Happy Birthday Skipper & Lovee

Sometimes big things come in small packages. Today I helped deliver Skipper, a little boy goat, black and white and full of cute, and Lovee, golden and full of adorable. It was about as nerve-wracking as you can imagine, with a young first-time mom, my first time attending a goat birthing, and with a cold draft shooting up through the barn door into the barn.

But, so much went right! First off, triple blessings: we went to check on the goats before going shopping and saw she was starting to deliver, it wasn't raining, and I had everything ready. Sweet!

When Skipper seemed stuck, with just his two feet showing, I massaged a tiny bit and he slipped right out.

Lovee had no problems being delivered.

Momma Ginger appears to be very healthy and happy.

No kids were rejected.

Although Skipper needed a little help warming up, nursing, and standing, once he got going he got stronger pretty quickly. I worried that we might lose him.

There are still concerns. Ginger has stepped on Skipper a number of times and doesn't seem to be careful about where she lays down. We're not sure how the rest of the herd is going to react to the newcomers (they're all locked out of the barn right now.) The last time we had the barn shut up, Ginger pushed her way out. I've reinforced the door, and she doesn't seem inclined to go anywhere, but if she does that again and the babies try to follow, they will be crushed.

We've had a racoon nosing around. It could kill the baby goats.

So, there are worries, but I think they're pretty traditional worries. Part of farm life is understanding that things don't always go well, and sometimes they go pretty horrifically. There's pain, sorrow, loss, grief and regret. Plenty to go around for everyone. But, we had a really good day today so far. In about twenty minutes we'll go check the goats again. Who knows what we'll find? With luck, two healthy baby goats and a content mother bedded down for the night, safe and sound.

Goat Drama

There's terror in the hills!

Okay, maybe not, but there's definitely nervousness, and anticipation.

One of our baby girl goats appears to be pregnant. Scandalous. I believe she was close enough to having 'made weight' if I count back the months that it should be safe, but we certainly didn't intend for or plan this. She's heavy in the body, but not wide, just ... low. And her udder is filling up. We've had cloud pregnancies before, so there's always a chance of that. But I have a feeling that it was just a matter of chemistry. Two young goats, falling in love, and despite massive disapproval and obstacles (two layers of fence between them) they somehow had at least one clandestine meeting and will be ecstatically happy parents. Maybe.

I'm really glad they had their BoSe boosters way back in a timely manner, and that I wormed them way back in a timely manner with a wormer that's safe for pregnant goats, and so forth.

At least the weather has been gorgeous. I don't have a lot of worries about finding a frozen baby goat in the field. That hasn't stopped me for keeping a close ear out for unusual bleats in the night. So far it's always been Thurston, our young buck, who I hear making odd noises when I go out. He's quite the vocal young boy. But one of these days ....

I hope that, assuming she's actually carrying a baby goat or three, that it will be an easy birth, and that we'll have a healthy kid. Or two. Or three. Because her mother and grandmother both often had triplets. Yikes!

Goatie Poopie Dog

Today my DH and I spent most of the daylight hours working on the farm. How much did we get done? Oh, about 1 percent. Maybe. Hopefully.

The big project was getting gravel on the main paths that my DH uses to feed the animals every day. He has an unstable knee that won't see surgery until late spring, so traction is crucial or he'll tear what's left of the support system. He turned Brian and Finn, the Great Pyr puppies, loose in the upper pasture so that the goats would be on their best behavior. Then we got a load of gravel and went to work. He loaded up the wheelbarrow and ran it up and down the hill, while I cleared out the accumulated manure and old, slimy, moldy alfalfa that had turned into a disgusting slip-n-slide near the gate where we fed the boys alfalfa on the way to the shed where they got their grain. I slung pitchfork-fuls of this fragrant slop over the fence into a pile, to be delivered to the veggie garden later.

Meanwhile, Chase, the border collie mix, ran along outside the fenceline, following Rory up and down the hill and occasionally making a run at the fence in a lame attempt to scare the goats into running. At some point we stopped paying attention to her until Rory let out an oath of disgust. "Chase, no!!"

I looked over and guess who was playing in the pile of ick? Guess who had rolled in it thoroughly and now was covered in partially dry goat poop, mole hole dirt, and whose fur was stained green from rolling in rotted, piss-soaked alfalfa? Well, I can tell you this. It was not me.

Chase was so gross, so filthy that Rory didn't want to let her trot through the house to the bathroom, so he picked her up at the door and carried her straight to the tub.

