New Goats

Sunday and Monday we made a trip to (and from) Colorado Springs, CO to pick up a herd of 35 dairy goats that we had located. Chrys and I along with my Mom & Daddy loaded up two trailers and supplies and headed out bright and early (4:00 am) Sunday morning. We arrived there, after an uneventful trip, at about 6:30 pm. After taking a quick look at the herd in the dark and visiting with Caren, the herd owner, for a bit we headed off to eat dinner and find a much needed motel.

Following a good nights sleep we arrived back out at the farm about 7:30 am and proceeded to load out the goats. This was pretty interesting because they just couldn't understand why their whole routine was being disturbed, but it went pretty well and we were loaded and back on the road by about 8:30 am.

The trip home was a little longer because we traveled a little slower and made more frequent stops to check on the girls but we finally arrived back at Canyon Ridge Farms at 12:30 am Tuesday morning. By a little after 2:00 am the girls were all unloaded and bedded down for the night with plenty of fresh water and hay. At this point we head to the house to CRASH!

Despite the long hard traveling day, the girls endured very well. I actually think that they endured much better than we did. :)

I am SOOOO thankful for our daughters, Megan & Kymberly, who took care of our critters at home and everything else around the farm while were gone. They are the best!

Despite everything, none of the does kidded on the trip. We were afraid that some might since their due dates were so close and we prepaired for that possibility by packing and taking along needed supplies for such a situation. The does spent time adjusting to everything on Tuesday and by Wednesday afternoon, the first doe from the new herd presented us with twin doelings. I can't wait to see what the rest of them present us with.

I almost forgot.........Most of this new herd is Nubian but there are 4 Lamancha and 2 Nubian/Lamancha crosses. This is interesting for us since we have Never Ever owned a Lamancha. :) Of course I don't guess it matters as long as they produce plenty of good tasting milk.

Cammi Jo

Cammi Jo is 8 weeks old now and has been a member of our family for 2 weeks (tomorrow). The first few days she did really well on her house training and then.......the snow storms hit. Really for the most part she is still doing really well. She loves her treats and those have not only helped in potty training but in teaching her to "sit" as well. She is actually doing very very well with that command.



This morning as I was getting ready for work I heard this strange noise and couldn't quite place what it was. A few minutes later Chrys comes back to the bedroom carrying Cammi and said, "Did you hear her?" Then her proceeds to open her mouth and show me a very bloody tongue! It seems that Chrys was stoking the fire before we left and little miss Cammi followed him out to the porch where we have a metal wood rack. Cammi proceeded to "lick" the metal and her tongue became stuck! Chrys was trying to get some warm water to "unstick" her tongue when she pulled it off of the metal. Poor baby! I hope she doesn't do that again, but I checked with Megan a little later and she said that she is acting fine.

LOL.......another day on the farm. :)

More Snow

We were blessed with another 5-6 inches of snow today. We have broken several records for Oklahoma this year.......maybe we shouldn't be so competitive. :) The goats are all fairing well. They have been spending all of their time in the barn eating hay. We are so thankful that we had this new housing barn for the girls this year. It has made this loooong winter storm(s) much more bearable for them. On the bright side we should be seeing temperatures in the low to mid 50s by the weekend and low to mid 60s for the first part of next week. Gotta love Oklahoma weather! Below are some pictures of the snow storms.

These first pictures are from last Friday's storm.

The Greenhouse covered in snow.

View of the pond from our back door.

View of the house from the barn.

View from the back porch of the yard garden and the S.E. pasture.

Pretty little squirrel sitting on the back of the chair under the tree.

These pictures were taken of today's storm.

Above pictures were taken at 6:30 am.

These pictures are were taken at about 7:00 am

Winter Weather

Cold Cold Miserable Winter Weather!

The February blizzard of 2011 set in with a fury and left few unscathed. Canyon Ridge Farms was no exception. The snow fall amounts could have been worse. The snow drifts were pretty crazy. The temperatures, almost unbearable for man and beast.

