Archive for the ‘Animals – Goats’ Category
March 30, 2008 – “Solo”
The kids have officially named the baby goat. The first name that hung around for a few hours was Henry, but eventually it turned to Solo.
The name was no doubt inspired by the fact that Solo was the first single goat born on the farm. He’s already walking around in the pasture. I’m thinking the next kid could be Hans. Hans, Solo. Maybe the next kid could be Franz to to have Hans and Franz to “pump you up.”Â
 It reminds me of the story of a confused student assigned to write an autobiography in a high school English class.  Through a google search of “Tito” the student wrote the fascinating and far-ranging story about “Marshall Tito Puente” and his amazing life as Yugoslavian dictator and latin bandmaster.
one year ago…”Mushroom Planting”
March 29, 2008 – Baby Goat!
Sometime between 8 and 10 this morning Paullina gave birth to her baby boy!
She’s a good worry-free mother who always does well with her kids.
This is the first year she’s only had one, but this guy looks big and vigorous. If it makes any difference, we were hoping tha Paullina would give birth before Nellie, who is pregnant for the first time. We hope she picks up some pointers from Paullina as she is close to her first birthing experience.
one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #65″
January 7, 2008 – Retrieving Goats/Back to the Farm
It’s the week after a long vacation.
Nelllie and Paullina went to Morning Sun farm a few miles away to stay with their friends Ringo and Bingo while we were away. We went and retrieved them this morning and started back into real life again – school, work, and laundry.
October 1, 2007 – “Don Juan” Arrives
Yesterday “Don Juan” the very young nubian buck came to stay a spell at high hopes. He and the two does introduced each other properly by promptly sniffing each other’s behinds.
So, many happy sniffings to all the goats out there needing to get lucky this fall!
one year ago…
May 6, 2007 – Portable Fencing
Here’s a picture of our new portable electric fence. The name of this fencing is “Permanet” as it is designed to be left up for the whole season, if necessary. We get our electric fencing from Premier Fencing in Washington, Iowa. Many people swear it is the best you can get.
We’ve used some of the poultry electric netting and been pleased with it, so when we found this version that is taller and firmer, we thought we’d use it to start some rudimentary rotational grazing in the back pasture.
This picture cracks me up – it shows that forbidden grass is always better than grass you’re allowed to eat. The goats were just turned loose into this pasture that goes all the way to the fence in the distance over the goat’s back. Where do they choose to eat first? They stick their heads through a fence guarding a tree to get at the “good” grass.
March 20, 2007 – Life and Death on the Farm
Sometime last night, Paullina gave birth to two kids. The boy has the waddles, like his daddy, Sugar. These kids are a Nubian/Alpine mix.
Here’s Emma holding the boy with under the watchful eye of Paullina. Sadly, we lost the girl kid. We have some pens made up of cattle panels in the barn and one of the panels wasn’t entirely secured and some time during the day it fell down and the kid happened to be underneath it when it fell and it died. It’s one of those things that just wrenches your gut to see that dead nearly newborn kid.
Then you go through all the what-ifs? What if the panel hadn’t fell? What if the kid hadn’t been underneath it, what if it happened on one of the 5 days a week someone was home all day instead of one of the 2 days everyone is gone? And so it goes. Not a happy on the farm day.
In the evening, as neither of us has not yet seen an opera and a touring company was presenting the Marriage of Figaro at Stephens Auditorium in Ames, we were able to go both see our first opera. We both enjoyed it – like most things it was much better live than recorded.
December 8, 2006 – Photo Friday “Fresh”
This week’s Photo Friday Contest theme is “Fresh.” Here’s a shot from the high hopes archives of milk about as fresh as you can get it!
This is one of our milk goats, Paulina.
We all know there’s more than one meaning to “fresh” so keeping that in mind, and in keeping with the goat theme, here’s another photo.
Back up to about 6 months before the milking picture for Mr. Billy getting “fresh” with his lady!
October 16, 2006 – Sugar (Shoog-uh!)