Her white fur is now once again white, and her black fur doesn't look suspiciously olive-toned. Clean dog. She got a lot of exercise today, watching us work, so she's curled up in an adorable ball on the sofa. The way she's acting, she worked harder than any of us. And maybe she has.

We've had some beautiful days, with lots of opportunity to work outside. I hope Mother Nature keeps them coming. There's plenty more out there to do. Next time, though, I think I'll stage a second wheelbarrow outside the the fence right next to the goat shed to avoid future, ah, breaks to play.

Shelter

We built a new shed for our baby boy goaties! The days are growing shorter, which means young goat hearts are turning to thoughts of love. The baby girls are much to young to be mommies, so we had to separate our buckling, Thurston, from the others. Goats don't do well alone, so Gilligan, the wether we got at the same time as Thurston, will be keeping him company. And although goats are very hardy, they still need things like shelter, a source of fresh water, a small daily ration of grain, salts, baking soda, hoof trimming, stable spray when the flies get too bad, lice control, and daily health checks.

All the goats share a fence line, so they can still see each other and graze close together provided both groups are willing. In January we'll be able to put them all together again. In the meantime, every few hours or so, Gilligan and Thurston realize they're 'alone' and bawl. That usually gets the girls bawling back at them. I've had some short nights as a result.

There's one huge bonus to isolating two goats in the lower pasture. Thurston and Gilligan have been spending most of their time eating blackberries. They've really done a good job getting the brush down in a very short time. That whole section was starting to overgrow, and now it's reasonable again. I can foresee a day when the lower pasture is all grass like the upper pasture, and another large patch of this invasive weed will be eradicated. Yay!

In other news, we have at least three feral kittens living in and near the barn, and we're officially on chick watch, as it's getting close to time for some eggs to hatch. We just got a good tip about feed from our neighbors which will help our hatch-through considerably. Sadly, it may be too late for this group, but we're keeping our fingers crossed.

Stay tuned: we're going to try to trap the kittens so that they can be taken to the vet for shots, spaying/neutering, and a general health check. This is the plan, but they're sly little cuties and we may not be able to catch them. Wish us, and the kittens, luck.

Animal and Weather Update

Wizard is doing well. The minor injury he sustained under his right front leg is healing nicely, thanks to a long line of stitches. He even spent some time outside today. He loved it. Sunny, warm, mild winds ... everyone enjoyed today, even those of us who had to work indoors at a day job.

I think a lot depends on whatever your local normal climate is, but around here when there's sun, people smile, liven-up, get stuff done, and there's a crazy amount of spring-fever energy in just about everybody. The usual for the Pacific NW is a week or three of excellent weather in February, preceded and followed by storm after storm with only rare sightings of blue sky between the clouds. This year has been anything but that--and the really weird part is that we had so much precipitation in our local mountain range that our snowpack is a little above normal. More sun and more snowpack?

I'll take it, thanks.

The thing that's got me a little befuddled is the worming thing. Goats ought to be wormed in spring time. Along with the flush of nice green grass come icky, nasty worms that can kill if they overload the goat's system too quickly. Usually I hold off on worming until April or May, depending on the average temperatures. This year ... yeah. I think I'll have to worm them on Sunday, and probably again in about a month. Two wormings this spring instead of one. That means an extra miniature rodeo. Since we'll be capturing and saving them from doom against their wills anyway, I might as well trim their hooves at the same time. They really love that.

I hope it doesn't rain on Sunday or I'll be muddy from head to foot. (Actually, muddy and covered in other, less savory stuff.) Yee ha?

Farms are Fun!

There are some things about owning animals, especially farm animals, that people don't think about.  

The goats don't just graze endlessly in a picturesque manner in their pasture, and you don't just pet them over the fence.  You gotta get in there.  I posted fairly recently about giving them wormer.  The other day I had to trim hooves.  At one point Snowflake had the girl down on the ground (ground covered in goat poo, I should point out) and the girl was yelling "I'm okay, I'm fine, keep going!"  It's like a funny little rodeo, but icky.

Chickens can be incredibly cute.  Again, you don't just toss scratch grain to them at a distance while they peck at the ground in a picturesque flock.  You have to walk (carefully because they get underfoot just like cats do at feeding time) among them to change water and to fill the feeder and find eggs.  Sophie is particularly cute.  She knows that treats come from human hands, and she doesn't mind being petted.  When I bend down to pet her she isn't sure what I'm going to do so she spreads her wings a little (she squats low and spreads her wings to get petted and when she gets picked up) but keeps her neck stretched as long as possible and twists her head around hoping to spot something yummy among my fingers.  When I pull my hand away she does a cute little leap toward my hand hoping to find grain there.  Leap!

