It's May already!

Here is Zindy Lou with her first kid.  She's a very nervous mom and is always checking on him and calling out to him if she is more than 10 feet away.  I named him Drizzle.  It was lightly raining at the time I first saw him.  I went out in the morning to check on her and here he was, up and dry and nursing.  I had been worried she would have trouble having him since this was her first, but obviously she had no problems.  Thank heavens!  I was hoping for a gray kid, since she's the only gray goat I have, but he's solid black, not a white hair on him.

  There are 28 kids all together now.  They are more entertaining than TV!  I have some nice colors out there, too.  I was wanting more black kids so I'd have the various colors, and now there are 7 of them.  They are getting hard to tell apart.  Two of them are solid black with no white hairs at all.  Both boys.  One is going to be a little leggier than the other, so that will be how I tell them apart.  That, and putting different colored collars on them.
  There is a good range of shades of brown out there, too.  So far the girl/boy ratio is even.  That is unusual.  Most years I have an abundance of boys.  Especially with this many, but not this year.  I'm glad!

   The interns leave this week-end!  They've been here for 8 months now.  I think they've experienced just about every aspect of goat raising and farming.  From breeding, to kidding, to having to put a couple of them down, to butchering one, to harvesting the cashmere fiber, even milking them.  I think they now know a whole lot more about goats than when they arrived. :-)  They also learned how to butcher chickens.  A well-rounded venture into the world of goats and homesteading.  I'm going to miss them!  Now they are on to their next adventure en route to their own place some day.  I wish them well!  Heidi is on her way to becoming the best Special Ed teacher out there, and Colin is a wonderful carpenter and worker.  They have both been a huge help around here.  They made surviving winter around here much easier this last year.  I'm pretty sure I got the better end of the deal, too.  A remodeled kitchen, a closed in combing room for the goats, all the roofs vertical again after the 2010-11 winter made them all lean.  A new dehairing room door, lots of help with fencing, pen cleaning (especially pen cleaning!), flower beds weeded, a whole lot of clean-up out in the woods/pastures picking up sticks and thinning out the trees, the ability to do a little traveling without worrying about this place.  That was especially nice!  It was so nice to have help around here!  People that actually like the goats and have respect for them.  Thanks you guys!!!  It's been great!

  I'm waiting for the last two does to have their kids, then kidding will be over for this year.  I'm starting to think the one doe isn't pregnant anymore.  There is no milk in her udder, and no bulge in her side at all, at least not enough to be a kid, I don't think.  We'll see by the end of next week.  The other doe is definitely pregnant, though.  Hope the boy/girl ratio stays even!
  Well, that's it for now...