I Miss My Blog

Wow! What a busy summer I am having! My blog has taken a back seat I see. Glad I still have a few followers. Here's what I have been doing.

Tending the 58 goats.

Driving my boys back and forth to their jobs and extra activities.

Swimming..everyday. Sitting at the computer everyday in the winter takes a toll on the rear. I have been swimming and walking, determined to be more svelte by my 50th birthday.

Working at my paying job.

Selling food at auctions every other weekend.

Getting ready for a huge barn sale.

Making goat's milk soap. So Fun! Will put some in my shop for sale soon.

Ducking all the stormy weather we have had lately.

Thinking up different ways to make stir fry...got any ideas?

My Dad and his wife came to visit from California so we did some fun touristy stuff..the zoo, the Trueman Library and an old civil war jail.

Visiting with friends.

Summer is just too short to sit at the computer. It will be winter soon enough and I will have time for it then.

If I do have time to sit at the comp I have tended to research a cold case I stumbled upon. It is really creepy and not for the faint of heart. Not something I normally do either..but there is something about this case. I just can NOT believe it hasn't been solved. There is a whole message board devoted to it with some 22000+ posts. Some are family and people who live or lived in the area. It gets pretty emotional in there and it takes a bit just to figure out who everyone is and how they relate to the case and their angle on it. There is a documentary too. I haven't bought it but I have been tempted. You can see clips of it on youtube. If you do have an interest just google cabin 28. Or go to cabin28.com

Hope you are all having a great summer!

Have a Blessed and Restful Sunday

Have a Blessed and Peaceful Sunday. Rest. Let the stress of our chaotic world fall by the wayside. Enjoy each moment of the day.

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.

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.

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!

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?