Too many cats ... it's normally a good thing to have cats all over the place to keep the rodent population down.  (It's also awesome to have a little dog like Chase to kill rats because only a few cats are tough enough to take on an adult rat, though they bring home babies from time to time.)  But you'd better not get caught near the sliding glass door.  Think it's a chore to let one or two cats in and out all day?  Try five or six.  It's the worst in the morning on a rainy day.  The whining begins as soon as the alarm goes off.  I let them all out, and then some want to come in again five minutes later, and another ten minutes later and by that time one of the ones I let in wants out again, and the barn cat Tom Riddle sees me and freaks out and sprays to mark his territory.  I retreat, but inevitably I pass by the sliding glass door again and there's a kitty out there in the rain with its ears folded down and the silent meow, and one of the ones inside sees me heading for the door and races to be let out ....  All.  Day.  Long.

Dogs and coyotes.  Ah, the eerie and beautiful sound of coyotes in the distance.  Guess what?  The dogs hear them too.  The leader of the pack begins with rapid-fire barks.  The little one yips and runs up and down along the fence, then races to the back, back to the front, bark bark bark.  The leader slows down just about the time the big back-up base starts in with his steady, monotonous barks.  Oh yeah, eerie and peaceful and off in the distance.  Not!  At least our dogs don't howl when they defend their vocal territory, though sometimes I wonder if it might not be better than the barking.  There's something about that staccato that's a little like getting jabbed with a fork at the base of your neck every second or so at 3am when you're trying to sleep.  Besides, if our dogs howled I'd probably join in.

Maybe just the first thousand times.  Then it'd be back to me stumbling to the front door, ripping it open, yelling "Hush!" and then shutting it again before they can all charge into the house and fill it with fluff.

I think living on a farm is a lot more fun than most people realize.  It's just not the kind of fun they imagine.  It's somewhat like having kids.  Before you have them, you have all these dreams and a pretty good idea that it'll be hard too.  Then you have them and wham--it's everything and nothing like you expected, and so much more.

Tis the Season of the Goaty Worms

Recuperating from a long week.

The goats were looking kinda wan, so I decided to worm them even though the weather hasn't warmed up much.  

Springtime is worm season, and we've gone through worm overload problems before.  Anemia, bottle jaw, hypo-proteination ... yeah, I've learned it all the hard way.  But do I remember worming itself accurately?

Hell no.

I bought the wormer goop in an appealing-sounding flavor.  Apple cinnamon.  Sounds great, right?  And I head out to the barn.  Here goaty goaty goaties!  I waved the no-needle syringe in the air.  The goats come running.  Oh yeah, way easy.  I squeeze out a little and wave it in front of Scooter's nose.  His nose wiggles, then wrinkles.  Aw, come on!  You know you like it ...

Five minutes later I'm winded and astride Scooter, prying his mouth open with one hand while trying to push the syringe in his mouth with the other while squeezing the stopper.  White goo, scented pleasantly of apple-cinnamon, drips onto the ground and foams in his mouth.  I get most of it in and let him go.  

And he was the easy one.

The white goat won't even let me get near her.  I lure them into the barn with grain, and then the rodeo begins.  She's good with her horns ...

A couple of minutes later I walk out and they follow me, bleating for more attention.  I've got goop on my pants, on my hands, on the grain bucket, and I've stepped in some.  Fortunately I got close enough to a full dose in each of them that they should be safe.

Next month, maybe it'll be as easy as I remember it being.  You know, as easy as trimming hooves.  The way I recall it, hoof trimming isn't so bad.  

I have no idea why I keep putting it off.

Big Goat Day

I haven't posted about the goats in a while. Other than taking care of their daily needs, I haven't done much with the goats lately. So naturally I had to do everything at once yesterday, with the help of my DH.

Imagine taking a ton of tools out to the barn in a wheelbarrow. With the puppies, because they needed some quality time with the goats.

Imagine the goats immediately starting to play with any tools you don't happen to be using at the time.

Imagine the ripe scent of composting manure as we stripped away the relatively clean top layer and started mucking our way down toward bare earth. Mmm mmm mmm. Then of course wee little white flies arrived and hummed about. Then somehow, while going out to check on the dogs, I managed to get a bug, I think it was a flying black ant, in my eye. I got the body and wings out, not sure about all of the legs.

Imagine hauling wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of muck (my DH did this part all by himself) out to the garden at the far end of our property (on the top side--at least he didn't have to manage the hill.) Some of it was dry and light, some quite damp.

