I still can't really believe that this is really happening. Every morning, regardless of how incredibly hard, how many times I was bit on the shoulder, or how unexpectedly smooth the milking process goes, I walk away with the same thing: about 3 quarts of fresh goats milk.
Of course these pictures are blurry. Trying to take pictures while milking a goat that is screaming and stomping and trying to bite is not the easiest thing in the world to do. I wish I could say that milking was a peaceful, bucolic way to start the morning, but in reality, I have to tie the goat down and work as fast as I possibly can. That is why instead of hand milking I got a little held pump system from Dansha Farms. I know my time with Cupid is extremely short and I am a very slow hand milker and there is no way Cupid is going to cut a newbie any slack.
With this system, I attach large plastic syringes to her teats with a hand held pump that creates a vacuum and boom! there's milk. It sounds easy, but some mornings are easier than other, some mornings the vacuum seals in no time, and some mornings it just won't and I feel like I'm going to go crazy. That was this morning-an epic battle of wills, where Cupid tried to get me stop milking by simply and defiantly laying down on the milk stand. I kept at it milking her one teat I could reach and she finally conceded and stood up on all fours. Milking took about an hour this morning, there have been some mornings (OK, 2 mornings) where it has taken about 15 minutes.
I milk Cupid once a day, at about 7am. The rest of the time the kids get to feed of her as much as she will let them. We separate Cupid from her kids at night to maximize the amount of milk we get from one milking. The way the stalls are set up is that Cupid can still see and be near her kids, but they can't nurse from her. This will also help when we wean the kids from her, since at night they are eating hay and other treats, instead of getting their main nourishment from milk. After we wean the kids, I'll be milking twice a day-I'm not really looking forward to this!
Ok, so milking kind of sucks. But at least we get the milk!
So far I've made yogurt, cottage cheese, and chevre. I also have some goat milk and duck egg vanilla ice cream chilling in the freezer that I haven't tried yet. And still I have almost 2 gallons of milk in the fridge! I'm not terrible at cheese making, but I still have a lot have a lot of leaning to do! At least it's all been edible so far!
And the kids are still super cute and getting bigger everyday!
And while Cupid may fight me tooth and nail when I'm milking her, she also knows that during the day I bring her delicious treats. I think of it as a thank you for today's and tomorrow's milk.
Yes, milking could be going better, but I am so happy with 3 qrts of milk a day! We didn't prepare from the reality of having this much milk so soon and are now trying to get through all out dairy products as fast as possible, as Cupid and I make more every day!
Monday, September 1, 2014
Monday, July 28, 2014
Triplets!!!
KIDS! Finally!
For weeks I've been saying any day now, any day now and when does she have kids?? When I'm in the shower!
The past couple days Cupid has been acting strange-which is a actual sign of a goat going into labor. When Keith said she seemed even weirder first thing this morning, I was hoping today was the day! I ran out and checked her before I took a shower and she was just hanging out in the shade, as usual, no big deal. BUT when I got out of the shower I heard a goat bleating sound like no animal usually makes here at our house. I was positive that it was a sign of Cupid being in labor! I threw some clothes on, grabbed some towels and headed to the barn. This is what I was greeted with!
Could these two kids be any more freaking adorable!! I flew into action. I got Frannie and Snowy into a separate stall, even though they were being sweet to the kids, I wanted them out the way. Them ran on got our Labor and Delivery (or post Labor and Delivery!) stall ready. I put down more bedding, filled up the hay bag, brought in some goat chow, and filled up Mama's water with warm molasses water. I got them all into the stall the only way I could think to-I grabbed the kids and Cupid followed-boom, they're in their own private stall!
They seem content to hang out together, so I run inside to get my real camera, enough of this blurry iPhone picture crap! As soon as I'm back in the stall I hear Frannie and Snowy going crazy bleating outside and a tiny little bleating....what!?! Where is that coming from!
Damn! Cupid must have had her first kid out in the pasture and left it there!!! Sweet Frannie and Snowy were licking him and I ran out and grabbed him and brought him in with all of them. He is so much littler and was wet and covered with dirt! But none of that stopped him. He saw his Mama, found her teats, and got down to business! He is my favorite!
