Winter on the Farm

It's turning into a long winter around here!  I'm tired of the snow and it's only February.  I shouldn't complain at all, though.  The rest of the country has had much worse weather over all than here.  This is just a pretty normal winter for here.  We just haven't had a normal winter for so long, that it doesn't seem normal anymore.
  The goats are all doing well.  The pregnant ones are growing their babies in fine fashion.  Speckles is probably going to have triplets again, she is quite large, and she's not due till the end of March.  Belle never did come into heat after the first time, at least that I could see, even with a buck right next to her in the weaning pen.  So, I'll just milk her through till next fall.  I guess she likes being run through and not having to deal with kids every year.  She is 13 this year, though, so I was wanting her to get bred before she gets any older.  She has different ideas I guess.  She's healthy and everything.  She did give me two doelings last year that look like they might be good milk goats, so we'll see.  She might not ever get bred again.
   Dani is all healed up from Nellie's attack on her.  It's amazing how well the herbs and oils worked on her!  She's back to her senior self now.  She's half deaf, half blind and her back legs are getting weak, but she still gets around pretty good.  Sam is her protector now.  He follows her everywhere and watches what she does with great interest.  He's a good dog/puppy.  He's only 10 months old, today, but ever since he helped me get Nellie off Dani during the attack, he's really matured.  He still has his puppy moments, but his confidence level went up tremendously.

I got a cold last week, the first one in years.  I'm being a big baby and taking it as easy as I can till I get well, which seems to be taking forever!  Since it's quite rare that I get sick, this hit me rather hard.  I'd forgotten what it's like to be sick.  Not fun, that's for sure.  But, I'm almost completely well again now, so onwards I go. :-)
  I'm slowly getting the goats combed, one by one.  The weather isn't cooperating very well.  I can't comb wet goats, and I don't have a good place to keep them really dry in.  Today I got the alleyway between pens situated so I can put family groups in there to keep them dry till I comb them.  In the morning I will put Celeste and her two kids from 2012 in there and then after they are done eating, I will comb them. Then the next day I'll put another family in there and get through them that way.

 Well, that's all the news from here for now.  Winter is pretty slow, for the most part, around here.  Oh, a mountian lion walked right by the neighbor's house a few days ago, and wandered around between places. I was wondering why my dogs were barking so much that night, now I know.  I'm so glad I have the dogs to keep things away!!  Nellie and Sam are working well together, it's kind of neat to watch.