Imagine, just as you're starting to really dig in, the nature of the muck changing such that it wants to come off the ground in big chunks that keep falling off the shovels, sometimes by breaking in the middle like old, crumbling pottery. This same stuff, when chopped at, bounces shovels. Try not to imagine the coughing and the snot as our bodies tried to fend off the dust.

During those times when my DH made a wheelbarrow run, I worked on pulling out the old hay feeder (the goats had torn it to shreds) and put up a new one. Then I took out the old fencing that divided the goat side from the chicken side. So easy to say, so difficult to wrestle with twisted sections of wire field fence and to yank out staples with a hammer (we couldn't find our fencing pliers, which are perfect for this sort of thing.)

Imagine the feeling of satisfaction when we finish spreading the diatomaceous earth and straw. We turned the old chicken coop we kept in the barn into a sleeping shelf for the goats, and Snowblaze immediately had to leap up on top of it. Top bunk! (The inside is big enough for a goat to use as a house, and I suspect that's where Scooter will probably sleep, if not cuddled up to Snowblaze on top. Or they might both end up inside, because Snowblaze had to play around in there too.) The barn glowed with cleanliness and smelled great. I stayed to bask for a while, then buckled down to trim goat hooves. A piece flew off at one point and hit me in the eye. The same eye. But I persevered, and the goats have nicely trimmed hooves again. Those hooves really grew a lot in a month, which is normal for this time of year. Later I'll be able to trim much less frequently.

Left to do--one more dose of Panacur for the season (spring is worm season. Ick!) and the goats could use a good brushing. I also (eventually) want to build a stanchion because when they're not in the mood to stand for hoof trimming, they're pains in the butt. Weirdly, though, I had fun. If you don't have fun doing this sort of thing, rethink any ideas about having livestock.

I was sore even before we finished the work. I'm even more sore today. Maybe I'll take my camera out and take a pic, but it's more likely that I'll make tea and curl up around my computer and write most of today. It's too rainy to garden anyway.

All Animals All the Time

It seems like it's all animals, all the time around here lately.

Veronica had her first bath. (That's Veronica in the pic, but from last night, not today's bath.) She's exhausted from teh clean and fluffiness.

What actually got us started on the whole cat bath thing, though, was Lucky. He's gone into frequent grand mal seizure mode, as in last night he had four, and he's had at least one or two a day for about the past week to ten (out of the blue--this hasn't been building over time.) This up from having one once a month or so. He's on anti-seizure meds now twice a day. If his liver panel comes back eh then we'll have to reduce his dose, but for now we just want to halt the foaming at the mouth and spasms that last for a couple of minutes at a time. The poor kitty has been having some while standing up, too, and sometimes he recovers in that position, and others he flops over after a while.

All sadness.

But the good news is that he's otherwise healthy.

JR Bunny has something going on with his ears in the form of weird scabs. The vets were baffled. He got a Revolution top spot in case it's some sort of parasite they weren't able to find (no lice, no mites, no fleas ... nada!) and they sent him home with no real answers (though two vets and a couple of nurses all checked him out and scratched their heads and looked at lots of slides of samples taken from his quite clean though scabby earses.)

And then I decided it was well overdue time to worm (because it's been so warm!) the goaties and trim their hooveses. Trimming goat hooves actually isn't that bad, but it takes two people, so my much-suffering DH held heads while I trimmed feet. The goats I'm sure will be walking funny for a while until they figure out their balance points on their feet has shifted to better posture. It must be a lot like learning to stand and sit up straight after months of slouching. Doesn't hurt, but doesn't quite feel natural, either.

And then the DH and I jacked up the front porch a bit and put some fresh gravel up front for good measure. Where do the animals fit into this? Why, we had to do that because the big white floofy poopies (Brian and Finn) collapsed the porch's front corner by digging, and in the process brought the joys of mud to the normally graveled front entry.

It's not fixed, but it looks better, and it's not as dangerous getting up and down those steps. Still a bit dangerous, mind you, but if there was no danger, it wouldn't feel like home.

Threes

My mom always says that things come in threes.  Gawd I hope so.  I don't want to take a fourth hit right now.  Three is more than enough.