Yesterday the good people at Morning Sun Farm brought a young Alpine goat buck when they came over to make soap. His name was alternately “Whiteface” or “Sugar” and we decided to call him Sugar, pronounced “Shoog-uh” as his job is to impregnate Paullina and Blaze. The two young boys went to the sale barn on Saturday, and the two young girls went to Two Friends Farm for a while.
Here’s Shoog-uh with one of his harem.
August 28, 2006 – Stuck Goat
This evening the goats were bleating like they do when one gets separated or they need help. It’s a different kind of sound than the “feed me” or “milk me” sounds.
Nellie caught her head in the fence.
Trying to get her head out every which way – neck first, nose first, and on…
Finally, it’s time for the fence bending blocks and levers to try to bend the wire just enough to release the goat. If this doesn’t work, the ultimate solution is the sawz-all!
Free at last!
Last night it started raining (about 2.25 inches worth of driving rain) about 3:30 am and strong east wind and unseasonably cold August temperatures in the mid-50′s. I started to worry about the chickens outside, but tossed fitfully until first hint of light, hoping not to see a pile of dead birds. Just one died – a turkey – but I jerry-rigged additional shelter with tarps to get them through the rest of the day.
May 27, 2006 – “Beautiful Weekend?”
The weatherman has been promising a great Memorial Day weekend, hot and maybe a bit breezy. Last night a small chance of late afternoon thunderstorms was added – but a small chance. Evidently the storm at 5 am that woke us up was 12 hours late (or early)!
This afternoon damaging winds blew through, not as part of a thunderstorm, at least not here. It made my work for the next few days clear.
I moved the chicken tractors out of the barn a few days ago to check them over as the chicks may get in them later this week. The wind wrapped it around this apple tree very nicely!
Lots of small limbs are on the ground and are on the garage roof, shed roof. A big hollow limb off a silver maple fell off in the back pasture.
There a lot of branches in the front yard snapped off, but still hanging in the trees. There were at least a dozen bird nests blown to the ground as well.
I didn’t notice right away that the back door of the barn had been ripped off as well. I heard Paullina bellering especially vigourously and went to check. I could hear a kid (goat) whining in what sounded like a part of the barn that wasn’t supposed to have goats. I went in and couldn’t find her. We still have a few layers of hay against one wall of the barn, about 6 bales high. The sound was coming from within the bales, so I started unstacking the hay. Sure enough, the kid (Millie) had gone through the place where the door had been, climbed up to the top of the hay and fallen in the crack between the hay and wall. When I got to the bottom and could see her, she wasn’t moving – her head was stuck between the bottom bale and the wall and she couldn’t lift it up – her momentum must have wedged it in pretty good. With trepidation, I pulled the bottom bale, not knowing if she had broken anything and she was fine!
We lost power and as I went out to check on neighbors, I saw the reason for the outage.
A powerline snapped at the ground in front of our closest neighbor’s house to the south – and didn’t fall to the ground because it was leaning against some trees.
The other direction from this neighbor, a big silver maple blew down (away from the house) and the small park a mile away lost trees as well.
Not exactly the “beautiful weekend” advertised! But now I know what the weatherman means when he says a “bit breezy.”
May 14, 2006 – Goat Milking
Goat milking season is in full swing. It’s good for drinking, making yogurt, and a bunch is finding its way into the freezer for goat’s milk soap.
Here’s the front end of the goat during milking.
Here’s the milking end of the goat.
Quite literally, here’s the kids at play during the milking.
I’ve got a little bit of feeling in my hands tonight of the long-time Minnesota tradition of fishing opener. It’s been cold and windy and drizzly/rainy for many days now, but this evening we went out just before dark to pull weeds from the perennial flower garden. Now my hands have that deep stiffness from the wind, wetness, and cold, much like repeatedly dipping your hand in the minnow bucket on a windswept lake in the middle of May.
