Good Grief, it's been a year

I know, I know, I promised to blog more often and here it is a year already. Shortly after my last blog it all hit the fan. Now I'm going to try and give you a years worth of farming and house building in one blog trying to catch up. So let's start.

The babies started arriving in February. It's always the best time of the year. This was the first year for our 50% Kiko babies. Romeo and Casanova out did themselves and we had twice as many babies as the year before with the same mommas. Somewhere around 80. It was quite the busy time. The following is what I was beginning to write last Feb before it all fell apart.


Good Grief, it's 15 degrees!!
Your remember those stories you hear from southerners who want to move back north because they miss the change in season? Well, I was thinking spring, fall, but I'm not so sure about 15 degrees. I have mastered the layering concept pretty well. In this kind of weather it's three sets of long underwear, two pairs of socks, a turtle neck, a sweatshirt, an insulated vest and a hooded fleece lined jacket, a hat with ear flaps and two pairs of gloves. My hands and feet still get cold and I can't move very well but it gets me by while feeding the animals. As you can imagine we only do what we have to outside. Now that we have heat in the house the rest of the day we spend working on it.Right now we are working on getting the electric finished and the tile down. Rory has taken over the electric part. I must say compared to the days in Florida when he regularly blew up things, fan switches, ovens, stuff like that, he is doing a great job. He learned a lot from Gary and has Sam a phone call away in case of trouble but pretty much he's figuring out the way it works by himself. We have light in most of the rooms now, just a few switches to go.Larry is moving right along with the tile. We had planned to do it ourselves but we are rapidly running out of time. The trim carpenters start in a week or so and we need to have the tile floors done before then. This is the moment of truth for me. Since I have no ability to visualize how something will look picking out tile was pot luck. So far I think it will look pretty good.

Well, we thought we were running out of time so we shipped Rory off to Missouri to buy the doors for the inside of the house. Sent him up by air and he rented a truck and drove the doors down. As luck would have it the weather was perfect considering it was February. This is what all the doors look like except for a few double doors and one set of glass french doors, but we get ahead of ourselves.