I can't go into too many details, because they're not mine to give, but I will say that we lost one more goat (Skunk!) and now we know why.  So far the other goats are okay, but we may lose them all.  The really good news is that they're now eating well--extremely well, which tells me that the situation is probably through their systems and they're making up for lost ground.  I think we're out of the woods.  But I'm reeling.  Skunk put me through a virtual veterinary school.  Through her I learned how to deal with neck wounds from a cougar, how to give penicillin shots, how to deal with hypoproteination, worm overload, false pregnancy and hoof wall rot.  We made it through together, and she stuck by me through my ignorance and incompetence.  And now she's gone.  We've lost animals for all kinds of reasons around here.  Some of it was intentional (butchering,) some through accident, illness ... but it never gets any easier.  We'll lose more, because we'll always have animals.  But for the first time in a while, I want a vacation from the responsibility.  I look at Dakota and think man, she's old and having trouble getting around.  Will I lose her soon?  I look at Lucky and try not to think about the fact that his epilepsy seems to be getting worse--longer seizures, closer together.  We knew this would be the progression that might eventually lead to medication.  It just seems like a lot to bear.

Then there's the joy and stress of Ireland.  We've run across a major hitch.  We'll meet in Ireland for sure, and see all kinds of neat and fun places, and it'll be good, but we have to make a decision that's not mine, but the boy's to make.  I hurt every time I think about the situation.  I feel so helpless.  How do you compromise or make adjustments when it's all or nothing either way?

The DH and I argued.  We sorted that out, but believe it or not, this all came to a head on the same day.  Goats, Ireland, argument.  

When the DH and I argue, we either play argue (we did this for entertainment for a long time and used the excuse that it's probably not healthy to have no arguments in a relationship) or we argue about something that isn't easy to resolve.  If it was easy to resolve, there'd be no argument.  So although things are sorted out, the core of the argument remains, and it eats at me.  

I've been moving along, letting the fallout from Seattle's failed Worldcon bid distract me, pampering the kids with restaurant meals and trips to the bookstore, home cooked spaghetti and bakery desserts.  We bond over re-viewing Veronica Mars episodes and the little victories that come from seeing the goats sunning themselves, alive and well, near the barn when we wake up in the morning.  But The Three never went away the whole weekend, even for a second.  These things are haunting us, and bring strange, unsettling dreams and strain to our smiles.  

The boy and I are starting to get the sniffles.  Stress=reduced immune system.  Hopefully we'll sleep good tonight, eased by good conversations with my DH, goats who seem happy and healthy and recovering, and the luxury of time in which to deal with what we need to do.  We need to rest up.  It's going to be a long week.

Shock Waves

I'm still not coming back to my blogs as often as usual, and I'm just going to post a few notes today.

We lost one of our white does, Snowflake, to some sudden onset thing.  It might have been bloat.  I've never had a goat get bloat, and it's really the wrong kind of year.  She didn't look anemic, so I don't think it was worm overload.  The only other things that looked wrong is that she had a bit of a dirty butt, so maybe she had diarrhea at some point, and she seemed a bit on the thin side, so maybe she'd been sick for a while but didn't show it.  Anyway, I'm frustrated by the loss.  I sprinkled poppy seeds on her grave and around the property.  Goodbye, sweetie.  You were a good goat.

I've been writing and editing, and I sent out that agent query I wanted to send out.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.  Much as I believe that the writing has to stand on its own, I'm not opposed to a little spiritual boost, especially during the current economy.

Like many other genre writers, I'm a little shaken by the loss of Realms of Fantasy.  That was one of the magazines I aspired to be published in.  Word has it that although subscriptions remained strong, newsstand sales dropped off dramatically and the publisher dropped Realms in order to funnel needed funds into other projects.  

This reminds me strongly of the markets when I started my first round of heavy submitting and some of the changes that happened surrounding Weird Tales that disturbed me.  The feeling at the time, with magazines like Midnight Zoo appearing and disappearing with unpleasant rapidity, was similar to what it is now, but back then there was far less a sense of desperation.  (I actually had an offer from Midnight Zoo and the same day I got the acceptance letter I got an email letting me know they'd just folded.)  It seems I do better under an ill-fated star.  Maybe this means this year I'll get an agent, despite everything.

Chaos and Sunshine

I heard the dogs whining.  When the dogs whine, it's usually the goats or the dobies across the way.  I was in the middle of a phone call, so I dawdled, until finally I got my butt upstairs.  

Goats.  Goats everywhere.  Well, near the barn, anyway.  Gah.

I apologized to my DH and headed out in mud boots.  The so-called cunning plan was to get one dog on a leash, head out there, and herd the herd back into their enclosure, followed by an investigation to try to figure out how they got out.  Finn sat tidily and calmly, so he got the coveted leash.  Now, normally, I can squeeze through the fence and through a combination of mild expletives, snarls, barks, shouts, shoves and admonitions, I can get me and just one dog out the gate.

