Where did summer go?

Here I am back to my woefully neglected blog. Last time I posted was the middle of summer. My husband wonders why I even have any followers left. Didn't bother explaining to him that it would probably take more effort to remove somebody than to let them just sit there doing nothing. But nevertheless, I'm happy to see that nobody removed me from their blogroll. So I'm back now and will try to make my posting more regular again.

Here's a quick (thought I could be quick, but turned out, I couldn't) re-cap. We did our first real garden this year, and it did surprisingly well! We canned potatoes, salsa, hot pepper butter, and pizza sauce--maybe some other things too, but that's all I can think of right off the top of my head. Oh, pickles! We had yummy fresh cucumbers for weeks. I miss them already. I have never loved a cucumber like I loved those! And my picky boy, Finn, would just gobble them up.

We sold Bambi's boys (above) and because of several issues, I didn't manage to ever get her milking. Hopefully next year. We kept Betty Bob's doeling, Star (on the right below). I am milking Betty Bob and Bella and getting a little over half a gallon most days just milking once a day. Plenty for our family, and it leaves us enough to try cheese making and plenty of puddings and yummy stuff.

We sold half a dozen of our pullets, but we are still getting around a dozen eggs a day. The guineas are all grown up, and I'm pretty sure they are both females. Kind of bummed about that as I was hoping we would get a pair so we could have little keets next year. We hatched a duck out over the summer that I called Uno because it was the only egg that hatched and Ivy called Sparkle because I think she wanted to embarrass it, but one day it just disappeared. (I think this may be the only picture I got of it because my camera apparently decided to take the summer off with my blog--see it right in the middle?) No clue what happened to it--just totally gone without a trace. Also down one chicken like that. I managed to convince myself we were down another chicken and spent a few days counting and recounting chickens until it finally dawned on me that the one I was looking for was one of the ones we sold. Feel free to share the long laugh I had at my own expense.

We have two pigs that are ready to head to market. I don't think I have any pictures of them. Sorry, will take the camera up there in the next couple days. Along the lines of not naming your food, these two never did acquire names. We put them far, far from the house because we had many, many people telling us how they would smell, but they really aren't that bad. Yeah, you can smell them when you stand outside their pen, but they weren't all that people made them out to be.

I've been doing a bit of sewing lately and have some things to share over the next few days. But here's a little peek at a pattern I was delighted to be given an opportunity to test for Whimsy Couture. I am really liking her patterns. This is the third one I have made up and have more to try. I'll post a bit more about this pattern in the next few days.

So to end things up, here's a shot of Holly and Finn that I really love. They were sitting together on the couch like this the other day, and I actually managed to get to the camera in time. Nobody told them to sit like that. I was doing things in the kitchen and looked over and there they were. So cute! Can't believe how big they are getting.

Wordless Wednesday #12

"At the 'goat-eo'"

She's a Keeper!

Betty Bob suprised me with a middle of the night delivery. The goat pen is right outside our bedroom window, and I woke up to hear grunting. I sat up while I was trying to wake up and process what was happening. I realized it must be Betty Bob in labor since it was the same sounds Bambi made and different than I've ever heard them make before. So I pulled on clothes, grabbed towels and gloves and a flashlight and headed out. She was in labor and pushing some, but the baby didn't seem to be coming quite out. I waited a while and she would push and you could see hooves and nose--so the presentation was normal--but the baby didn't seem to be coming along. Finally I applied a little pressure to the head as she pushed and the baby slid right out.

Since Bambi had twin boys, I kept telling Ivy she'd better have some serious talks with Betty Bob before she kidded. It must have worked because Ivy got what she ordered! She wanted a little elf-eared, blue-eyed doeling and that's what Betty Bob delivered. Momma and baby are both doing well. Unfortunately, Ivy is over at a friend's house and missed the delivery and doesn't actually know she got her order yet. I doubted they would appreciate a 5 am call...

Kidding time!

We have kids!

Bambi kidded this afternoon with two adorable bucklings. The birth was simple and unassisted, although we were there with her. She pushed those two little boys out within a couple minutes of each other, and they were nursing very shortly after. She’s a great mother so far and has taken right to them. They are little and sweet and soft and shall I go on? They are both colored very similarly to Bambi. One has more white on him and blue eyes like his dad, Cowboy.

