Nicholas Cage's character on National Treasure. Although the same age as Honey (duh!), he is much more aggressive with his food. We love his little flippy ears.

The last 2 are Cocoa and Buckwheat. Cocoa is the black doe in front and Buckwheat is the brown wether that is getting some love from Caleb in the picture. I apologize that the picture isn't better. It has gotten cold again, so we stayed in the barn, which is quite dark. Also, since it was feeding time, they were all a little, well, insane. When it warms back up, I'll try to get some cute pictures of goats frolicking in the sunshine. Until then, this will have to do.

Anyway, Cocoa and Buckwheat were both 4 weeks old when we brought them home. Cocoa is 3/4 Nubian and 1/4 Alpine. Buckwheat is fully Nubian. So far, Cocoa has proven herself time and again as the champion bottle finisher. She finishes first every time, even when she starts after the others.

All of them were disbudded, which means that their horn nubs were burned off right away so that horns would not grow. It may sound cruel, but it really is better for everyone. Goats with horns have been known to really injure each other while playing, and also could injure their human caretakers. They have little scabs now, which will fall off and be much less noticeable later on.

They will be bottlefed for several more weeks. Goats are often bottlefed for a variety of reasons, but we don't have much choice as we don't have a mama goat for them. I simply cannot feed them alone, as they are much too insistent on all getting fed right away. I'd be mauled! Instead, I always take a helper with me. During the day, both Caleb and Meagan do it with me, but for their last night feeding, the kids are in bed already. So, they take turns and each night, I wake one of them up to help me. They've been great sports about it. In fact, one morning they were both still sleeping and Don was home so I took him out instead. Caleb was so incredibly disappointed that he had missed that feeding! He asked me to never do that again!

So, those are our new cuties. We have plans to get 2 older does from the same place later this month. They were not bred last fall, so they are not going to be giving milk right away. But, they are both full Nubians and will be a great addition to the starting herd. With 4 does bred this fall, we'll be swimming in milk next Spring!

If this is what Spring will be like, I better get my sleep in now!

We've had several gorgeous days in a row here and have taken full advantage of them. Unfortunately, that means that there is precious few moments left over for things like blogging. The little time I've been at the computer has been while feeding Abby. And that means that any writing I do has to be one-handed. That does not make for easy typing. And you know how verbose I can be.

So, here are a few of the farm updates and chores we've been working on. We've taken a few days off from school to play catch-up on chores and to give ourselves a breather. We seem to have hit a math wall with Caleb, so it was a good time to just back off.

1. On Wednesday, we drove to Lincoln, ran a few errands, and then drove on to Milford to pick up 4 baby Nubian goats. We got 2 does and 2 wethers. I will plan on going into much greater detail when I have pictures to post of them. We get totally mobbed by these precious little goats every time we go in the barn and I've just not brought my camera with me...yet. I will, though. I promise. They are so incredibly cute.

2. Speaking of goats, we made a hard decision Tuesday. We've been dancing around it for a while now and just finally got forced into a decision. Our pygmies needed a solution. First, they had been standoffish ever since bringing them home about 6 weeks ago. They were raised without much interaction from people and so were very fearful. We could not get them to warm up to us. We also had to deal with the issue of housing miniature goats and full-size (Nubian) goats together. Since our pygmies were about the same size as the Nubian kids, it brought up a few problems. First, how do you keep adults housed together when half of them are the size of kids...where do you put the manger, waterer, etc. so that both can use them comfortably. When the kids are together, the same problem exists, especially because Pygmy kids are only 2-5 lbs at birth! They are obviously going to need special attention to size of fencing, manger, etc. We also were wondering about the wisdom of having bought them with horns still on. Though many people have horned goats, it is generally recommended to disbud them. Goats can easily injure each other or people, usually playfully, but seriously nonetheless. I couldn't imagine having to deal with a gored goat playmate or gored child.

So, with the coming of the Nubians, our hand was forced. We made a family decision to butcher the Pygmies for meat (they are considered a dual purpose breed...descent suppliers of milk, but with a stocky build good for meat as well). It was hard. However, it went okay and in the end, both our kids decided that goat meat was really very tasty. I guess that just goes to show that even named animals can be eaten, even by children. It was hard, and if it wasn't, I would worry about all of us! But, as with all meat, the animal gives its life so that we can live ours. It is a gift of God (though I do realize not his original design) and we are grateful for the chance to know our food. It may seem weird to some, I know, but it has given us a deep appreciation for our food.