Obviously, every time I go out to the barn, the kids are cuter. They're finding their feet a little more, a little more curious. I forgot to tell you! It's two girls and a boy. The white ones are the girls and the black one is the boy. The girls names are Phoebe and Selene-although I haven't decided which is which yet! And the boy...I'm just not sure yet. I'm sure something will come to be-he seems really sweet so far!
I will now proceed to get nothing done today, but hang out with this new little family! Tons more pics to follow!!
For weeks I've been saying any day now, any day now and when does she have kids?? When I'm in the shower!
The past couple days Cupid has been acting strange-which is a actual sign of a goat going into labor. When Keith said she seemed even weirder first thing this morning, I was hoping today was the day! I ran out and checked her before I took a shower and she was just hanging out in the shade, as usual, no big deal. BUT when I got out of the shower I heard a goat bleating sound like no animal usually makes here at our house. I was positive that it was a sign of Cupid being in labor! I threw some clothes on, grabbed some towels and headed to the barn. This is what I was greeted with!
Could these two kids be any more freaking adorable!! I flew into action. I got Frannie and Snowy into a separate stall, even though they were being sweet to the kids, I wanted them out the way. Them ran on got our Labor and Delivery (or post Labor and Delivery!) stall ready. I put down more bedding, filled up the hay bag, brought in some goat chow, and filled up Mama's water with warm molasses water. I got them all into the stall the only way I could think to-I grabbed the kids and Cupid followed-boom, they're in their own private stall!
They seem content to hang out together, so I run inside to get my real camera, enough of this blurry iPhone picture crap! As soon as I'm back in the stall I hear Frannie and Snowy going crazy bleating outside and a tiny little bleating....what!?! Where is that coming from!
Damn! Cupid must have had her first kid out in the pasture and left it there!!! Sweet Frannie and Snowy were licking him and I ran out and grabbed him and brought him in with all of them. He is so much littler and was wet and covered with dirt! But none of that stopped him. He saw his Mama, found her teats, and got down to business! He is my favorite!
Obviously, every time I go out to the barn, the kids are cuter. They're finding their feet a little more, a little more curious. I forgot to tell you! It's two girls and a boy. The white ones are the girls and the black one is the boy. The girls names are Phoebe and Selene-although I haven't decided which is which yet! And the boy...I'm just not sure yet. I'm sure something will come to be-he seems really sweet so far!
I will now proceed to get nothing done today, but hang out with this new little family! Tons more pics to follow!!
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Randy the Billy
While still Cupid hasn't had kids yet (we still have about 2 weeks until kids!), but we do have new animal additions. Three this week-so far!
This morning I had to go out and run an errand. It was something I thought about waiting for Keith to help me with, but it's going to be such a hot day today and I just wanted to get this taken care. So I hopped in the pickup and drove to Lostine to pick up our billy goat, Randy.
Randy wasn't his first name and it probably won't be his last. When Kate and I picked him up near Tollgate around Christmas, his name was Gunner. We quickly decided that name did not suit him at all. So we changed it to Fabian. How could we not! Look at those curls! He was Fabian for a while, pretty much until he got unleashed around the ladies. That's where his one track mind became very obvious, so for now he's Randy.
Randy is sharing his space with our other bachelors, Sam the Ram and Little Sam. Little Sam isn't a bachelor as much as a lamb that accidentally didn't get castrated and we had to get him away from his sisters before any other accidents happened. While both Sam and Randy are pretty chill on the scale of aggressive males, Sam has to show Randy whose the boss of the bachelor pad. Cue Sam the Ram ramming Randy (with Little Sam staying the hell away!).
It's barely been an hour since they were introduced and they have calmed down a lot. I expect some posturing from them pretty much forever, but I think the worst of it is over. And what handsome fellas we have here! All that manly beard and chest hair, our ewes and does (sheep and goats) are very lucky ladies!
I knew at some point I was going to have to bring Sam to our place, it was part of why we had the pens built into our new fence. But of course unexpected things happen and we have more animals, in this case chicks.