From House 08

Well we thought the carpentry would start at the end of February. I won't go into detail about all the frustration, excuses and what not, let's just jump ahead to when they really started, July. At that time they told us they would be done in three to five weeks. They finished the week after Thanksgiving. This has set us back almost a year. But, we are very thankful that it is now done and we are again moving forward. But let's back up, a lot happened between February and then.
Babies, lots and lots of babies! With this new breed it's always a surprise what color you're going to get. They are much more lively than Boer babies and even though we know a lot more this year than last, we had a much better survival rate. This is not to say that we are finished learning by any means. We missed a bad case of mastitis in one of the goats only recognizing it when her babies were almost dead. We rushed the twins over to Reed and Sherri's and did our best to save them. The boy was not as bad off as the girl who I had in a sink full of warm water and continued to tube her with warm electrolytes for at least an hour before she showed any signs of live. But she recovered as did the boy. So now I have Cary and Grant who's mother cannot feed them and it's February. On top of this we had a set of Triplets, our first and only to date, and the mommy decided that she could only feed two. I was standing in the barn while the three were trying to nurse, the two boys on either side and the girl in the middle. She then reached between her legs, grabbed the girl by her tail and flung her across the stall. It was pretty obvious this one was not going to get fed. In this type of situation the ideal is to leave the babies with their mothers and come by and bottle feed them 4 times a day. Well, we didn't live there so that was not going to work. House goats, I had three house goats. There are several good things about baby goats, they sleep all night and they don't have squishy poops. I had them at the foot of my bed in a playpen and that worked very well. One of the not so nice things is that they walk and poop at the same time. When I got lucky I would follow them around and catch the pellets in a dust pan as they walked. Of course they pee at will so my floors so a lot of Clorox during that time. As they got older we took them outside often and then they started coming to the farm every day. Cary and Grants Mommy was still there and she would wait for them at the gate. Cary stayed with her all day. Grant, not so much. He hung around with the third baby, Peanut. During this time Debbie and Kathy were visiting and Beverly and Charlie also. It was a busy time.
Even today, Grant and Peanut think that we are their parents. Peanut came over and sat in Rory's lap just the other day. But the reality of farm life is always present. We lost Cary a few months later. We came to the farm one day and she was paralyzed in her hind legs. We moved her around everyday and she seemed perfectly content but the paralysis was progressing so we had to put her down. Some live and some don't, it's just a fact of life.
We had some puppies during this time. Cute as always, but this time the fun part was Pete. Pete was a puppy from last year and we kept him. Well, he apparently thought it was his job to puppy sit although he does look a little confused by the whole thing.
Pete is now the biggest dog we have. I will put his current pictures on the next blog.
Around this time, early summer, we started buying our hay for the coming winter. I remember as a kid visiting a family friends farm and hanging out in the hay loft. I thought climbing on the hay would just be a hoot. I'm a little older now and I don't bend as easily but I did it. Maybe not next year. In June we had our last babies of the season It was the same goat who had the last babies last year and it took her a really long time and the babies were not too bright, remember Spic and Span? Anyway, we were keeping an eye on her and sure enough on June 30Th she decides to have them. I'll tell you now I don't have any pictures of this event because we were to busy running around. So here's how it went. We're sitting in the pasture a pretty good distance away since she is pretty skiddish, just watching. Out pops the first one, so far so good. As we are waiting for the second I'm looking through the binoculars and being blind as a bat I still can't really see what's happening but it doesn't look right. I hand the binocs to Rory and ask him what he thinks. He says "uh oh back feet first" Well now we are on the move. Breach babies don't usually live because they suffocate before they can be born. He's running after her, she doesn't want to be caught, back feet hanging out her back end, I'm running to the RTV trying to get the Shepard's hook. By the time I get the hook Rory has caught her, I'm yelling "pull down, PULL DOWN" he's got a hold of her by the horns and he grabs the feet and pulls out the baby. Mommy runs away and baby is not breathing. By the time I get there Rory is blowing in the babies mouth, nothing. So I pick him up by the hind feet, supporting his head and start slinging him up and down. Birthing goo is flying everywhere and Rory is yelling,"What the Hell are you doing?" I say, "I read this, I read this". I put the baby down, nothing. Pick him u again and start slinging him some more. Put him down again, pull some yuck out of his mouth and he takes a deep breath! In a few minutes he's up, over with his brother, his mother comes back to both of them and all is well. Whew, now sing with me, "And Slingo is his name O". We now call them Slingo and his brother. I'm adding goat midwife to my list of job titles
Okay then we are now in July. On July 17Th, my mothers birthday, we had a new grand baby. LaciBeth. She is just the cutest thing. As I write this she is already over 6 months old so I'll give give you a progression on pictures. Happy baby too
So, now back to the house. The cabinet guys left, finally, and I lived through it although I had my doubts from time to time. We now have cabinets, but they are not finished. Well we all know what the economy has done in the meantime, so after a couple of estimates Rory and I decided we would finish the cabinets and woodwork ourselves. This is no small task but what the heck we have all the time in the world right? Here's just a preview So, we bought all the equipment we need and proceeded to take it all apart. Not only did we take all the doors and cabinet doors off but we took out all the draw slides. It took us a week. Remember that we still have over 100 animals to feed and water every day. This is where we are at now. We have stained most of the lower cabinets with at least one coat. In the next week or so, we hope, the granite guy will be here to place the granite and the sinks. So every day we do our chores and then head into the house to work on the woodwork. We have never been this tired. I have been in bed at 7:30. I never thought I'd see that!
On November 3rd Sally had another litter of puppies, just 5 this time. They were bigger and healthier and all was well. In addition all were sold before they were 4 weeks old. We were happy. At 7 weeks we had an outbreak of Parvo. The first puppy was dead in 6 hours, I couldn't believe it, so fast. Rory got on the Internet and located a place in Tulsa that had a holistic treatment for Parvo. Our vet was too busy to see this puppy when I called which of course was on a Saturday. I'm looking for a new vet. Anyway, Rory drove up to Tulsa that day and purchased the stuff. Long story short, I had house puppies. We lost one more but managed to save three. Beverly and Charlie were visiting at the time so we had built in puppy sitters while we were at the farm.
I know I've left out stuff, like my friend Karen and her family visiting in June, but I have no pictures. We built fence and had goat roundups and a good time was had by all. She will be back this April with Grant again this year for another apprenticeship. This time it will be baby season. There will be pictures.
We had Three live Calves this year and we lost two. One was stillborn and one was premature. We are still learning about cows and hope to do better this coming season.
We had some great times. Christmas was one. Sam and Christal brought the boys and Laci over and that was great.
We also had some loses. We lost 3 of our adult dogs including Max and Sophie. Although Great Pyrenees are the most lovable dogs they are wanderers. We just could not keep them in. We found Max almost three miles away on the main highway, Sophie and Sugar we believe were done in by hunters. I now believe that the dogs we keep will be the ones who stay home. Fortunately Bear is one of them so far. Such is life on the farm. you have to take the bad with the good and just move on.
So till next time, no promises but I will try and do better this year.

