Sunday, March 22, 2009



Meet Nanna. She is a lifesaver. Literally. If you remember, last Saturday when out goats were having all these kids my BF went to buy us a milk goat. Why you might ask? The truth is, while triplet goats are awesome, the chance of one not surviving is huge. Yes, we lost one from our first set of triplets. I am sorry. He went to that big goat bridge in the sky. We talked to our goat expert friends and they told us that a Mom Goat just can not raise triplets successfully. One either dies from being pushed out or the Mother gets her health compromised. Your choices are to take one off and bottle feed it or take it to a sale and let someone else bottle feed it. I don't know why Mother nature is cruel like this. To those of you who read this and have had your Nanny raise triplets successfully, I say,"GREAT!" It doesn't happen for us. Perhaps because of the breed of our goats. But anyway back to "Nanna".
Bottle feeding is not what it's cracked up to be. It's expensive, the babies tend not to thrive as well and they will always consider YOU their Mother which is cute at first but then it gets to be a real pain when they are a demanding 150 pounds. Trust me here. Our compromise was to go out and purchase a Milk goat before we had any more triplets! So the goats are kidding. BF goes out to buy milk goat(a 2 hour drive). Son and I are home watching goats about to deliver and sure enough another one has triplets! We call BF and tell him. Soon enough we see a cloud of dust coming down our road. It's BF driving like no tomorrow on our bumpy dusty road, pulling our stock trailer with Nanna inside. I look at son. Son looks at me. I say, " Dang! When he gets here Nanna will be making butter instead of milk!" Son cracks up and says he was thinking the same thing!
Nanna arrives fine and we set about making her feel welcome in her new home. We milk her for a couple of days and let the triplets get all of their life giving colostrum from Mom. Then we take one off. We give her to Nanna. Well, we make Nanna take her. We still have to go down to the barn every few hours and hold Nanna while Baby Girl eats. But it's working out and all 3 are still alive. YAY! I thank Nanna everyday. She is invaluable.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Play Time






Kids are having a grand time playing..They love the tire!

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Are You Kidding Me? or Kids Everywhere!






As of Sunday evening we have 13 kids! We still have 12 more goats yet to kid. Kids are everywhere! So much fun and so much work!! The milk goat (We shall call her Nanna) arrived just in time to help feed another set of triplets. The Mommas ideally kid in our kidding stalls that are inside the barn. When they are a day or 2 old they are let out into the nursery area.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Kidding Season is Upon us Full Force!

We have been busy here on the homestead. Kidding season is definitely upon us. As soon as I get some rest I will have pictures for you. We have several first time goat Mommies and they can be tricky. I worked most of the afternoon yesterday to get one of them to realize that : Yes, she had a baby now. Yes, it was hers. Yes, she needed to let it eat. It took some persuasion of the gentle kind. I finally saw it all click in her young goat mind and she claimed her baby much to my relief. You want to avoid having a bottle baby if at all possible..
Today BF is going to buy a milk goat that is fresh and will take a baby if needed. Plus I can have fresh goat milk and it will give me motivation to make goat's milk soap! This will have to be after kidding season though as we are quite busy now. We had 2 kid yesterday.
Here is our total so far: Nanny had triplets. Young doe had her first baby and is an excellent Mother. Very young doe had her first and as stated she took a bit of persuasion to figure out she is a mother now and not a baby. Last night another one of our older Nannys had twins and she is a wonderful Mother. Lord only knows what is coming today. At least the weather seems to be co operating and it's supposed to warm up!
I can't wait to show you pictures!
Thank you all for your comments and for those of you waiting on your own little kids all my best wishes!

Monday, March 9, 2009

3 Things for Today

Abby and Lola on a Sunday Afternoon
First: A big huge Thank You to those of you Entrecarders still dropping on me! I am down to 81% on my downloads so it won't be long before I can start doing my drops again. Second: No more kids have been born as of yet and the triplets are doing just fine. It's been warm and they have been out to play. So cute to watch! Third: What have I been doing with my time without my high speed internet? I have been going through all my old jewelry. It's time for it to find new homes where it will be loved. I have picked out some great items, cleaned and polished them and will be listing them in HouseMouseAntiques soon. Keep an eye out. Much of it is 70's style and I have some beautiful silver pieces that I purchased in Mexico.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Triplets on the Homestead







We are getting ready to go into kidding season here on the homestead. This was the first of our group to have her kids. Triplets born on one of the coldest nights of the year. (Murphy's Law of Goats). We had to put these little jackets on them to be sure they didn't get chilled. The one in red is a little doeling. The other 2 are bucklings. So far they all seem to be thriving! Aren't they cute?

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Trying for a Lighter Note or Sunday Blessings

My speeds are picking up a bit. I am at about dial up speeds now. There is no way I can do my drops yet. This is a tough thing for a die hard Entrecard dropper. I'm sorry my blog friends. Thank you to all of you who are still dropping in on me. I did open Daisy the Curley Cat's blog this morning. It took like 5 minutes but I hate to miss Sunday comics.
Since I am not hooked to my computer in my free time I have managed a few blessings:
My house is getting clean.
Laundry is getting done:
I watched a movie.
Did some long overdue paperwork.
Future plans include: Taking pictures of more items for my shops and writing ads. That way they will be ready to go when speed comes back.
Taking pictures you might find interesting for my blog and writing blog posts for those days when I am busy.
Writing my novel. OK...maybe that won't get done but a woman can dream!