See, I thought this hen was sick. In my experience, when a hen sick she tends to quarantine herself. All the books say to quarantine the sick hen completely from the other hens, but she had put herself in the far corner of what is usually the goat stall, but there aren't even goats in there right now, so I just didn't worry about it. Yes, there was a chance she was being broody, and checked for eggs under her for the first week and there were no eggs. I repeat NO eggs! In my mind she was just not well and would either get better (they usually do) or die, one or the other. And I was completely wrong! And no, I didn't check for eggs under her again-oops.
We have only hatched two chicks so far, but she's sitting on about 15 eggs, again-oops. One is with it's fierce mama, hopping around, being all adorable. The other was abandoned by the mama hen-I have no idea why. I was out in the barn looking for more chicks and I found another one, about a foot away the hen, freezing cold. I tried to put this tiny chick back under mama's wing and she attacked it. She flung it to the side and when it wasn't far enough away tried to violently peck at it.
That was it. I took it away and now it's upstairs in the closet with a heat lamp and a cocker spaniel for a mother hen.
And now we have more than one mother hen. These two hens have somehow worked out this co-parenting situation. I really have no clue what's going to happen when/if more chicks are hatched. These two keep wrestling over whose eggs are whose, so how their going to work out chicks I don't know. We'll just have to wait and see.
Since tomorrow is the 4th of July, I have to give a corn update! It is almostweed knee high by the 4th of July! About half of the corn plants are actually knee high and they are only going to grow to about four feet tall anyway, so we are off to a great start!
The greenhouse is doing great! The winter squash is almost all taller than me-yay! Most of the tomato plants are with full of tiny tomatoes or loads of flowers and some of the peppers are already starting to ripen!
Hope you all have a wonderful 4th o'July!
This morning I had to go out and run an errand. It was something I thought about waiting for Keith to help me with, but it's going to be such a hot day today and I just wanted to get this taken care. So I hopped in the pickup and drove to Lostine to pick up our billy goat, Randy.
Randy wasn't his first name and it probably won't be his last. When Kate and I picked him up near Tollgate around Christmas, his name was Gunner. We quickly decided that name did not suit him at all. So we changed it to Fabian. How could we not! Look at those curls! He was Fabian for a while, pretty much until he got unleashed around the ladies. That's where his one track mind became very obvious, so for now he's Randy.
Randy is sharing his space with our other bachelors, Sam the Ram and Little Sam. Little Sam isn't a bachelor as much as a lamb that accidentally didn't get castrated and we had to get him away from his sisters before any other accidents happened. While both Sam and Randy are pretty chill on the scale of aggressive males, Sam has to show Randy whose the boss of the bachelor pad. Cue Sam the Ram ramming Randy (with Little Sam staying the hell away!).
It's barely been an hour since they were introduced and they have calmed down a lot. I expect some posturing from them pretty much forever, but I think the worst of it is over. And what handsome fellas we have here! All that manly beard and chest hair, our ewes and does (sheep and goats) are very lucky ladies!
I knew at some point I was going to have to bring Sam to our place, it was part of why we had the pens built into our new fence. But of course unexpected things happen and we have more animals, in this case chicks.
See, I thought this hen was sick. In my experience, when a hen sick she tends to quarantine herself. All the books say to quarantine the sick hen completely from the other hens, but she had put herself in the far corner of what is usually the goat stall, but there aren't even goats in there right now, so I just didn't worry about it. Yes, there was a chance she was being broody, and checked for eggs under her for the first week and there were no eggs. I repeat NO eggs! In my mind she was just not well and would either get better (they usually do) or die, one or the other. And I was completely wrong! And no, I didn't check for eggs under her again-oops.
We have only hatched two chicks so far, but she's sitting on about 15 eggs, again-oops. One is with it's fierce mama, hopping around, being all adorable. The other was abandoned by the mama hen-I have no idea why. I was out in the barn looking for more chicks and I found another one, about a foot away the hen, freezing cold. I tried to put this tiny chick back under mama's wing and she attacked it. She flung it to the side and when it wasn't far enough away tried to violently peck at it.