Remembering my Michael 2008

"As long as I'm living my baby you'll be"

Okay then, where were we?

I swear, I really try and get these out once a month or so, but........... I really can't remember the order of events so we'll just play catch up as things come to mind:

Let's start with some fun stuff. We took a break somewhere in there and went to Lake Eufaula to see Rory's uncle Tom, who moved there recently from Maryland. He lives a block or two from the lake and has a pontoon boat so we spent a couple of days visiting and riding around on the lake. It was fall but the weather was good and we had a really nice time. We continue to monitor our experiments with planting and such. This is the sward, a grazer's term, that we planted or part of it anyway. This patch is along the west fence and is winter wheat and purple top turnips. We were so proud of this. We let it grow untouched for about 6 weeks thinking that it would make good winter forage. So the day finally came and we let all the girls out on it. It lasted two days. It seems we will have to rethink the amount of planting we will have to do if we expect to have winter forage. We ran out of time on the fencing for this year and it just made us crazy that we had so much food out there for the little girls but no fence so we broke down and put up a temporary electric fence to expand the amount of pasture available to them. Everything that we have read or heard swears you can't keep a goat in with electric fence but the girls were hungry soooooo....... I'm happy to say that it is now January and we haven't lost a single goat. It took them about 5 weeks to finish off the food but that was 5 more weeks we didn't have to buy hay. In the spring we will put up permanent fence in that pasture and use the electric somewhere else, or so goes the plan right now. Around this time we started to get frosty nights. It made for great working weather and very pretty sights around the farm

I have never had puppies before, well Bear, but these were pasture puppies and we had 9. Poor Sally was so big at the end you couldn't help but feel bad for her.

In preparation for the big event we built her a nice box and put wood shavings and straw in it in the barn. We blocked off a space with access to the pasture so no goats or cows could get in there. We brought her in every day for weeks and sat in the box and gave her cookies so she could get used to it. We had it all under control.

The big day finally came and Sally had her puppies in a brush pile in the pasture like she had planned all along. It took her the better part of the day to have all nine and we figured it would be best to leave her alone, remembering that we haven't had her that long and not knowing how she really felt about us. The next morning we found that we had lost one of the puppies. It was pretty crowded in that hole and we thought that that might be the cause. That was enough for me. I got a basket, reached in and took out all the puppies. I now know that Sally really loves and trusts me, not a growl. We moved the new mommy and her babies to the barn. All was well. In a little while we saw Sally making her way back to the brush pile and I was afraid she was going to try move the puppies but it turned out that she was going back just to check and make sure we didn't leave anyone behind. I guess she trusts me only so far. Sadly we lost another one the next morning for no apparent reason. I talked to the vet and she said it wasn't unusual for a large dog to have some puppy loss Meantime Sophie is depressed. It started when the puppies were born. She laid in the driveway and wouldn't move, we thought she was dead. She finally got up and went and laid down in the pasture across from where the puppies were born. She wouldn't even raise her head up to eat a cookie. She took in of course and ate it without moving anything but her jaws. Now even though she's better and up and around she has turned into a klepto. She sneaks out of the yard and steals things from the neighbors. So far we have found in our pasture dog dishes and garbage from the house on the road, a book and hat from Reed and Sherrie's and various types of animal bones from next door on the west side. We are going to have to put up an electric line around the perimeter of the property to keep her and Max in. They apparently get out and wander whenever we are not there. My neighbor call them the Great Whites. So far everybody knows them and they are very friendly, but one day something is going to happen. Another project to add to the top of the list.