Not today.  

Beast rammed past me with surprising force.  The goats scattered.

Great.

I shouted at him, but the airedale is strong in this one.  Goats climbed onto the stack of straw we have on our archery range.  Goats circled and faced him off with horns.  Scooter disappeared into the barn, and Beast went after him.  A second later Scooter came out, Beast appeared to bound onto him, and Scooter went down.  And lay still.

My heart leapt into my throat, just like in the cliche'.  I managed to snag Beast.  It was like a fight, but luckily he didn't use his teeth on me.  I knew if I scared him enough, he might panic and bite.  My throat was raw and I couldn't get enough air to fuel the effort of getting a very powerful dog so he can't slip away while simultaneously getting the chain collar off another dog that's trying to help and get that collar on him.  I think it took about four minutes.  

For the record, four minutes of giving it your all sucks.  

I finally succeeded.  Finn is good with the goats, so he was fine off leash around them.  He trotted into the pasture and started a perimeter patrol.  I couldn't take Beast over to what was left of Scooter--I had to get him back to the dog run.  I couldn't get the thought out of my head.  I have to shoot my dog.

No, I'll adopt him out.  Can I do that?  I don't think so.  What if he hurt a cat, a dog ... maybe an owner with no animals, maybe if I put out a plea--

Negotiations of a desperate mind.  I got him in and started back toward the barn.

And Scooter, the little butthead, stood up.  He was fine.

Fainting goat.  He must have fainting goat in him.  He overloaded and collapsed.  He was down, oh, I don't know how long.  Four minutes?  Another long four minutes, the kind where you have death in your hands and you don't want it.

So relieved on so many levels I was on the verge of tears, I looked Scooter over.  He didn't have so much as a scratch.  He wasn't limping.  He was fine.  Beast didn't hurt him.  He didn't hurt him.  He just scared him.  It still wasn't good, but it wasn't a death sentence.

I got the goats in, still relieved by my near miss.  Next time, the good dog gets to go in through the house.  It'll be like an air lock.  If one or both get by me, they might trash the upstairs, but they won't get out to the goats.  Brian would be fine, but Beast ... Beast was born and bred to chase deer, and goats are the next best thing.

Exhausted, I gasped my way back to the house, tasting blood in my throat, trembling from adrenaline.  It took fifteen minutes or more for me to feel like I might not pass out.  My DH called back and we talked while I sipped a shot of Navan to soothe my throat, and then I went back out.

I found what I thought was the hole, plugged it, dealt with another weak area for good measure, and thought that was that.  I was filthy, smelled like wet dog, mud under my fingernails--and it was sunny and gorgeously warm, beautiful in only the way a day can be after a near miss.  Time to garden.  I planted a tree (not the Christmas tree--I'll need help to get it off the deck) and some bulbs I'd left out in the weather just before the storm (all of them except a few anemones looked good, and I bet even the really pathetic anemones will be fine too,) did some weeding, placed a couple of edging boulders, leveled a couple sections of path.  About that time the goats got out again.  This time I had help from the kids.  I managed to notice that the truck gate was leaning.  Aha!  Andrea and I got it tied back in place.  No more goat escapes.

Chaos and sunshine.  It was a very good day, but I'll be sore tomorrow.  I feel it coming on already.

Me Aminals

Here we are toward the end of August and, surprisingly, all the animals appear to be healthy and happy. 

Dakota, all of a sudden, has decided to develop arthritis, but it's not too bad.  The vet checked her out and everything.  She's getting around pretty well for a twelve year old--at least I think so.

Huntress, Lucky, Kat and Wiz are all shiny and pesky.  They've invented

 all kinds of fun new games revolving around my bed and waking me up several times during the early morning until I give up on sleep and play with them.  Some faves are race across the bed, walk on mommy's hair, king/queen of the bed (which involves hissing,) chase the feet, make a tunnel in the blankets, and paper bag dash at the foot of the bed.  

The Wiz-dom has his own special game that makes tv time interesting.  He chooses the lap of the person who wants him the least.  The rest of us can make Gne-gne-gne noises all we want--he will not be swayed by promises of face scrubs, deep massage or belly rubs.  

The livestock is in good shape too.  I didn't get a good pic of the Smartest Chicken in the World, but the goats all posed nicely for me.  Spike is looking particularly handsome.  Here he's wearing pure white Boer-Saanan wool with designer horns and matching hooves.  He always looks smashing on the catwalk.  Beard by Beastie Nature.