That was it. I took it away and now it's upstairs in the closet with a heat lamp and a cocker spaniel for a mother hen.
And now we have more than one mother hen. These two hens have somehow worked out this co-parenting situation. I really have no clue what's going to happen when/if more chicks are hatched. These two keep wrestling over whose eggs are whose, so how their going to work out chicks I don't know. We'll just have to wait and see.
Since tomorrow is the 4th of July, I have to give a corn update! It is almost
The greenhouse is doing great! The winter squash is almost all taller than me-yay! Most of the tomato plants are with full of tiny tomatoes or loads of flowers and some of the peppers are already starting to ripen!
Hope you all have a wonderful 4th o'July!
Friday, June 27, 2014
Tastes like summer! Pesto edition
Three summers ago I had never tasted a garlic scape, now it's not the start of summer without them!
What are these pretty little curlicues and what makes them so special?
Garlic scapes are the flower stalk of the hardneck garlic plant before that the plant produces before the garlic starts to bulb. Even if you're not interested in eating them, it's a good idea to cut them off the garlic plant. If the scape isn't cut off, the plant with put energy into making that flower instead of growing big, delicious bulbs of garlic, besides, with their mild, garlic flavor, the scapes are amazing!
It's up to you what you do with your scapes-you can grill them, sauté them, eat them raw, throw them in pasta or eggs, even pickle them. And fine, yes, that is all tasty and great but I think you're missing out if you're not making pesto. Really the best pesto ever! This is unfortunately my last batch of garlic scape pesto for the season.
This year I'm growing two different kinds of garlic: Music and Killarney Red. This is the first time I've grown two different kinds of garlic and the unexpected best part of this is that their scapes were ready to harvest a couple different times.
The first batch is almost gone already and in the second batch I didn't have a huge amount of scapes, so I made arugula/scape pesto. This time I've got loads! It is recommended that you cut off the top flower part of the scape because it adds a more heat to the taste of the pesto. I leave it on. I do that for two reasons: one) I love the flavor and two) I'm super lazy.
I knew I was little behind in harvesting the last of them, then my friend Dionne sent me this recipe this morning and I knew I had to get this done today.
GARLIC SCAPE PESTO
1 cup garlic scapes cut in 1 inch pieces
1 cup grated Parmesan or Asiago cheese
3 Tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup pine nuts, cashews or almonds
Blend garlic scapes, olive oil, lemon juice and cheese in food processor then stir in nuts.
This was the biggest batch of pesto I've made this season....and my poor food processor is dying! I have to hold everything together just right to get it to work. I'm really hoping I get a new one before the height of canning season hits!
The best way for us to store all this is to freeze it! In regular old ice cube trays. Once they're frozen solid, I'll pop them out into freezer bags. To use, I microwave the pesto cubes with a little bit of olive, and that's it! Use on pizzas, in eggs, or quiche, or pasta-the list goes on and on! This will just have to keep us until we have enough basil to make even more pesto, which should only be about a week or two!
What are these pretty little curlicues and what makes them so special?
Garlic scapes are the flower stalk of the hardneck garlic plant before that the plant produces before the garlic starts to bulb. Even if you're not interested in eating them, it's a good idea to cut them off the garlic plant. If the scape isn't cut off, the plant with put energy into making that flower instead of growing big, delicious bulbs of garlic, besides, with their mild, garlic flavor, the scapes are amazing!
It's up to you what you do with your scapes-you can grill them, sauté them, eat them raw, throw them in pasta or eggs, even pickle them. And fine, yes, that is all tasty and great but I think you're missing out if you're not making pesto. Really the best pesto ever! This is unfortunately my last batch of garlic scape pesto for the season.
This year I'm growing two different kinds of garlic: Music and Killarney Red. This is the first time I've grown two different kinds of garlic and the unexpected best part of this is that their scapes were ready to harvest a couple different times.
The first batch is almost gone already and in the second batch I didn't have a huge amount of scapes, so I made arugula/scape pesto. This time I've got loads! It is recommended that you cut off the top flower part of the scape because it adds a more heat to the taste of the pesto. I leave it on. I do that for two reasons: one) I love the flavor and two) I'm super lazy.
