Kids!

 Here are some kid pictures.  Top one is Aurora and Arthur.  They are out of Ariel   Arthur is a really nice color, not sure exactly what color he is, but he's striking.  The next one is Chocolate sunning himself.   He's out of Ming and has a twin sister.  

 This little black girl with the open page book on her forehead is Ebony.  She's a cute feisty thing.   Her mom is Oreo.  Oreo finally gave me a girl and a solid colored one at that!

 Here are Elsie and Athena looking out of the log. They are out of Celeste. None of the kids liked the 6 inches of snow we got on Mother's Day!  The last of it melted off today.  This seems to be the winter that doesn't want to end.

 This last one is of Savannah and Toby discussing the icky snow. :-)  Toby is actually Ebony's twin brother.  Savannah has a really nice looking cream colored twin brother.  Those two are out of Arianna.  She accepted both kids this time.  Last time she had twins (her first) she didn't want both of them, just the boy.  Tiki was a bottle baby.  She's turned out to be a really nice doeling!

That darn snow broke off about half the tulips by the fiber shed.  The snow slid off the roof onto the tulips and buried them.  I noticed today when it melted that a lot of the buds had broken off.  Bummer!  They always look so pretty blooming.  There are around 200 blooms.  Now there will be less than half of that.  The daffodils survived anyway.  This weather is getting old.  We get nice and warm, then another cold spell with snow descends on us and we get snowed on again.  Now it's supposed to be up around 70 this week, with yet another cold spell coming over the week-end again.  Sure hope there isn't any snow with it this time!!
  So far the over-wintered spinach has survived and the asparagus is starting to come up.  I'm not weeding it till after it gets warmer, that way the grass and weeds will shelter the asparagus and it won't freeze.  That's my hope anyway. :-)
  Well, it's almost a full moon out there so I think I will get my native american flute and go give the goats a little concert. :-)  Probably a short one since it's rather chilly out there. ☺

Kids

    

 Kidding season is now over.  20 babies all together.  These are just a few of them.  The top picture is of Matilda and Magic playing.  They are Speckles the dairy goats' kids.  Matilda is rather a flighty girl.  Magic is more calm and will come up to me to be petted.  I'm going to have to work with Matilda some more.  She's starting to come around, but she is very skittish.

 Here are Hershey and Mars.  They are out of Luna.  She wins the prize for the most colorful kids for the second year.  Last year she had twin girls, and this year, twin boys.  I think Hershey is buck material, so I'm keeping him intact.

 Here is another picture of Magic and Matilda relaxing in the morning sun.  Magic just looks too comfortable!  The bottom picture is of Nice and Sugar.  They are out of Spice.  I let my neighbor name them, and she decided that "Sugar and Spice and everything Nice" was a good saying.  So that became their names.

All the does had twins this year.  Even Ming had them for the first time.  Even split between boys and girls.  All the does drank their molasses water so nobody had any problems at all.  No bottle babies!  yippee!  I went for years without having any, then I had 5 the one year, 3 last year, and now I'm back to none.  Thank heavens!   There are 93 goats here now!  Anyone want a goat?  I'm selling a few, this is just too many for me to take good care of by myself.  Contact me if you are interested in a couple of goats.  Breeding stock to pet quality are available.
  I'll be taking more pictures of all the kids, maybe even a video or two.  One thing about it, even if you are having a really bad day, sitting out in the pen watching the kids bouncing around playing will cheer you up no matter what.  There is no way you can stay sad after watching them for a while.  They just exude joy.
  It snowed overnight.  I woke up to see two inches of snow out there!  It all melted by mid-afternoon.  It hasn't been really warm yet, except for two days last week in the 70's.  Now it's in the 40's.  I guess that is good for keeping the snow melting slowly in the high country so there won't be any major flooding around here.  We had an above average snowpack in all the surrounding mountains this last winter.  There still is a lot up there.  It's melting slowly and soaking in pretty good.  Our road dried out way faster than it usually does this year.  The earth is thirsty!
  I finally got all the goats combed now.  Finished the last one yesterday.  I've been washing a couple of fleeces a day.  I'm going to finish up a few outdoor projects this week, then start on the dehairing next week.  So many things to do around here and only so many hours in the day.  I make a list of things to do each day.  Some days I get them all done, and on others, I don't.   The important things are getting done, though.
  Well, that's it for now.  I'll get some more pictures taken soon and get them on here.

First new kids of the year

    

Here is a picture of Speckles before giving birth.  Doesn't that look like there should be triplets in there?  She's had triplets twice before.  But, she had twins instead.  Nice healthy kids, but only two. 