So, we had planned to sell the puppies. This is when I discovered that having a farm and animals is great, selling my puppies was not, so I never got around to advertising them. Meantime we decided to buy the tile and wood from a local family run business. Enter Bobby Jo. She's 28, pregnant with her third son in 4 years and is a hoot. When she found out about the puppies (I have a big mouth) she wanted two. One for her and one for a friend who has 8 children. I was confident that she and her friend would love them so two boys went to their new homes. That left 5. Again, no advertising. I brought them to the vet for their first shots. We put them in the back seat of the truck to drive over. The boys lay down and just hid their heads but the girls... they wanted to know what was going on. I left with 3, the vet took two and one of them was Tank! Now all along I said I was keeping Tank but, Max and Bear are fighting over the girls now so I really don't need another male and after all she is a vet and they will go to live on her farm. I'm trying not to have any regrets but it's hard. So now I have three. Tiny Girl, Beauty and Pete. We plan to keep the two girls and if Pete stays, well, he'll have to make another visit to the vet for some minor surgery. For those of you who are interested is the multitude of puppy pictures I've taken here's the link to the online album

Puppies

Right after Thanksgiving my friend Karen and her middle son Grant came to visit. Grant was going to do a short internship on the farm for a school project. So we put him to work. He and Rory built hay feeders and feed troughs. He helped feed and water and we got to burn a brush pile. We got a lot done and I think Grant really enjoyed himself, I know I had a great time. not to mention all the puppy breaks we felt compelled to take. Having puppies is just the best thing to brighten your day







We have continued to paint with the real colors and so far I'm liking it.


Somewhere in between Thanksgiving and Christmas we had ice


and snow


And no power for 5 days. That was a treat! We were very fortunate though. Reed and Sherri only lost power for 1 day out at the farm so they invited us to come and stay with them. We lost the contents of the refrigerator and some stuff in the freezer but all in all it wasn't too bad. We spent the days working on the farm and the evenings visiting and playing chicken foot with Reed and Sherri. Chicken foot is a dominoes game. I think it's a country thing, very fun. Just a few miles north of where we live now it was devastating. Trees and power lines down everywhere. Some people were out for 2 weeks with a lot of damage. Out at the farm we didn't see even one broken limb. It was the single worst event in OG&E history.

Somewhere in here we had the heating system finished. We didn't have to do much for this except build a cement pad for the heat pump to sit on. We did it the day before the installation. We thought we would mix the cement by hand since we were short on time. After one batch we thought about that idea again, went out and rented a little mixer. Even then it nearly killed Rory.
The bags of ready mix weighed over 50 lbs. so I couldn't lift them and I sure wasn't going to try and move the wheel barrow full of cement, so my job was getting the water in the mixer and getting rid of the empty bags. Rory did the rest. We used about 60 bags and needless to say he was beat. We learned a valuable lesson that day and for the next pads, we need three more for various stuff, we will have the cement delivered.




I'm going to go ahead and post this now since I'm so far behind. I'll try and continue right away. So much is happening so fast now it's hard to keep up.

At the very Least you'd think I'd be skinny!

There are not too many days that I question the wisdom of our choice to embark on this adventure, but this was one of them, truly the day from Hell. We spent the day worming goats again but this time it did not go smoothly. We had modified the working chute making it narrower so the girls could not turn around in it. That part worked out pretty good but for some reason a good many of them decided they didn't want to walk down it or even if they did they didn't want to go up the ramp to the head gate. This means we have to push or pull them down and up. Not an easy task and very frustrating. Of course it was hot which made it that much worse. Rory was not a happy camper, it made the day very difficult.

But then, that part was over and we let the girls out into the new pasture where they had never been before (remember that fencing part on the last blog). There are plenty of trees and weeds for them and they were sooo happy. Meantime we also weaned off the remaining babies, they were not so happy. There was an abundance of yelling for a couple of days, but they seem to be over it now.