I knew I was little behind in harvesting the last of them, then my friend Dionne sent me this recipe this morning and I knew I had to get this done today.
GARLIC SCAPE PESTO
1 cup garlic scapes cut in 1 inch pieces
1 cup grated Parmesan or Asiago cheese
3 Tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup pine nuts, cashews or almonds
Blend garlic scapes, olive oil, lemon juice and cheese in food processor then stir in nuts.
This was the biggest batch of pesto I've made this season....and my poor food processor is dying! I have to hold everything together just right to get it to work. I'm really hoping I get a new one before the height of canning season hits!
The best way for us to store all this is to freeze it! In regular old ice cube trays. Once they're frozen solid, I'll pop them out into freezer bags. To use, I microwave the pesto cubes with a little bit of olive, and that's it! Use on pizzas, in eggs, or quiche, or pasta-the list goes on and on! This will just have to keep us until we have enough basil to make even more pesto, which should only be about a week or two!
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Our new (old) view!
No one could have ever told me I would be so excited about a new fence and gates!
While our old fence might have looked a little like a big version of a white picket fence, it was essentially useless. The vast majority of the posts were completely rotten, making it not at all goat proof. Our gates have never closed all the way, or just blew off their hinges, again, useless! But it looked nice...from a distance. (please notice: the gate is off it's hinges in this pic!)
With the goats working in tandem to knock the fence over and escape forever (or at least to the porch), it was time for the old fence to go. We hired Dave the fence guy and his son Matthew build us a new fence. Two weeks after meeting for the first time, the fence was planned and demolition had started. Not surprising, it didn't take much to clear out the old. The post were so rotten that a lot of them just toppled over when the boards connecting them were removed.
I hadn't thought about the time between fence demo and fence building. I was super nervous, but I just kept Bear's shock collar charged and got a Hyperdog tennis ball slingshot-to take advantage our yard/pasture combo-now I kinda miss all that wide open space!
But we hired the guys to build a fence and that they did! Now we have a 5 foot tall fence that goats will (probably) never be able to escape, and may even be zombie proof! This makes the vast majority of our pasture more useful, since the old fence was only 4 feet high and built only to keep horses in. I love that we can see through it. Instead of looking out a rotten white boards that we always needed to repaint, but were never going to, we get to see the animals!
We changed a thing or too as well! The greenhouse is now part of the yard! Well, it still mostly looks like pasture, but it's wide open to the yard. Now I don't have to drag things through a broken down gate just to get to the front of the greenhouse. I freaking love this!
We also added three pens along the length of the greenhouse space. We'll mostly use these for keeping our gentleman on lock down away from the ladies, but also potentially for keeping pigs or turkey later (soon!).
I feel like I could right a whole separate post as an ode to gates that really close all the way, that won't be blown off their hinges by a strong wind, that are solid, but light, that actually freaking work! Maybe I'm just easily impressed!
This ties our other major home improvement-the patio-in cost. While I can't imagine our house without the new patio, this new fence is kind of a game changer! It feels like we are one step closer to being actual farmers-but we need to make bigger steps, like getting a tractor and haying before we can come close to calling ourselves that, but we're on our way. This is going to lead to keeping all our male animals at our house, which means we will control when we breed our animals, as well as getting (more) different kinds of animals, and using our pasture more efficiently. So, yeah, I'm pretty excited!
While our old fence might have looked a little like a big version of a white picket fence, it was essentially useless. The vast majority of the posts were completely rotten, making it not at all goat proof. Our gates have never closed all the way, or just blew off their hinges, again, useless! But it looked nice...from a distance. (please notice: the gate is off it's hinges in this pic!)
With the goats working in tandem to knock the fence over and escape forever (or at least to the porch), it was time for the old fence to go. We hired Dave the fence guy and his son Matthew build us a new fence. Two weeks after meeting for the first time, the fence was planned and demolition had started. Not surprising, it didn't take much to clear out the old. The post were so rotten that a lot of them just toppled over when the boards connecting them were removed.