The puppies and Beastie are ready for some diversion, but alas the Nissan is still stuck in the grass, and I'm not taking the hairy army in my nice new(ish) Corolla.  So, we're going to start walking around the neighborhood.  I know, that's not nearly as fun as going to the river and getting all wet and muddy, but it'll just have to do.  It's either walkies or a rebellion at this point.  When I'm so foolish as to jingle keys, they think that's their leashes and they go bananas.  Poor things.

That's all for the animal update.  Next on animal update--September vet trips.  Yay, a trip to the pet to get some tots!

All my favorite animals

Haven't done an animal post in a while.

Top of the list is Mojo.  Being a kitten, he has a clear advantage in getting attention over the others.  The cuteness factor is almost sickening.  The boy carries him around saying things like "We need a Mojometer to measure the Mojonator's mojoness."  Mojo is also getting over an ear infection--he won't be able to exploit pity points too much longer though because his ear isn't crusty anymore.  We're also involved in an age debate.  He's about the size of a five month old, but his eyes are changing color from the palest blue to a kind of yellow, almost green, not gold kind of yellow.  I did a little google and kitten eyes change color around 8 weeks to 12 weeks (or so they say, online sources being so reliable and all.)  Our little white kitty couldn't be that young, could he?  Seems unlikely, but ...  What do you think?  Can the Mojonity be a mere 3 months old?  If so, he's going to be a big, big kitty.

The other kitties are doing well.  And speaking of big kitties, the Wiz has grown a bit, some in weight but mostly in stature.  He just gets more handsome every day.  Lucky, on the other hand, is looking a bit tired.  He may have a cold.  The Huntress is sleek and shiny and still the baddest cat in the house, although she's exercising her snippiness a bit less lately.  We actually had all four of them sitting within three feet of each other outside my office.  Not sure what that was about.  Maybe they were having an executive kitty meeting and couldn't find kitten daycare for the Mojonation.  I'm sure if it was a meeting, it was about the Kota.

Dakota is doing really well.  She's wanting to play, is excited when we get up in the morning or when someone gets home and it's not just because she has to go potty, either.  The puppies keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger.  Beast is mellowing a bit, and Nikita is hanging in there.  Nikita I always worry about.  She's on two cans of wet food a day now and medication every day without fail to keep the cold weather from bothering her joints as much and to keep her warm and her weight up.

The goats are very, very fluffy right now, and the white ones are very white.  That's one of many things completely different from them and the dogs.  When the weather gets wet out the goats may be sloppy from the knees down but the rest of them is pristine because they won't play or lay in the mud.  They'll go in the barn to chew their cud.  The dogs, the puppies especially, get filthy in this weather and we'll have to have a bath day soon.  

Ugh.  Bath day.  Just like the dogs, I dread it, and just like the dogs, I like the part where they're all clean and racing around the house like fools, playing.  That's the best fun ever, that and seeing beautiful Brian sitting with Rory watching tv.  I don't know if watching all that fake, glorified violence is good for him, but Brian seems to really like it.  :-)

Oh, and surprisingly, we still have a chicken, the smartest chicken in the world.  I hope she does okay this winter.

And to my favorite animal, happy day that will live forever in infamy, my love.  Seventeen years, over half my life, nearly half of yours.  Good times.  Very good times.

Getting their goat

So I went down to the vet the other day to get advice on what shots to give my girls prior to breeding them for the first time and to hopefully get a lead on a buck to borrow. The pre-breeding advice took all of five minutes. As for the lead on a buck--man, you'd think it would be easy to find a buck, especially since we don't need champion lines.

But maybe it's not so surprising. The thing about bucks is that when they go into rut, they pee on their forelegs and faces to smell sexy for the gals, and apparently this drives the female goats into a sexual frenzy. It drives humans into a frenzy too, but not the same kind. More of the OMG what is that smell?!! kind. They also tend to be more adamant about getting out of fences to wander about hoping to find even more females than the ones that are in the immediate vicinity whether they've bred them all or not. I knew this, hence our not having any unaltered males of our very own, and yet breeding happens around here. It must. We're coming up on October sooner than we'll be ready for it--is there no one willing to pimp out their billy?

It's tempting to drive around the neighborhood and knock on the doors of people with male Boer goats out in their pasture. (There's no mistaking the boys even if they aren't in rut--those balls look like they belong on an Angus bull rather than a goat.) "Hey, I like the balls on your goat. Mind if I borrow him for about a month? I have cold, hard cash for the priviledge of being around his magnificent stench for the duration."

