BFF (Barn Frog Friend) 2012

This little froggy lived in a hole in the wall of our holding area all summer long.

Now with the cooler weather, and I suspect with the returning of his friends, he has left us.

I am going to miss his evening serenades.

The Boys

We always talk about the girls, but today we are going to introduce you to the boys.

I didn't have pictures of all of them and I wasn't about to get in the pasture with them.  If I did, they would want me to pet them and love on them and at this time of year, when they are in rut, that is the last thing that you want to do because these boys STINK.    Anyway, that is why there is a fence in the pictures between them and me.  :)

Woody

Woody is our Nubian buck.  He is black with long frosted ears and he is the sweetest guy.  Woody was born here on the farm and we bottle raised him.  Woody's mom is Rosie and she contributes her wonderful milk each day for your milk and cheese.

 Woody's sire's name was Cheers so we played off of that using character names from the sitcom "Cheers".

Woody has a full sister on the farm by the name of Norma for the character Norm.

 

Alvin

Alvin is the young guy and he is a La Mancha.  We got Alvin last December at a few days old and bottle raised him.  Alvin is a sweetie, but he seems to think that he is extra special......I say he is spoiled.........and he can get into a bit of mischief.

We named Alvin after the character Alvin, of the Chipmunks.  That way I can holler AAAAAl VIN!!!!!  :)

Ed

 Ed is our La Mancha buck.  He is long and tall with a lot of color so we are anxious to see how much color he adds to his kids.

 

Bob

 And finally, there is Bob.  Bob is a Saanen and one of the most notable things about Bob's appearance is that it looks like he has a bad toupee.......a really really bad toupee.

 

I'm not sure why Bob and Ed got the names that they did except that they just seemed to 'fit'.

Who Is Spoiling Who?

Our grandbabies with little Miss Sparkle.

The girls love to go out and see the baby goats.

Scarlet's Baby

After a VERY long wait, Scarlet finally presented us with a bouncing baby boy yesterday afternoon.

I was actually starting to get a little worried about her because she has been SOOO miserable for several weeks now.  She did fine though and she is a very good little momma.  :)

Diego

Freckles New Baby!

UPDATE:  We have convinced our granddaughter that Sparkle is a great name for this little girl.  :)

Freckles presented us with a beautiful baby girl yesterday.  :)

Freckles and Scarlet were in a race to see who would kid first and I fully expected it to be Scarlet, but Freckles won when she had her baby at approximately 1:30 pm yesterday.  

Mom and baby are both doing fine.  

Hopefully Scarlett will have her baby today.  I sure hope so because she is miserable.

Freckles and her baby girl. 

If you look very closely, you can see several light colored spots on her side.  These are called moon spots.

Our 4 year old granddaughter wants to name her Spots, but we'll see.

Farm Happenings

WOW!  It is hard to believe that it is July already!  It seems that so much has already happened this year, but there is so much left to do and the year is half over already.  I guess what they say about time going faster and faster as we age is really true.............although I wouldn't know because I am remaining "nearly 40" and, No, I will not tell how near or on which side.  :)

Last year we dealt with the extreme heat and drought.  Hay for the winter was very scarce and very expensive.  This year the heat hasn't been quite as bad (yet), but we are dealing with drought conditions again which has had us stressing about our winter supply of hay for the girls (and boys).  Last week, out of the blue, we received a phone call which resulted in our winter hay supply being delivered.  It is never cheap, but we now have our winter hay supply and that is such a relief.  :)

Well, as of Sunday, Maggie has joined the other "ladies" that are in retirement here at the farm.  We had already decided to retire Maggie after this milking season, and the last week or so she has not really been wanting to go up on the milk stand.  We finally relented on Sunday and let her begin her retirement early.  As of tonight, she was wanting back on the milk stand.  LOL  It is time for her to have a rest.  She has served us well and has taught us SO much.  Maggie is one of our original girls and there are so many stories and happenings of this sweet girl over the years.  We look forward to many more years with our dear friend, but from this point forward she no longer has to work.........although I'm not sure that she has ever considered her duties here as work (she is kind of spoiled).

Below is a picture of Maggie as a 2 year old.

This is Maggie in 2011 just after she had her babies.

The following girls are also in retirement on the farm.

Patty

Thunder

This picture was taken the spring before the dog attack.  You can read about the dog attack on our Livestock Guardian Dog page.

Stormie

A Bit Of Everything

It has been a couple of months since we did a blog about the farm.  We have been very busy, but it just hasn't seemed like there was anything very exciting to talk about.  NOW there IS!

The young chickens are starting to lay!!!!!

We kept telling everyone that we should have more eggs in July sometime, and I am sure that many of you were beginning to doubt it, but here is the proof!  :)

The young chickens (pullets) layed their first two eggs on Friday and have so far layed three more.  :)  Typically, the first eggs that a chicken lays are much smaller than "normal".  Below are some pictures and comparisons for you to see.

 

5 little eggs in Daddy's hand.  He could probably hold a full dozen in one hand.

 

In this picture, we are comparing the five little pullet eggs to the normal eggs that we have.

 

Another comparison is size.  I think you could probably line up a full dozen around one of our normal eggs.

  

One of our regular eggs (we sell these as large, but they are so big that we can't even weigh them......our egg scale doesn't go that high) and one of the pullet eggs (that is so small that its weight won't register on the scale either).

 

This is just a random picture of the milking girls when I went out into the pasture.  They always make a stampede toward me.   Chrys normally feeds the yearlings and the bucks so when ever they see him, they start hollering and carrying on for his attention.  I have really enjoyed that since they mostly ignore me when they see me.  Well, the last couple of days I have been the one to feed them and guess what........Now they want "my" attention EVERY time they see me!

 

This is Zanna.  We got her just before Christmas at the same time that we got Alvin.  Zanna is quite a mess.  Her favorite thing to do is to reach through her fence and pull your hair.  Our granddaughters don't like to go near her fence for that reason and I have to admit that I am not to fond of it either.  She has the hair pulling thing down to a science and it hurts pretty good.

 

An lastly is my ever faithful companion, Cammi.  It doesn't matter where I go, she is always nearby and patiently waiting on me..........unless she sees a bird, but even then she won't be gone long.