The brown one is a little doeling I named Matilda, and the oatmeal colored one is a little buckling that I let the 5 year old neighbor girl name.  She named him Magic.  He was a little weak in the pasterns at first, but he's normal 24 hours later.  They were born on April 1st.  Matilda came out first at 1:30 pm, then 45 minutes later Magic came out, backwards.  It took seemingly forever for his head to show up!   I really was expecting triplets, but the afterbirth came out next, and nothing else.  Oh well, I guess that's good since they are half dairy, half cashmere and not pure of either kind, although I think Magic might have some good cashmere.  He's a lot fuzzier than Matilda.  Time will tell.  I'll be selling both of them, though.  Matilda has some really long "airplane" ears!
As usual, everything happened at once.  The Forester that was coming up to sign off the latest thinning project I did arrived just as Matilda came out.  At least I had time between births to take him out into the thinned area to see what I'd done.  He approved, so a check is coming soon!  After I get done with the cashmere this spring, I'm signing up for another section to thin.  I feel much safer from a forest fire now.  The area below the house and to the side is thinned nicely and now the dairy pasture side is, too.  The hill behind the house is already pretty good, so now out behind the goat pens needs done, then the house and goat area will be fairly safe.  Of course an ember could start a fire anywhere, but at least a wall of flames can't consume the place now.
  Sam was right outside the barn door the whole time, and he didn't leave that area until after I completely closed the doors on the barn that night.  He was guarding quite well.  I don't know that I'll trust him with the kids though.  He was a little too anxious to see them.  Speckles doesn't like him at all, so I'm keeping him away from the area now.  Since Sam isn't quite a year old yet, he'll be 1 on the 20th of this month, I think he might decide to use the kids as toys to play with, so he's banned from the area till they are a lot older and he is too.  I might have to buy a muzzle for him or something so he doesn't bite or chew on anyone.  He didn't last summer with the bottle babies, but he's bigger now, so who knows.

The snow is starting to melt around here finally.  I'm seeing the garden beds again.  I've started the yard clean-up.  3 dogs sure make a mess of things!  I have a lot of raking and picking up of things to do!

I got three more goats combed today.  Arianna was a real pain to deal with.  She wouldn't get up on the stand no matter what, so I had to comb her on the floor, which was not comfortable at all.  She wouldn't stand still for very long at a time, and kept laying down.  Thank heavens her cashmere was coming off easily and it didn't take very long to do.  Glad this is only a once a year ordeal. :-)  She's 8 years old this year, you'd think she would know the routine and behave.  Her two kids that I've combed so far did much better than she did.  They both jumped up on the stand and stood pretty still the whole time.  

I hauled up some compost to the green house today.  I'll plant some salad greens in there this week-end and have some early salads this year.  I try to buy mostly local food, so I haven't had a salad here at home since the garden froze last fall.   I'm looking forward to a fresh salad!

The next kids are due around the 15th, so I'll have time to get these kids nice and tame before the cashmeres start being born.  I'm going to sell a bunch of goats this year.  This number is just too many for me to handle well by myself.  Some will go in the freezer, and the rest I'll sell privately.  There isn't a sale yard around here, and hauling them over to the Spokane area would eat away any profit I'd get, so private sales are what I'll do.  I'll be selling mostly wethers, so if anyone wants some goats for weed/brush control and/or pets that have good cashmere, too, let me know.

That's it for now....

Let the meltdown begin!

   The snow is melting!  yippee!! ☺  The only drawback to that is now there is water everywhere.  The poor goats don't have very many dry spots, except in their houses, and some of those have water in them.  I am so glad we built a raised platform in the main pen years ago.  I think all this snow will be gone by next week-end, then we will have a dry spring, then a rainy summer.  We'll see...
 
  I am now finally combing the goats.  I'm going out there at noon and combing until chore time.  Depending on how thick the fleece, I get anywhere from 3 to 5 done a day.  I have a nice little blister forming in the palm of my left hand. :-)
  Yesterday I combed Oreo and Astrid.  Oreo first.  She looks so totally different after she's combed.  Astrid decided she didn't like that, so she proceeded to attack Oreo and try to break her leg with her horns.  Came pretty darn close, too!  Now I have Astrid in with the wethers to chill out for a few days.  Hopefully both her and Oreo will forget about their argument and live peacefully after a couple of days.  Poor Cupid and Christie, Astrid's kids from last year, are missing their mom.  They are used to being with her all the time, and sleeping next to her.  Tonight they will be by themselves.  At least they can see their mom, they just can't be near her.  They are a year old, so they will be fine.  They weaned themselves a long time ago, they just all stick close together.  All the family groups out there do.
  It will be interesting to see what Arianna and Luna do this year.  They are a mother daughter pair and both are pregnant.  Last year Luna had kids, but Arianna didn't.  She was a good grandma.  Daisy and Cleo, Luna's kids, kept going through the fence into the misfit pen to eat, then one day they grew too much and couldn't fit back through, so they stayed in the misfit pen and weaned themselves a couple months earlier than the other kids.  Did not seem to hurt them one bit.

