Kid pics

Fancy and company sunning themselves.

 Bart, the bottle baby this year.  He's quite the character. He spends most days out with the crew, and sleeps in the house in his cage at night, at least till it warms up some.  Then he'll just stay outside all the time.

                 Astrid and her kids all crammed into the tub.  They stay nice and warm in there.

Some of the kids having fun in the lean-to.  They like to bounce off the walls in there.
So far there are 18 kids, with three more does due the end of the month.  Then Dottie will have her kids in July.  I wasn't going to breed her this year, but she took it upon herself to get bred.  She broke out of her pen, went over to the young boy's pen, either chewed or sawed with her horns, the thick baling twine holding the clip to the gate, and got in there.  So now she is bred again.  I hope she has her kids okay. She's 13 years old this year, and last year she had some problems kidding, so I'm hoping since it will be warm that time of year, she'll be okay.  Time will tell.

  This is the busiest time of the year for sure.  With the Spring clean-up, gardens to get ready to plant, cashmere to harvest and dehair, plus all the normal day to day chores, life on a farm is never dull.  I've come to the conclusion that I need three of me.  One to do the cooking and cleaning, one to do the gardening and yard work, and one to help with the cashmere.  Thank heavens I get some help one or two days a week!  I'm hoping a helpxer will come in pretty soon.  Having someone here every day for a week or so would really get me caught up and maybe ahead of the game a step or two.
  The wonderful guy that has been coming up one or two days a week for the last few months is heading out for his summer job pretty soon, so he won't be around anymore.  He's been a great help!  His girlfriend has come up a couple of times and helped, too.  They are good farmhands!  I'll miss them.  I hope they come up to visit this summer when they get time off.
  Everyone who has come up here has been wonderful, and I am very grateful for their help.  I wouldn't be able to keep this place going very well totally by myself.  If any of you are reading this, THANK-YOU!

  We are supposed to get snow again tomorrow.  I hope it's not more than a couple of inches and it melts right away.  I am really ready to start my garden, now that the deer can't get in it anymore.  This morning I looked out and there were two deer standing by the fence looking into the garden, trying to decide if they could get in there somehow.  They gave the fence a good look over, then walked away.  YIPPEE!  I'm going to have some veggies this fall for the freezer! ☺
  Well, time to go comb a goat or two.  I'm down to the "clean-up" stage on them.  They've all had their initial combing, now I'm getting what's left.  On some, it's quite a bit, on others, not so much.  Then starting next week I am really going to get serious and get the dehairing machine going.  I've only done one fleece so far!  52 fleeces in 40 days.  I'll be working long hours.  Actually they won't all get done by the first of June, but the CSA shares will be, if nothing drastic happens around here.
  I'll post more pictures pretty soon.  

Half way through kidding season

Here's Louie, Louise's first kid.  She's a great mom and I think I'll keep him a buck, he's got some great conformation.  He's also a nice color.  Both parents have great fleece, so  the chances of him having, and passing on that trait are pretty good.  He's got a good personality, too.
 
  I'm having a hard time getting good pictures of the rest of them  Luna gets the prize for the most colorful kids so far.  The only problem is, they are hard to get a picture of since they are usually in hiding.  At least when I have the camera with me.  When I don't have the camera, they are all over the place.  Isn't that the way it always goes.? :-)
  Carmen, the one pictured below, is Fancy's first kid.  Her white spot looks like a flower and stem, kind of like one of the Ravelry members' ravatar picture. :-)  You know who you are?
   Carmen was really giving Louie a hard time yesterday.  She wouldn't let him in the little kid house they have.  They were really having a little argument, seriously butting heads.  It was pretty cute to watch them.  The looks in their eyes, they were really glaring at each other!  She has a pretty dominant personality already.  Kind of like her grandma Celeste.  

  We woke up to 8 inches of snow this morning!!  It was down to 21 degrees, too.  I'm kind of glad it did snow.  It protected the flowers that are blooming and the ones that are coming up.  It's a good amount of moisture, too, which is always good.  We've had a pretty mild winter without a huge amount of snow here.  The higher mountains around us got their normal to slightly above normal amount, but we only had about a foot on the ground most of the season.  It was nice, enough to look like winter, but not enough to be a total pain to deal with.  The temperatures weren't bad, either.
  The kids weren't too sure about all the snow.  They all stayed in their houses till the adults had the snow all trampled down.  They still aren't coming out very much.  The chickens are laying low, too.  All twelve hens laid an egg yesterday!  That is the first time they've done that.  Usually I get between 7 and 11 eggs a day.  There is one that is laying a green egg every once in a while.  I think I've found 8 so far.  They are all good eggs, just a different color.  Not sure why or how that is happening, but it's interesting, anyway.  I have 10 silver laced wyandottes, and 2 golden wyandottes.
 
  I'm washing some fleeces today and crocheting a new scarf.  Good inside things, since it's not conducive to being outside today.  I was making good progress on getting the spring clean up done and the deer fence is all up.  No deer for over a week now.  I just might end up with a full freezer of veggies yet!
   I've dehaired one fleece so far.  I started combing the goats earlier than usual, getting fewer guard hairs in it, but they weren't totally letting go of their fleece, so I'm having to re-do a lot of them.  I think I'll just wait till they are really starting to let loose next year.  I think I lose about the same amount of fiber either way.  So the dehairing is getting a slower start than I was anticipating.

  Well, that's it for now.  I'll try and get some more pictures up soon....