I hadn't thought about the time between fence demo and fence building. I was super nervous, but I just kept Bear's shock collar charged and got a Hyperdog tennis ball slingshot-to take advantage our yard/pasture combo-now I kinda miss all that wide open space!
But we hired the guys to build a fence and that they did! Now we have a 5 foot tall fence that goats will (probably) never be able to escape, and may even be zombie proof! This makes the vast majority of our pasture more useful, since the old fence was only 4 feet high and built only to keep horses in. I love that we can see through it. Instead of looking out a rotten white boards that we always needed to repaint, but were never going to, we get to see the animals!
We changed a thing or too as well! The greenhouse is now part of the yard! Well, it still mostly looks like pasture, but it's wide open to the yard. Now I don't have to drag things through a broken down gate just to get to the front of the greenhouse. I freaking love this!
We also added three pens along the length of the greenhouse space. We'll mostly use these for keeping our gentleman on lock down away from the ladies, but also potentially for keeping pigs or turkey later (soon!).
I feel like I could right a whole separate post as an ode to gates that really close all the way, that won't be blown off their hinges by a strong wind, that are solid, but light, that actually freaking work! Maybe I'm just easily impressed!
This ties our other major home improvement-the patio-in cost. While I can't imagine our house without the new patio, this new fence is kind of a game changer! It feels like we are one step closer to being actual farmers-but we need to make bigger steps, like getting a tractor and haying before we can come close to calling ourselves that, but we're on our way. This is going to lead to keeping all our male animals at our house, which means we will control when we breed our animals, as well as getting (more) different kinds of animals, and using our pasture more efficiently. So, yeah, I'm pretty excited!
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Happy day after Memorial Day!
The 'it didn't snow!!' edition.
The first year we lived here it snowed Memorial Day weekend. Last year, we had a terrible hard frost right before Memorial Day, killing almost all of the counties apple and cherry blossoms and most of my tomatoes. This year I am smarter! I planned for this. I have enough tomato plants in my upstairs closet that I could replace all the tomatoes in my greenhouse and still have some left over.
So, of course, this has been the nicest spring since we've moved here. Some friends say it's the mildest spring in the past ten years. So...anyone need any tomato plants?
The greenhouse is full and so far there haven't been any casualties. Keith keeps warning me that I've been planting too early, and in most years he'd be right, and it's still to early to say he isn't, but so far so good!
Hot peppers, sweet peppers, tomatoes, winter squash, tomatillos, eggplants have all survived May in the greenhouse, now hopefully June is successful as well!
Another year gardening, another experiment. Just about everyone who gardens around here swears you can't grow corn around here. And maybe they're right, but hopefully I am.
My friend Dionne and I have decided that these people don't know what they're talking about and we are going to grow corn. Not on the 'knee hight by the fourth of July' plan, but on one that works here. I ordered some Early Sunglow Corn from Nichols Nursery. The description sounded perfect: A superior corn for on the cob freezing because of its very high sugar content and ability to retain the fresh corn flavor. Disease resistant; grows under cold, adverse conditions. Four foot tall plants produce two or more ears of golden yellow kernels that are narrow, sweet and tender. And it's supposed to only take 62 day to mature (although I'll believe it when I see it!).
We planted about a week and half ago and about 2/3rds of the seeds have sprouted. And man, does corn look like grassy weeds when it sprouts!
Hopefully the view will inspire the corn grow it's whole 4 feet!
Meanwhile, in the garden: the rhubarb looks just about big enough to eat someone whole and has it's goofy looking flower popping out of the top. I love this crazy plant that I don't take care of at all and it just bounces back from winter like Godzilla!
The past couple weeks around here have been beautiful! All the trees are flowering and everything is green, it's really been amazing! While I can still feel Old Man Winter's breath on my freshly sunburned shoulders, I am trying to shake him off as best I can and enjoy this spring that feels like summer as much as possible!
The first year we lived here it snowed Memorial Day weekend. Last year, we had a terrible hard frost right before Memorial Day, killing almost all of the counties apple and cherry blossoms and most of my tomatoes. This year I am smarter! I planned for this. I have enough tomato plants in my upstairs closet that I could replace all the tomatoes in my greenhouse and still have some left over.