We made it through the actual storm portion of this event without incident. Chrys had to work so the girls and I held the fort down. I am thankful that my work has been closed so that I didn't have to worry about that while taking care of the farm and critters.

Yesterday morning when I went out to do the morning chores we had a doe who had kidded. She lost both babies, a doeling and a buckling, to the cold. She had gotten them both clean and dry, but I guess it was just to cold. She, Sage, wasn't due for another 20 days.

None of them were due for another 20 days! I would have thought that that would have given plenty of time, even with an early delivery, to get past this major cold snap. We had a couple of the other does that acted like they were in the early stages of labor yesterday, one even with discharge but now I think it was just her mucus plug.....guess she has more than most.

Many of the does really really struggled with the cold yesterday. Last night we stole the heaters out of the greenhouse and set them up in the barn. We then took shifts all night to make sure that none of the goats got to close to the heaters or knocked them over and started a fire. The goats were really quite cute. They would kind of form a half circle around the heaters and just stand there. Some would stay for long periods of time and others would just come over to warm up and then move over to the hay feeder to stock up on groceries again. I am relatively certain that we probably lost everything in the greenhouse last night, but I am also pretty sure that that was correct thing to do for the goats.

It is time for my shift at the barn again. I get to milk on my shift.......I wasn't planning on milking for at least 20 more days, but then we have been complaining about having to buy milk to. :)

Have a Blessed and warm day!

Weekend of Progress

It was a productive weekend. :)

Friday evening we went to pick up the newest addition to our farm family. Camouflage (aka Cammie) is a six week old Shetland Sheepdog. She is very very cute and "already" very very spoiled.

On Saturday we went to town and picked up a few supplies then we spent the afternoon trimming the goats feet and giving annual vaccines. Saturday evening we went to the winter meeting for the Tahlequah Farmers' Market. There was a good attendance and it looks like it will be another great market year.

Sunday was a good day. We got door #7 installed on the dairy barn and we also got all of the batting strips up on the ceiling of the creamery. Daddy is working today on getting the first coat of paint on those and then some caulking and another coat of paint and the ceiling will be done.

This evening will be spent making final preparations for this horrible winter storm that is suppose to assault us beginning tonight. I will get all of the feed barrels filled during my lunch hour today then will stop by the grocery store on the way home this evening. Once we get home we will make sure that the diesel and fuel cans are full, the wood supply by the door is full, the generator is operating properly and all of the extension cords are handy. We will also make certain that all of the critters have their hay feeders full and are tucked snugly into their appropriate housing area.

I will be very glad when winter is over, but I am thankful right now that it is still a full three weeks before our kidding season begins.

Stay safe and warm! We'll report in as time and weather conditions allow.

DOORS

Can there ever be to many doors???? Maybe. :)

We are still working on the dairy barn and creamery. Tonight we plan to hang the "6th door" and maybe even get the "7th door" hung. That is a bunch of doors! Amazingly though, we use every single one of them already.

Here is how they add up:
* 2 doors into the creamery from the outside
* 1 door between the creamery and the milk room
* 1 door into the milk room from the outside
* 1 door between the milk room and the milk parlor
* 1 door from the milk parlor to the mechanical area
* 1 door from the milk parlor to the housing barn

We may have to add doors #8 & #9 which was in the original plan, but we are changing that plan just a bit and hopefully our dairy inspector will agree that the "New Plan" will work just fine if not better than the original one. :)

Greenhouse

We held a "Planting Party" with our kids last night. We had pizza and soda pop and lots of fun! And.......we even managed to get over 6,000 seeds planted and nestled into the greenhouse.

We should soon be seeing our little seedlings breaking through the soil and oh I can not wait to be tasting some of that "super" spinach, "lavish" lettuce and "gorgeous" greens! It makes my mouth water just thinking about it. mmmm.........