Ivy was a little disappointed that there wasn’t a doeling for her to raise, but she is counting on Betty Bob to have one for her. I know there is going to be one unhappy little girl if Betty Bob only has a boy. I really think Betty Bob will just have one when I compare her size to Bambi’s size before kidding. Bambi looked so large when I saw those tiny babies come out, I thought there was a good possibility there could be at least another, but she stopped at two. I’m thinking that Betty Bob is about a week behind Bambi, but with the range in delivery dates, it could be two weeks or so before she kids. Her udder is full and tight, but other signs seem to be lacking still. Of course that can all change very quickly as we witnessed today.

When I went out to check the kids around 8:30 this evening, they were actually playing a little with each other. It was such a cute thing to see. They were on very wobbly feet within an hour of birth. And they knew about looking for milk, they just didn’t always know where to look. They spent a good amount of time nudging around Bambi’s chest and one managed to get a little suck on her ear. She talks to them if she feels like they get too far away from her, but it didn’t bother her for me to take them. She was willing to leave them in the stall with me while she went to get something to eat. They, on the other hand, scream quite loudly if removed from her presence. There is already a bond there. So far, they are unnamed, but hopefully we'll figure some names out soon.

Cute and Cuter!

Just wanted to share a couple quick pictures of our latest additions. These little guys hatched this week on Wednesday. They are so tiny they fit right on your palm with lots of room to spare. And you have to put marbles in the chick water dish so they can't hop in and drown! I had a momma hen go broody on me, so I ordered some guinea eggs from eBay. Sixteen eggs arrived, but only two developed to keets. Lots of things can happen to shipped eggs that can lower hatch rates, but I'm glad we got something out of them. I would have been really disappointed to wait a month and get nothing. It takes 28 days for guinea eggs to hatch versus 21 days for chicken eggs. Guineas are supposed to be great at keeping down ticks and other bugs. They are loud, but our neighbors had some that would come into our yard and they just sort of grew on me until I needed some of my own. I like their chatter.

Our little chicks have gotten quite big. The past two mornings I have heard funny sounds coming from their little coop and realized it was one of the roosters trying to crow. It's so funny to hear when they first start doing it. It sounds nothing like cock-a-doodle-doo! I can't really think how to describe it--like something being squeezed, I'd say. The two lighter colored ones in the picture are two of the ones that we hatched from the incubator. Actually, the reddish one could be also, but I have a hard time telling them from the banties we bought that are Easter Eggers also.

I'd love to be posting more, but things have been really busy here lately and our internet has been very unreliable. It works fine sometimes and other times it takes ages for anything to load if we can connect at all. Annoying to say the least, but hopefully we'll sort something out with it soon so I can get back to more regular updates.

We're waiting anxiously on goat kids, too. Bambi's due date is the 20th of this month. Which basically means she really could go any time now. Her udder is filling in nicely, and she's pretty wide. Can't wait to see what she has. Betty Bob isn't as big as Bambi, so I'm wondering if she may just have one and Bambi might have twins. I've been able to feel babies moving in both their bellies. Ivy is going to bottle-raise a doe if either of the girls have a doe. She said she'd like a kid out of Betty Bob if it had little elf ears, but since Bambi is due to kid first, I think she'll take a doe of hers if there is one just in case Betty Bob doesn't have a doe. Betty Bob's udder is developing also, but not as much as Bambi's. I think Betty Bob is probably about a week behind Bambi for kidding, but not quite sure on the dates since I didn't actually witness her being bred. Maybe my next update will have kid pictures!

Playtime at the Park

Over the weekend, we took a little drive to a goat show. Although the camera was tucked in my pocket the whole time, I completely forgot to take it out and get any goat pictures. So I didn't get any shots of the goats with amazing udders! I think I was so busy ogling the size of their udders that I just got distracted, actually. I knew Bella wasn't milking anything to brag about at around 3 cups a day, but I didn't fully appreciate how lacking she was until I saw these girls with udders so full I'm not sure how they walked without dislocating their hips! So now I know what a real dairy goat looks like. Can't wait for Betty Bob and Bambi to kid this month so I can see how they measure up. This being their first freshening, they won't be at full production potential yet, but I am definitely expecting better things out of them than I'm getting from Bella currently.

