Furry Snow

     We had a freezing fog one morning last week which created ice crystals on top of the snow.  It made the snow look like it had a layer of fur on it.  Pretty!  I took a walk around the upper pasture and saw all kinds of critter tracks, rabbit, grouse, mouse, and of course, deer.  No mountain lion or other predator tracks were seen, thank heavens!


This yarn I spun for one of the CSA shares.  It's hanging to dry in this picture.  Now it's in it's new home waiting to be knitted up into something wonderfully soft. 

    The does are all bred now for next Spring.  There will be lots of babies bouncing around here come March and April, even into May.  There were a couple of does that didn't take on the first try in with the buck, so they are now bred for May kids.  The week of the 24th of March will be when the majority will pop out.  A busy week that will be!  Hope the weather is nice then.
  We are having a fairly mild winter now.  After that first blast of 16 inches, it's only snowed about 5 inches more since then.  Yesterday it was 45 degrees and sunny!  That melted a bunch more snow.  We are down to about 5 inches in most places now.  I am rather enjoying the lack of snow.  A half inch here and there to freshen things up, and I'll be happy. :-)
  The goats are all in full fleece now.  I love going out and petting them this time of year.  They are so soft.  Little Oksana is still squeezing through the cattle panel squares and getting into everything.  I think she's ready for another growth spurt, then she won't be able to get out.  She can barely get out now, it's a pretty tight fit!  Her brother Socks quit a long time ago.  He got stuck one day, luckily I was here!, and decided that it wasn't worth it to try that any more.
   I don't know how other goat raisers can keep their bucks together and not have catastrophies.  I had Hercules and Midnight in together, they grew up together so you'd think they would be okay, but once breeding season started they were fighting all the time!  Both of them ended up in pretty rough shape, so they are in seperate areas for the rest of their lives.   Every time I've tried to keep any bucks together, they end up almost killing each other.  So from now on, each buck gets to have his own space. 
   I pulled each one out and took them to a different pen out of sight of each other for breeding the does, but once they were back together again, the fighting started up again.  Never again will any two bucks be together past the age of one year.
  I'm going to have to get a new buck that is completely unrelated to anything I have here for next year.  I need "new blood" around here.  I'll cross that bridge when I get to it late next summer.  Maybe a road trip is in the works!  That would be fun.
  Well, I hope everyone has a wonderful, spectacular, Holiday Season!!  May 2012 be a year filled with Peace, Joy, Happiness, Abundance and LOVE for everyone!