Such is life on the little farm. Sometimes it's hard to get someone's goat.

Time Warps

Man, my schedule has been eating me alive lately. Not the work schedule--that's staying nicely at 3-4 days a week with quite a few stretches of two days in a row off. No, it's how I've been arranging, or rather not arranging, my days. It seems that no matter how I focus my time, something gets neglected. Yeah yeah, I can't do it all. But lately I've been trying to achieve a rhythm where at least the most important things get done, and it's not happening. Grr. Grr I say!

Anyway.

Late summer feels more like autumn around here. There's no rain, though. Sometimes there's a chill in the air, but it doesn't quite have that zip that autumn mornings do. Still, we're getting that autumnal/harvesty/winding downess in the veggie garden (go, my zucchini minions, go!) (winter crop planting time rapidly reaching critical end zone) and some of the trees are getting color in protest of the dry, not-August-hot weather.

In kitty news, The Wiz seems to have an abcess or a bite or something on his flank. The hair fell out (which is normal and good) and it looks--well--it looks terrible and yet it's dry and appears to be mostly healed. This morning, as if proving that there's no need to haul him off to the vet, he was tearing around the house like a maniac. So, we're keeping an eye on him. But not a close enough eye that he licks the eyeball. I hate it when that happens.

In goatie news, we're getting close to breeding time. The gestation period of a goat is roughly in the five-six month range, closer to five. The plan is to breed the girls so that we're not delivering baby goats in February or sooner. The trick is that prime breeding time is (in my understanding) around September/October as far as goatie hormones are concerned. This is probably because in nature (this is my guess) that the babies will be on mommas milk while the grass is still dead, and about the time they're ready to get weaned, poof, there's tons of green grass with the spring flush.

But I don't want them running around in the cold, and also I definitely don't want to be lying on dirty straw in freezing weather at 2 am messing with assisting a goat birth for the very first time.

Any chance they might breed in, say, January for a nice June birth?

I didn't think so. Oh well.

Well, it's back to work time. And this time I won't neglect anything critical. Really.

A good day

Today the air calmed, so when I walked into the garden after work the fragrance from our roses kept kissing my face. Kissing is the best word I can come up with. You catch the scent, and it catches you and you want to chase it all at once. All the varieties of roses have their own personal scent, somewhat like a human being does. Lagerfeld is so heavenly it's almost overpowering. Blue Girl is sweet but still has that classic rose sharpness that stabs our nose and says rose perfume. Oldtimer would be candy sweet except it's gentle and softened by musk. All these roses and more mingle into a whiskey blend that stops me in my tracks, but stopping is a mistake. You lose power if you stop. Your nose dulls to the scent while the never-still air runs off with the scent. You just have to keep moving, and if you don't get another kiss, well, you'll have to go steal one by burying your face in a blossom. They feel nice. The petals have that coolness of silk combined with a texture that reminds me of youthful human skin. That creeps me out if I think about it too much.

Also today I got to watch the goats pigging out on blackberries. In a heroic assault my husband and my son tackled the fencing project and finished it, on Father's Day no less. At first the goats were nervous. I'm sure they thought it was a nasty trick. But greed overcame their fears and shortly after I got home from work they started feasting. Serious feasting too. The romans would have had nothing on these goats, who behaved as if we starved them. Especially Skunk, of course. Skunk's body has deepened and she's got quite the belly on her, meaning that she has to act the hungriest of all, grunting and commenting while she gorges herself.

They were, and are, very happy goats. It couldn't have happened without my son's hard work, and I hope he felt real pride. I think he knew he was supposed to, and said as much, as we stood on the deck and watched the goats milling around the edges of a massive blackberry wall. He may not realize it, but he made Rory's Father's Day special and good.

It's going to take the goats a good while to eat those berries down. I expect though that in the war of goat vs. blackberries, the goats will win, especially since they have victorious veteran goats on their side. All hail Skunk, mighty goat general.

It was a good day. I hope most everyone had a good day, though I know not everyone will. I had some young adults go through the checkstand today, three sibs. They bought about $60 worth of candy, pop and chips, and two Father's Day cards. After seeing the total, they decided to put the Father's Day cards back because they were too expensive. They'd call dad instead, because he'd like that just as well as a card. I'm guessing, since they'll be calling, that they won't be seeing him in person and therefore sharing the candy, pop and chips with him. They gave me a $100 bill to pay for their stuff. Who knows. Maybe their dad is a jerk. Anyway, it made me sad. It felt good to come home to family and to smell the roses.