I did remember to pull the camera out a little later when we stopped at Cedar Creek State park for lunch and play.

Finn didn't want to leave the goat show and cried when we put him back into the car. But after we picked up lunch and told him we were going to a park, he perked back up. He chattered excitedly almost nonstop until we got to the park, which we took as a sign that he was looking forward to it.

Getting Holly to look at the camera proved to be almost impossible, and when she finally looked at me, Ivy was looking somewhere else.

Holly and Finn both had fun sliding with Paul, but neither really got the concept of taking turns.

The swings were another favorite. Finn had to make several visits to them.

We had a tiny visitor join us for lunch. After trying to get a decent shot of him, he hopped onto my arm and seemed content to climb around on my sleeve.

It worked!

Shutting Heckle up for the night did the trick. Nobody was crying in the morning, and Bella had a nice full udder. It was so satisfying to get more than a few streams of milk. I didn't measure it, but it looked like around a quart. I know the most accurate way of knowing how much you are getting is by weighing the milk, but I just strained it into a container and chilled it. And don't you think she's smiling just a little in that picture?

Here's little Heckle, who seems to get bigger by the day. He's a heavy little armful now and not so easy to hold onto.

And for fun, here's a couple pictures of our cats who I don't think I've ever shown before. They are named Salt and Pepper. I'm sure you can figure out who is who. We adopted them as kittens from the Humane Society, which was actually cheaper than getting a free kitten somewhere and having to take it to the vet for first shots and spay/neutering. They are about a year old now.

And while we're at it, here is our neighbor's bull. He runs along the fence and scares me. I look at those few strands of wire and know he could come straight through if he wanted to. He is so huge!

Back on the Net Again!

We're finally connected again. Not really sure why our other router crashed, but crash it did. We hoped it might be able to be reset so we didn't rush right out and buy a new one. But it took a while to find time to check it out because it's more complicated than I feel like going into and presumably nobody really cares anyhow! But I'm back now. Yay!

Things have been going well here. The baby is growing a bunch, but he's taking all the milk. I have been getting so little that I've been just dumping the couple tablespoons into the cats bowl before I come in the house! The plan was to shut up the babies from the mama overnight and milk her in the morning. But when the one baby died, I didn't have the heart to shut the remaining one up all by himself. He's a little bigger now and the weather is a little warmer, so I think I'm going to give it a shot this week. From what I've read, babies on the mama can actually take more milk than they really need. So I know that's why I'm getting so little from her right now, he's just taking every last drop! I'm anxious to see how much I will get with him off her for the night, though. And we settled on names for them. (Or I rather I did!) We're calling the mama Bella and the little guy Heckle. I was calling both babies Heckle and Jeckle after those two old cartoon crows, and it just stuck even when there was only one. (And thanks to those who added their condolences on the loss.)

And if you were wondering about the picture at the beginning of the post, Paul bought 30 pounds of seed potatoes to plant. I was like 30 pounds?! And he said, oh, it's not that much--only three little bags. It will be our first time planting potatoes, and I didn't even know he was planning to until he bought them! He got three different varieties, but with a typical male attention to detail doesn't know what varieties he bought. He's planning to get them planted this coming weekend. I have no idea how many potatoes we'll get from them, but I guess we'll have a better idea after this year! And here's a fascinating link to a page of potato myths. I found the last one particularly amusing and thought they should have prefaced the answer with, Potatoes taste best when prepared in fattening ways, but...(lead into healthy potato habits.)

He also set posts for our rabbit shelter. He decided to make it half for rabbits and half for greenhouse. He is just having them share a common wall between. So one side will be his greenhouse and the other side will be my bunnies. Hopefully we'll be able to get some next month. I've seen someone advertising New Zealand rabbits with regularity in our local Trader's Guide, so I think they probably breed them. I haven't called about them yet since we aren't ready for them and usually when I do something like that, we wind up deciding to get them and then scrambling to get living quarters together! So I'm trying my best to hold off and not wind up doing that again, since I am normally the one who winds up talking him into taking these things on.