3. Chief Wahoo had kittens! Friday morning, while out feeding the goats, Caleb noticed that Chief no longer had a bulging tummy. He saw her coming out of the barn, so we went in and heard scritch-scratching coming from up in the hay loft. We climbed up there and found the kittens hidden in a little box. Chief came back and didn't seem to be too worried about us finding her litter. She climbs into the box to nurse the kittens. It is quite adorable, as the box is really quite small. There is barely room for her in there, let alone the 4 kittens!

4. The kids and I worked at repairing the old fence around the old garden. We have been using it as a compost pile, but the fence was in disrepair, so chickens, dogs, and just about everything else was getting into it and dragging around any meaty additions. So, the kids and I fixed the fence back up and got the gate back on so it looks neat and keeps out most critters.

5. We also spent some time just cleaning up the outside. Our yard was starting to look a little junky. The garage remains unfinished and thus open, which means that both dog and wind carry everything out and about the yard. Also, a decent amount of junk had built up in the wooded area just to the north of the house...rusted cans, broken glass, etc. We cleared it all out and took a trip to the dump. We also got rid of our dishwasher via Craigslist. It had been sitting out on the patio since we removed it from the kitchen during remodeling and, well, I was starting to wonder if we shouldn't just go ahead and complete the look with upholstered furniture on the front porch, if you know what I mean.

6. The chicks in the basement are growing like mad. They've already had a good amount of real feathers come in. No more puff balls. We have decided, though, that we will not purchase chicks at the farm store again. We had such great success with our chicks from Murray McMurray Hatchery last fall. We didn't lose any during shipping and all were very healthy. Only 1 died from unknown reasons (the others that died were killed by predators) and it was after several weeks of having them. Well, the chicks we brought home from the farm store were not nearly of the same quality. We lost 3 nearly immediately, which is a 10% loss (way more than the normal expected loss). And, of the ones that are left, we have one who's beak does not line up properly, most of them had major problems with poo building up on their rear ends, one of them seems to have her eyes glued shut, and one has a minor deformity of the feet. Way too many problems, especially in proportion to the number of chicks we got. Lesson learned. We still need to order broilers and will be doing that through McMurray.

7. We got some more of the garage roof done. The major problem is that the roof requires that we only work on it when the temperature is warm enough for the tar. That hasn't happened very often this winter. Don was able to get the chimney in, though, for the wood stove and now we can finish up the roof, weather permitting. It is so tedious.

8. Bonnie got hold of another hen. We were able to get her in time, and though her neck and wing were chewed, I think she will make it. She spent the night in the kitchen in a pet carrier and by morning, was feeling much better. I put her back in the coop early the next morning and after standing there in the same spot for a good 15 minutes, she finally rejoined the others and is back in the swing of things. And now, I can't even figure out which one she was...we have several others of the same kind (Barred Rocks). We think we may find another home for Bonnie. Though I think she could eventually be trained out of this, we can't keep sacrificing our laying hens in the meantime. And from our reading, it will take quite a while, if it can be done. The problem is that we are essentially fighting many, many of years of breeding instincts into her breed. I hate to give up on Bonnie, but we don't feel like we have the skill to deal with this. We've been looking at the Maremma Sheepdog breed. They have a very stron9.g instinct to protect their "herd", be it sheep, goats, cows, what have you. Even chickens. They are pricey, but it would definitely be worth it to start off on the right foot. I don't want to have to fight instinct; I want to be able to just direct it. It seems that much of the training with these dogs is just bonding them with their herd in the right window. If they grow up with the critters, they will protect them. We'll be checking into it further. Research first...then act. We are learning.

9. And lastly, we spent a good part of the day getting the lumber we need for the other projects we need to complete soon. We will be building a portable chicken coop so that we can move our free ranging hens (and roosters) out to the pasture. They will forage all day and then we will shut the door on it at night so they will be protected from predators. We are also building stalls and a milking area into the barn for the goats. Included in that project is building a milking stand, which I believe the kids and I will start tomorrow. It is a smaller project that we can handle without Don's help.

Whew. So that's that. Things have been so busy, but we've really been enjoying the challenge of it. I am starting to get a little tired, though. And, with that, I am off. It is, after all, time for the Nubians bottles!

If you give a goat a manicure...

If you want to give a goat a manicure,
you're going to have to come to terms with how little you know about the 3 bleating animals in your barn.