  Well, I think I'll go out and do my "bedtime" check of the goats and make sure everybody is where they are supposed to be and all are safe.  I hear the dogs barking at something, probably a deer coming in to eat the hay that the goats are wasting in the dairy barn area.  The deer don't go in the barn, but they eat on the compost pile of hay and manure out of the barn.
   Every once in a while one gets their back leg caught in the fence.  They manage to get out, but they sure bend up the panel doing it!  I wonder if they dislocate a hip or anything.  The last time wasn't too long ago, there was snow on the ground.  It totally bent the panel all to heck, but the tracks leading away looked fine.  No drag marks and all four feet were walking on the ground leaving normal tracks.  A lucky deer, that one was.
   I have to remember to set the clocks ahead tonight, too.  This year is going by too fast already!  I was going to have the thinning all done by now, the goats mostly all combed and once again,that has not happened.  I'm almost done thinning, one more good day and it will be done.  The weather has not been cooperating for the combing most days, so I'm behind again.  Oh well, it will all get done when it gets done and not a minute before. ☺

Winter returns again!

  This was the weather on Wednesday.  We had a couple of beautiful sunny days. Today it's a whopping 8° and it's snowing again.  At least we aren't getting the full effect blizzard they are down in the Flathead Valley.  We just get a little breeze every once in a while.  It's supposed to get well below 0 again tonight and Saturday it's supposed to be a high of 1°.  I know, this is Montana, we do have winter here, but this one has seemed extra long, even though we always have snow on the ground this time of year.  I think it's all the extra cold temperatures we've had.  It's relatively warm for a few days, then arctic air returns yet again.  It's really slowing down the combing of the goats!  Yesterday I partially combed one doe, but left her sides and back alone and just got her chest, neck, and lower sides, where it was really starting to come off.  I have completely combed a few of them and now they are out there standing around looking pretty chilly.  By Tuesday it's supposed to be back in the 30's again.  I hope we have a rapid melt off in the next couple of weeks.  I am so ready for green grass and flowers!
    I am curious as to what all is going to come up out where the big thinning project took place last summer.  I am almost done with the two acre thinning that I'm doing on my own.  It's open burning season starting tomorrow, but there is so much snow on the piles, that there's no way to burn them yet.  I have just a few trees left to cut in the dairy pasture, then that will be done.  I'm waiting for the snow to fall out of the trees now so I don't get covered in it when I cut them down.  ☺
   I am having an issue with the neighbor dogs coming up here almost every day.  They either climb over the fence, or dig under it and I am really getting tired of them coming up here!  My dogs aren't getting out, and I really do not like other people's dogs coming here.  I have repeatedly told them to keep their dogs home, I don't want them up here, but they aren't doing too much to keep them home.  They claim that they can't keep them home, they dig under, jump, or climb their fences, too.  To me, that means the dogs aren't happy if they continually leave their own home and come over here.   Maybe they should get rid of a couple of them.  They have 4 dogs.  This has been going on for almost a year.  The dogs aren't chasing any of my goats or anything, so I can't legally shoot them, they are just using this place as a bathroom and getting into everything.  One of the absolute dumbest things I ever did was tell them Sam had some siblings.  They got Sam's sister, so that adds to the problem.  The two dogs want to play together.  Sam is a good boy and doesn't climb or jump fences, but his sister does.  She is getting as sneaky as their blue heeler dog, who comes up here, too.  As soon as I open the door, they take off for home again, so they know they aren't supposed to be up here.  That also means I can't catch them to take them to the pound either.  I'm going to call the animal control guy here soon.  I'm done giving them leeway to fix the problem.  They obviously aren't thinking I will really do anything, so it's time to really do something.  I've given them plenty of warnings, I've even lost my temper and yelled over the phone at them, with a few choice words, to keep their dogs home.   The other neighbors up here keep their dogs at home.  They have escaped a couple of times, but they don't continually come here.  They don't go over or through the fence, so they aren't bothering me.  I have this place completely enclosed, the driveway gate is even closed all the time, so there is absolutely no excuse for any dog coming here.  Now I've written about this publicly so there is a record of it.  It's most maddening, to say the least.
    On to happier subjects...  The chickens are finally laying a good amount of eggs again!  Now I have enough to sell, or take to the food bank for them to distribute.  I'm thinking I'm going to get some turkeys to raise this year.  We used to do that for years until I got the dehairing machine and didn't have time to take care of everything around here.  I miss homegrown turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Any other time, for that matter.  Even the organic store bought turkeys aren't as good as the ones we grew.  Plus, I have customers that are really wanting me to get back into growing them again.  They miss them, too. :-)
  Well, it's time to go out and do the evening chores already.  Even though I didn't do a whole lot today, the day went by pretty fast.
  Spring is coming, it really is, someday, somewhere......  ☺☺

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.
   