Well, I should wrap up now, but I'll be back tomorrow for Make Something Monday--which I've missed participating in for the last couple weeks and am so glad I can participate again!

Sad Day on the Farm

This morning when I went out to feed the goats, one of the babies had died during the night. I don't have any idea what could have happened to him. Yesterday we cleaned the barn and put all fresh bedding down. Both babies were jumping around and acting fine. I was totally shocked to find him this morning already cold and gone. Tears were shed at our house this morning.

On a side note, our internet access is down at our house right now, so we can only connect by taking the laptops from the house to where we can get access. Which is slightly inconvenient to say the least. So that accounts for my lack of recent posts. Hope to get things sorted soon, but there's always a list of higher priorities to make it through first!

The New Kids on the Block

Look what followed me home!

I think I may have mentioned that we were looking for a milk goat. So we found one this week, but she had her two little babies still with her. So we had to bring all three home. (Aww, shucks…I have to put up with all this cuteness.) The babies are both little bucks, so we won’t be keeping them for too long. (Anybody looking for a Nubian buck?) But they are so adorable right now! I wasn’t prepared for how little they would be. They are only a couple days old, compared to our girls who were two months old when we got them. They fit perfectly right in your arms for little sweet goaty cuddles.

Paul is going to build a milk stand this afternoon for me, and we have to modify the goat barn a little to make a pen to keep the kids in so that they will leave the milk alone for the night, and we can milk her out first thing in the morning, then let the babies go with her for the day. So tomorrow I may be taking my first shot at milking a goat! That should be interesting as I have never milked anything before. But I’ve read all the books and more than one author says that is how they started with just written instructions. My inner dairy maid is telling me I can do this!

And here’s Mama, of course. She’s really the reason we bought them, but it’s hard to resist the baby cuteness. She’s three years old and this is her second time having kids. She’s a purebed Nubian. (As is Bambi. Betty Bob is a La Mancha.) The babies look just like their mama. It’s actually really hard to tell them apart, but we’ve found a couple slight differences. We’re working on her name. We thought another “B” name to go with Betty Bob and Bambi. Beulah, Bess, Bella, I dunno--we’re working on it. We haven’t made it to baby names yet, either. I thought maybe something like Heckle and Jeckle or Tom and Jerry.


She’s a bit nervous around us, but lets us pet her while she is eating. We’re working on winning her over with little bribes like animal crackers. Ivy thoughtfully picked out all the goat shaped ones because she didn’t think it was appropriate for the goats to be eating them. Although she hasn’t been hand milked before, she will stand still and let you handle her teats while she is eating which is more than our spoiled girls will do. Betty Bob, especially, will just dance all over the place if you try to handle her while she is eating. Here’s what happens when goats get used to you:
That’s my well-behaved girlies trying to eat my delicious pants. It’s also much harder to get pictures of them when they rush you when you step into their yard. I did have several opportunities for extreme close-ups of Betty Bob when I tried to kneel down and take pictures of the babies and she thought I wanted her to eat the camera!

Of course, we are hoping for kids from Bambi and Betty Bob in the summer, but now we won’t have to wait for milk. We go through ridiculous amounts of milk here, and it will be nice if we can avoid having to go to the store nearly every day for milk. We can easily use almost a gallon of milk a day here, and Holly isn’t even drinking it yet! Goat milk is supposed to be easier to digest than cow milk, plus we know that it won’t have any extras in it like hormones or antibiotics. We’re also hoping to be able to make some of our own cheese and yogurt. And we have plans to make goat milk soap which is wonderful for the skin. Right now we’ve been buying soap from Hidden Haven on Etsy, and it’s wonderful. Her prices are terrific, and she is very reasonable with shipping charges also. If you decide to check it out, I highly recommend the Chocolate Mint soap. I have to warn you, though, it’s so yummy smelling you will want to eat it!

So, if you’ll excuse me now, I’m off to check on my babies!