Newest Members of the Farm Family

We are eager to move into this new year, start getting babies, and be able to start milking and making cheese again.  This “down time” was perfect timing, since the entire family has managed to get……and share……the crud, but I think we are all just about over it and we are ready to get back to work!  J

The girls have been very well behaved lately, but I just imagine that next week they will not be too happy with us.  We plan to move the younger girls to the west pasture where we can start watching them closer for kidding.  I think that they will be perfectly happy, BUT at the same time we are going to move the mature girls to the east pasture and I think that they are the ones that aren’t going to be too happy, but they will adjust and in just a couple of short months, they will have babies and can move back over to the west side.

A few weeks ago, we got a call from some from friends.  They had a friend, that due to health reasons, needed to rehome his senior Livestock Guardian Dog.  We agreed to take him and Chrys went to pick him up after work the next day.  Leo is about 10 or 11 years old and sometimes has a little difficulty getting up, but he is just supper awesome and SO sweet.  We have started giving him a daily aspirin to help with his aches and pains.  Hopefully, as the weather warms, some of that will go away.  Leo could also use a good haircut and grooming, but since it is so cold that will wait until spring.  Leo is a Great Pyrenees. 

THEN……….About a week or so ago, some very awesome market friends needed to rehome their young Livestock Guardian Dog.  It was at this time that Abby came to live on the farm.  Abby is very smart, if not a little bit spoiled, and she is absolutely gorgeous.  She made fast friends with our young girl, Tess, and now everybody’s trash from at least a 10 mile radius is in our yard.  :/  Abby is ½ Great Pyrenees and ½ Anatolian Shepard.

And finally…………..The girls brought home a precious little bundle of joy for their daddy as a Christmas present.  Tippi is a Border Collie and hopefully one day she will assist in bringing the girls to the barn when they get stubborn so that I don’t have to walk across the pasture 500 times just to get them in to milk.  In the meantime, she is conducting her own form of destruction on everything in the house.  :/

 

 

Bitti's Baby

 

After getting Thing 2 and her baby all situated yesterday morning I decided to walk back through the barn (just in case).  Well, as soon as I walked back into the barn, I heard the tell tale signs of labor.  A quick check confirmed that Bitti was in labor.  .......Now.......Bitti is just a wee bitt NUTS!  A quick hand a lot of luck and I was able to catch her and then spent the next 30 minutes coaxing her to the baby barn.  Got her all situated and then went and finished our morning chores.  She waited on me to finish and then she delivered the cutest little girl.  :)  I spent quite a bit of time with her trying to bond.  I would even rub the baby, getting her birthing fluids on my hand, and let Bitti lick me and clean my hand.  I actually thought that we made a lot of progress yesterday.  Today, well, today she is back to being crazy.  LOL

 

Here is a picture of her little girl.

 



Thing 2's Baby

 

Yesterday morning when we went out to do the morning chores, I did a quick walk through and to my delight Thing 2 had just delivered a beautiful little doeling.

 

Thing 2 is Airi's daughter.

 



BayB's boy

 

When she was two we let our grand daughter pick a baby goat for her very own.  She picked one of the best ones, in my opinion, and named her Baby (we spell it BayB).  Now, when you say her name, be sure to add quite a bit of that southern drawl and you will have the pronunciation just right.  LOL

 

Well, BayB had her first baby last night.  She delivered a boy and not only is he jet black, but he is drop dead gorgeous too! 

 

BayB is a daughter of Wings.

 



1st baby of the season!

Tiana (daughter of Taboo) delivered the first baby of the season this evening.  It's a boy and he is gorgeous!  Luckily, Tiana gave us plenty of notice with this cold weather and everything went like clockwork.  Mother and baby are both doing great!  :)



Winter Storm 2013

We have spent the last several days preparing for this winter storm and I know that most of you have heard me complain about the heat and the drought and the rain and so forth, but for the record, let me just say that I HATE snow and cold!  And I hate snow and cold most of all!

There was a time, as a child, that I remember loving the snow.  Even when we lived in town I loved the snow.  Looking back I realize that I loved it because I wasn’t really responsible for anything, at least we weren’t responsible for livestock.  Oh we had livestock when we were growing up and we helped with the chores, but we weren’t the ones who were “responsible” for “everything”.  Now, it is a whole different story.

All of the chores take at least twice as long.  You bundle up in layers and can hardly move and then you go back and forth and back forth in the snow and before long it feels as if you can hardly take another step.  We can prepare for many of the farm chores.  We button up the barns and get plenty of hay into the barns before the storms hit, but the most difficult chore (to me) is making certain that all of the animals have plenty of fresh warm water.  In temperatures like we are having (and we are fixing to have), plenty of fresh warm water is just as important as food and a warm house to the girls and let me tell you……..when you are carrying warm water in 5 gallon buckets, these girls drink a LOT of water!  LOL

 

Panic!

 

 



We put some of our younger girls with the boys beginning back in the last part of June in the hopes of having winter milk this year.  It is looking like quite a few of them bred, which is wonderful!  I have been thinking that there was lots and lots of time since the first ones couldn’t be due to have babies until about Thanksgiving.  Well, on Saturday morning I got to thinking and it dawned on me that Thanksgiving is ALMOST HERE!!!!  We could possibly be having babies SOON!!!!  I had a little bit of a panic attack and then went and told Chrys and our daughters so that they too could experience a panic attack.  Once we all calmed down we figured out that we make a pretty good team so we can all jump in and get the “nursery” ready.  There are a few supplies to get ordered, but we CAN be ready!  J  I think that we all love kidding season even though it is a lot of work and we all end up totally exhausted, still, there is absolutely nothing cuter than a baby goat………..unless, of course, it is our granddaughters.  J