So, of course, this has been the nicest spring since we've moved here. Some friends say it's the mildest spring in the past ten years. So...anyone need any tomato plants?
The greenhouse is full and so far there haven't been any casualties. Keith keeps warning me that I've been planting too early, and in most years he'd be right, and it's still to early to say he isn't, but so far so good!
Hot peppers, sweet peppers, tomatoes, winter squash, tomatillos, eggplants have all survived May in the greenhouse, now hopefully June is successful as well!
Another year gardening, another experiment. Just about everyone who gardens around here swears you can't grow corn around here. And maybe they're right, but hopefully I am.
My friend Dionne and I have decided that these people don't know what they're talking about and we are going to grow corn. Not on the 'knee hight by the fourth of July' plan, but on one that works here. I ordered some Early Sunglow Corn from Nichols Nursery. The description sounded perfect: A superior corn for on the cob freezing because of its very high sugar content and ability to retain the fresh corn flavor. Disease resistant; grows under cold, adverse conditions. Four foot tall plants produce two or more ears of golden yellow kernels that are narrow, sweet and tender. And it's supposed to only take 62 day to mature (although I'll believe it when I see it!).
We planted about a week and half ago and about 2/3rds of the seeds have sprouted. And man, does corn look like grassy weeds when it sprouts!
Hopefully the view will inspire the corn grow it's whole 4 feet!
Meanwhile, in the garden: the rhubarb looks just about big enough to eat someone whole and has it's goofy looking flower popping out of the top. I love this crazy plant that I don't take care of at all and it just bounces back from winter like Godzilla!
The past couple weeks around here have been beautiful! All the trees are flowering and everything is green, it's really been amazing! While I can still feel Old Man Winter's breath on my freshly sunburned shoulders, I am trying to shake him off as best I can and enjoy this spring that feels like summer as much as possible!
Thursday, May 8, 2014
We be lambing!
When it comes to looking for the signs that a ewe may be lambing soon, one of the main signs (before all the goo) is just that they lay down a lot. Well, that's not really helpful!
Since we got the sheep, poor Chocolate Swirl has been so huge that walking was clearly hard for her, therefore she laid down pretty much all the time. Everyday for the past two and half weeks, I was certain that TODAY had to be the day and obviously most of the days I was wrong, but eventually I had to be right!
Here she is a day or two before lambing.
Last Wednesday night, Keith and I went to bed a little early thanks to stopping a TG's for dinner and couple pretty strong beers. I was completely sound asleep (at 11:30) when Keith woke me up with news. He heard loud moaning/baaing sounds from outside. It was clear something was happening: either Chocolate Swirl was lambing or Sam the Ram got out and was making his way to the ladies.
Keith went outside to check it out and it was clearly time for lambing! By the time we both got out there with towels and everything, the lamb was already born. Mama was just standing there, like 'what the hell just happened', so Keith and I grabbed the towels and wiped the lamb off a little bit. In about 30 seconds, Mama shook off being stunned and got to work cleaning up the little lamb herself, all while the little, wobbly lamb is trying to hard to find her feet. The whole this was pretty incredible to watch.
One thing that surprised me about this whole experience was how quiet it was. After the initial moaning, both Mama and lamb were quiet, as were the rest of the sheep and goats that were in various places in the barn. Chocolate Swirl and her lamb were in their own stall and all the rest of the sheep were up and attentive, but didn't make a peep (which is really unlike them!)
We cleaned off the lambs umbilical chord and waited. We waited to see if she was going to have another lamb, she was so huge we expected more than one. Then, when it looked like there was only going to be the one, we waited for her to start nursing. This took a while.
The lamb tried to nurse on just about everything including Mama's ears, tail, and the wall of the stall, before she finally found what she was looking for. When she finally did, her tail was going crazy and we knew that our job was pretty much done. We got Mama a bunch of hay and water with a little molasses in it (because that's what the book said to do) and I really have no idea how we eventually got back to sleep that night.