Then, you'll have to get out all the books you own that mention the care of goats.
You'll probably realize that books just aren't going to cut it, so you'll call up your neighbor and ask their goat-herding daughter to come and show you.

So, she'll come over and you'll have to bundle up because the temperature is well below freezing. But, you'll opt to not wear your thickest gloves because you figure you'll need some dexterity.

Then, you, the goat-herder, and the rest of the family will trek out to the barn.
And when you get there, you'll have to try to convince the goats that you are just "here to help."

Of course, they won't believe you, so you'll have to catch them.
And that means that you'll have to corner them and then hope to be quicker than they are.

When you do catch one, you'll have to figure out why it takes 5 people to hold down a goat that weighs probably 30-35 pounds. Well, 4 people to hold her down and one little girl to watch and dance around.

You'll each take turns trying your hand at trimming the goat's hooves. Then, you'll repeat it all 2 more times with the other 2 goats.
By the time you are done, the goat-herder's mother will have come to pick her up.

Then you'll get to chatting about the cow chores she's just done and about the new neighbors that live 8 miles away. And your fingers will start to thaw out.
When she leaves, you'll get dinner started.

By the time you eat, it will be after 7pm. And you'll think about the fact that you often no longer eat when you are hungry, but when the chores are done. And, for a farmer, that means after sundown.

After dinner, you'll realize that you need to stain-treat your pants because you forgot to change out of your "city" pants and put on your brown insulated bib overalls that you bought at the farm store.

And when you think about that, you'll realize how big of a turn your life has taken, that you even HAVE brown insulated bib overalls.
All this will happen...if you want to give a goat a manicure.

More introductions

The temperature is still bitter cold, but the wind has died down some so I made the trek out to the barn to take pictures.

First, I'll introduce you to Bonnie. We'll be looking to add a Clyde soon.
Bonnie is half German Shepherd and half Black Lab. Caleb panicked when I was describing her mixture. He said, "Mom! Isn't that Lucy?!?" I assured him it was not. Lucy had Siberian Husky in her which made her have unfathomable energy and a strong desire to pull us all over the neighborhood. Anyway, Bonnie is a puppy and still young enough to train before she gets too strong, like Lucy.

Bonnie is staying in the dog run for now. Eventually, she will be able to run all over the farm, but until we are sure she will not run off or harass the other animals too much, we are keeping her on a tight leash, so to speak. She is very sweet and playful. But, then, what puppy isn't? I thought she was going to howl and whine the first night, but the cold drove her into the coop part of the dog run.

Next, we have our new three pygmy goats, Snickers, Skittles, and Soda. No, no sweet-tooths (or is it sweet-teeth) around here!
They are half-sisters. Snickers is the littlest and whitest one on the right. Soda is in the middle and Skittles on the left. They are currently terrified of us. Whenever we are around, they all line up and stare at us, as far away as possible. This, incidentally, is the same position they were in on the ride home in the back of our minivan. They are about 8 months old. Pygmies stay very little, but are good milkers (if you can fit a pail under them!) We'll be hoping to breed them as soon as we can find a buck "for rent".

We took Bonnie in to meet the goats. I'm not sure who was more scared. The goats didn't run from her as much as they do from us, but they definitely looked concerned. Bonnie just had no idea what to do with them. Well, she learned about goats! She was standing in front of them, just sniffing and looking, when Soda gave Bonnie a good head-butt. Bonnie was none too pleased. Poor thing. But, I suppose she will keep her distance from now on. The trick will be to get her to guard them while keeping a healthy fear of them.

So, that is what we've been up to. Adding 5 new animals in as many days. Our neighbor just laughs and thinks we are wonderfully optimistic and naive. She says she remembers moving here and being just as gung-ho as we are. Hey, if we knew what we were getting into, we might not try it. And what would be the fun in that?

Goat Links

These are a couple of my favorite places to go related to goats:

• Fias Co Farm-my favorite place for info on all things goat, with a specific bent toward natural and herbal remedies
• Hoegger Goat Supply Company-I love this place for purchasing goat goodies
• Fankhauser's Cheese Page-full of info on how to make cheese, as well as other homesteading topics
• Lomah Acres-where we bought our Nubian and Nubian crosses
• Goat Milking Stand-an old 1980 Mother Earth News article with pictures, plans and instructions on how to build a sturdy, useful stand. We love ours.
• American Dairy Goat Association
• New England Cheesemaking Supply-another great source for info and cheese supplies