 

The power of herbs

Last Friday night Nellie attacked Dani and was going for the kill this time.  I was sitting here at the computer when I heard a most awful screaming noise outside.  I went running out there and here was Nellie on top of Dani.  I grabbed Nellie's tail and started pulling her off, but this time I couldn't get her off.  She was too strong and intent on doing in Dani.  Luckily Sam came to my aid and started biting and barking at Nellie, distracting her enough that I could finally get her to let go of Dani long enough to separate them.  There was blood everywhere.  As I was disciplining Nellie, Dani went up on the deck.  She was standing up there with blood pouring out of her.  Nellie had torn a big hole in her chest right under her left front leg.  I had to grab a couple of towels and hold them up against her to get the blood to stop flowing out.
  I got her in the house without getting blood all over the floor and examined her to see what all was going on.  She had bite wounds all over her front half, and the big hole in her "armpit".  I mixed up a concoction of coconut oil, calendulated oil, lavender essential oil, and some tea tree oil and took a syringe and squirted it up into the hole.  You could put a golf ball in that hole!  I could see her muscles where her leg joined her chest.  After I got a good dose of oils in there I took another mix of powdered herbs: garlic, comfrey, willow and some cayenne and stuffed the hole full of it.  I tried to wrap it, but nothing I tried would stay in place, so Saturday morning I quit trying.  I just left it open.  I also gave her some raw honey, a spoonful at a time, 3 or more times a day.  She is healing quite well!  The swelling in her leg has gone down and it's almost back to normal now.  She's barely limping on it.  The hole is shrinking and there is no infection at all.
  Dani is going to be 15 years old in May, so she's a little old to be getting in fights, especially with a dog so much bigger than her.  So, from now on, I have to keep those two separated.  I don't trust Nellie not to attack her again.  This is about the 6th time she's attacked and this was the worse one.  Thank heavens Sam was there and helped.  He's only 9 months old, but he's as big as Nellie and very smart.  He catches on to things quite rapidly.  He's also best buds with Dani.  He was very worried about her Friday night.  He slept on the deck the whole night, as close to Dani as he could get, being an outside dog.  He's very gentle with her when she goes outside to go to the bathroom, not trying to play with her or anything.  He just sniffs her and stands by her for a minute, then walks away and leaves her alone. He also keeps between her and Nellie while she is out.
  I'm glad we got a lot of snow last night and today, it covered up all the blood out there!  We've got a good 10 inches of new snow now, and it's still lightly snowing and 12° out there.  I hope it stops pretty soon, I'm tired of shoveling and plowing snow!  I still have more to do tomorrow.

  Anyway, the herbs and oils are doing a wonderful job of healing her wounds, probably as good as, or better than, the drugs a veterinarian would have given her and a whole heck of a lot cheaper than taking her to a vet, especially since it was after hours, as usual.  I have never had an emergency during office hours.  It's always been in the evening or week-end.  Even had to take a goat in for an emergency C-section on Easter Sunday one year.  We're so far away from any of the offices, that a house call mileage charge is more than the actual cost of whatever they are treating.  I've learned to treat almost everything myself over the years.  There are a few things that I will still take an animal to a vet to take care of, but it's got to be a last resort.

  Luckily Dani is going to make a full recovery, and is healing rapidly.  Now I just have to make sure that I keep those two apart all the time.  That will take some juggling around, but I think it will work.  At least for the rest of the winter.  Once the snow is gone, I'll have to figure something else out.  Dang dogs, anyway.  Never again will I have two dogs of the same sex here.  LGDs are just too territorial.  Good for predator control, not good for other pet dogs.  Nellie is especially mean when it comes to food.  A bone is what set her off this time.
  Well, that's all the excitement around here for now.  I'll be digging out of the snow for the next couple of days.  At least now we have a decent snowpack around here.  It was pretty slim before this storm.  Lots of bare spots under trees, etc.  Not now!   Glad I finished my thinning project on Tuesday!  I just have a few big trees to take out of the dairy pasture and it's all done, except for the burning of the slash piles.  That will happen in April when open burning season is.