We left Mama and lamb in their own stall for about couple days, where they spent time curled up together, bonding. I only went in to fill food and water. We let them out in the pasture and all weekend they were pretty much velcroed to each other.
Can we talk for a minute about how freaking cute this lamb is! She's looks like a mix between a border collie, a cow, and a Rorschach test, I have named her Bessie. At a week old, she is running around like mad, bouncing off the other lambs, while poor Mama is running after her, with a 'come back here right now, young lady!' attitude! She is also as big as the the triplets that are a little over three weeks old.
In other news, can you tell from the picture that all the sheep are shedding their hairy winter coats?! The one surprise from this is that the one I thought of as White Chocolate (there is also Milk Chocolate and you all know Chocolate Swirl by now), she's actually a ginger underneath that crazy coat! I think it makes me like her just a little bit more.
The goats a doing fine. I'm pretty sure Cupid has been successfully knocked up, but that doesn't stop her from escaping. Snowy just want cuddles, as always, and Franny seems to have joined the sheep herd.
Hopefully we'll be having a kid or two in July. Until then, no new additions are planned, but that doesn't mean they won't happen!
Since we got the sheep, poor Chocolate Swirl has been so huge that walking was clearly hard for her, therefore she laid down pretty much all the time. Everyday for the past two and half weeks, I was certain that TODAY had to be the day and obviously most of the days I was wrong, but eventually I had to be right!
Here she is a day or two before lambing.
Last Wednesday night, Keith and I went to bed a little early thanks to stopping a TG's for dinner and couple pretty strong beers. I was completely sound asleep (at 11:30) when Keith woke me up with news. He heard loud moaning/baaing sounds from outside. It was clear something was happening: either Chocolate Swirl was lambing or Sam the Ram got out and was making his way to the ladies.
Keith went outside to check it out and it was clearly time for lambing! By the time we both got out there with towels and everything, the lamb was already born. Mama was just standing there, like 'what the hell just happened', so Keith and I grabbed the towels and wiped the lamb off a little bit. In about 30 seconds, Mama shook off being stunned and got to work cleaning up the little lamb herself, all while the little, wobbly lamb is trying to hard to find her feet. The whole this was pretty incredible to watch.
One thing that surprised me about this whole experience was how quiet it was. After the initial moaning, both Mama and lamb were quiet, as were the rest of the sheep and goats that were in various places in the barn. Chocolate Swirl and her lamb were in their own stall and all the rest of the sheep were up and attentive, but didn't make a peep (which is really unlike them!)
We cleaned off the lambs umbilical chord and waited. We waited to see if she was going to have another lamb, she was so huge we expected more than one. Then, when it looked like there was only going to be the one, we waited for her to start nursing. This took a while.
The lamb tried to nurse on just about everything including Mama's ears, tail, and the wall of the stall, before she finally found what she was looking for. When she finally did, her tail was going crazy and we knew that our job was pretty much done. We got Mama a bunch of hay and water with a little molasses in it (because that's what the book said to do) and I really have no idea how we eventually got back to sleep that night.
We left Mama and lamb in their own stall for about couple days, where they spent time curled up together, bonding. I only went in to fill food and water. We let them out in the pasture and all weekend they were pretty much velcroed to each other.
Can we talk for a minute about how freaking cute this lamb is! She's looks like a mix between a border collie, a cow, and a Rorschach test, I have named her Bessie. At a week old, she is running around like mad, bouncing off the other lambs, while poor Mama is running after her, with a 'come back here right now, young lady!' attitude! She is also as big as the the triplets that are a little over three weeks old.
In other news, can you tell from the picture that all the sheep are shedding their hairy winter coats?! The one surprise from this is that the one I thought of as White Chocolate (there is also Milk Chocolate and you all know Chocolate Swirl by now), she's actually a ginger underneath that crazy coat! I think it makes me like her just a little bit more.
The goats a doing fine. I'm pretty sure Cupid has been successfully knocked up, but that doesn't stop her from escaping. Snowy just want cuddles, as always, and Franny seems to have joined the sheep herd.
Hopefully we'll be having a kid or two in July. Until then, no new additions are planned, but that doesn't mean they won't happen!
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