This morning Martin was the perfect gentleman. As soon as Mom got up, he brought her the Sunday paper in bed. Then he brought up a cup of coffee. Then a bowl of strawberries with a dollop of whipped cream. Then some sliced pears, egg scramble, and toast, finally a piece of organic dark chocolate and bussed the dishes downstairs! This afternoon he took Mom to see a stage version of Winnie-the-Pooh. He ended the day, helping in the garden.
April 9, 2006 – More Kids!
We thought Paullina was due in a couple of weeks, but when we came home from church there were two babes in the barn. That’s the second year in a row that Paullina has given birth while we were at church. Emma was the one that found them, she had a friend come over who arrived shortly after we returned home and she and Betsy found them and ran back excitedly to the house.
Here is kid #1 a darling black and white kid (no name yet).
Here is kid #2 looks like her mother. They are both females!
We also started to plant the garden – a little bit of lettuce, beets, larkspur, and spinach.
Here are the kids are cutting up the potatoes to dry up before planting.
Here’s part of a trench to plant the spuds – just look at that rich dark soil!
April 5, 2006 – A Great Day to be Born!
Today started out well enough. In the morning Martin and I took care of some small things – we pulled out some fenceposts to move to make way for the new trees. Martin could pull them out, drag them, and lean them along another fence once I used the fence puller to get them nearly all the way out. 
Then we mowed the strip where the new trees are to go.
We uncovered the garlic from the winter straw.
We unwrapped the winter wrap from the peach trees.
We got out the ladder and cut some of the middle-sized pines to a single leader on top. We added some chicken wire to the bottom of some cattle panels so the chickens couldn’t get to the new trees.
Right before lunch, we went to check on Blaze, and this is what we saw!
Blaze had given birth to triplets sometime between 10ish and 11:30. She was a dutiful mother and was licking the kids with conviction. One is very small and was not able to get up for a few hours. Although it is windy, it got up to 70 degrees today, so it was a good day to be born.
Then the UPS truck comes with the trees I was expecting Friday. So, after getting everything ready for planting, I went to State Center to get taxes signed off and pick up the girls from school so they could see the kids sooner and help with planting.
The sound of the girl’s shouts of glee when they looked in the barn and saw the kids was worth a lot of mid-winter chores and then some!
After playing with the kids for a while – Emma tenderly and confidently picking up the runt and easing the kid’s mouth into its mother’s teat was very nurturing. Blaze had all boys. Last year we had 2 boys. If you count Martin, that’s 6 straight males conceived on the farm!
Linda got home a bit early and it was great to see all five of us working to get the trees planted before dark/evening thunderstorms. Claire liked to dig holes, Emma liked to plant, Martin liked looking for worms and the rest was just hauling water and digging more holes. Eventually, Claire went in and cooked dinner for us as we finished. We finished by planting four more peach trees that came with the firs. We still have the mulching left, but all the trees are in the ground. The skies opened up minutes after getting back to the shed. More good karma.
Linda and I had a good 45 seconds of bliss as we were alone on a corner of the farm, looking down a couple rows of orchard, beyond that two full rows of conifer on the north edge stretching to the end of the property. To the right were the windbreak trees we planted when we moved in reaching 10-15 feet, and a distant view of shiny white new roof on the corn crib. After the new life, delightful experience of all of us pulling together to get more trees planted, we were able to remove ourselves from the never-ending “to-dos” and could simply enjoy what we’ve done since we arrived on the farm. 45 seconds of bliss, plus the sounds of the girls seeing the kids is enough to keep us going another year. It’s the kind of day that deserves a Morning Sun home brew from brewmaster Mike. Today is a good enough day to open one!
March 26, 2006 – Goat-Proofing Barn
Ok, so “goat-proofing” may be too optimistic a term for what we did today, but it sure sounds hopeful! Every once in a while, the goats climb over the feed bunks in the barn and get in the main part of the barn. Today, we put up cattle panels above the bunks to help them decide to stay on their side of the barn. Again, with goats, this is all theory.
If you look closely, you can see the panels up on the far wall. We also fixed one of the doors that the Billy knocked off, and fixed one door that had settled and did not close. So, now we are more ready to the kids – Paullina is scheduled to deliver this Friday.