September 25, 2007

Time does get away, so to continue. We have been really busy! The mudding and taping are over and we have to paint before the trim guys get started. Painting is a new adventure in itself. We have a sprayer from our North Carolina days so we thought this would be relatively easy. Ha! According to Leroy and Dave the way to do it is to spray the primer (Rory's job) and then back roll it to make sure the paint covers all the texture (my job). Then you spray the real paint and back roll it and then a second coat if needed. These guys were nice enough to leave their scaffolds for us for a week so we could get the cathedrals done. Remember that we had to have plastic over all the windows and doors and we are now spraying paint everywhere and we have 10 foot ceilings besides the cathedrals. So, now we have spray everywhere plus Rory is holding the sprayer up in the air and I'm trying to roll these ceilings. Of course I can't keep up so he ends up rolling a bunch in addition to spraying.

Believe me at the end of the day it's Miller Time

We estimate that we have about one and a half days left for priming and then on to the real paint. Meantime………….

We had to get the pastures ready for winter and next spring.
This involved brush hogging all of it, seeding all of it and then harrowing all of it. We only had 8 acres ready for this now but it still took us a few days to do. We planted winter wheat, rye, white and red clover, alfalfa and some purple top turnips in varying combinations in the different pastures. With a little luck and a little rain we hope to get a couple of month's worth of pasture for everybody plus have it green up quicker in the spring. This will save us a lot on hay. So far for this winter we have 32 tons of the stuff, runs into a few bucks.

The Brick and Rock guys have been working on and off. Terry had to take a couple of weeks off to go hunting in Africa, poor guy, but now they are back at it and should be finished in a week or so.
They finish the fireplace today and then finish up the windows in front and the front columns and that's it.
It's been a long haul but it looks great!

Garage doors came this past Friday. That install did not go so well. The fellow showed up at around 4pm. I left at 6 and Rory got home about 11:30pm. We had been there since 7:30am. Needless to say he was a bit pooped and the doors still didn't work. But, not to worry seems we got a guy who knows what he's doing and all will be well on Tuesday morning when he returns to install a slight modification on the track system. They look really good and we are happy happy. This is the second time we picked someone out of the yellow pages, first time was sheet rock and mud, and we couldn't have gotten anyone better. Great guys that do a great job. Meantime………..

We couldn't very well spray paint in the house as they were doing the fireplace so we decided to clean up the trees in the front of the house and the upper part of the driveway.
The little girls have eaten all the leaves from the bottom branches so we thought we'd chop them off at least on the trees in front of the house. The rest we'll leave to grow new leaves next year as this is the preferred forage for the goats. If goats can forage above about 1 foot from the ground there are no parasites. Those little buggers are in the grass about 4 to 6 inches up. 8 to 10 inches it the right height to graze the cattle down to about 4 inches. See how this should work? Then you put the chickens (chickens, what chickens?) on and they break up the cow patties, great fertilizer, eat all the fly larvae and all kinds of other bugs and give you great eggs to boot. In the winter the chickens live in the hoop house (hoop house?) under the rabbits (Rabbits, what rabbits?) and they scratch up all the rabbit poop which has the highest concentration of nitrogen of all poop, which now makes the most wonderful compost which you spread on you pastures. But that's another story. Anyway, back to the trees. It took a couple of days but we got all the branches off in the little concentration of trees by the house. Some still had leaves on them so we left them for the baby girls who ate them up with great gusto. We were very tired but it looks so much better.

Our friend Frank arrived from Florida on the 24^th. He'll stay with us a week. He's always such a big help. This trip it looks like the oil will get changed in the tractor, RTV and Rory's truck plus getting the explorer ready to be sold, finally. Frank was on water detail this time. We haven't run the water lines yet. We decided to burn one of the burn piles while Frank was here. 1 down 6 or 7 to go.

New arrivals

We've decided to go in a new direction with the goats and to that end be bought two registered purebred Kiko Billy Boys. This is Romeo. and Casanova
We are hoping to get more into breeding stock instead of slaughter. Kiko goats are hardier, better mothers, livelier kids and more parasite resistant plus having registered animals make them worth a whole lot more. We will be able to register the kids even though they will only be 50 %. These guys are less than a year old and still have a lot of growing to do. We are asking a lot from them this year but so far they seem to be up to the task.

We now have a register black Angus bull that calls the farm home.
We had thought we would borrow a bull from our new friend Lawanna, but we realized that we would not be able to get our act together in terms of transporting cows back and forth this season, if ever. So, we have our own bull and by the look of things we will start having cow babies by the end of June.

October 7, 2007

The days just get away. Breeding season has begun and it is a hoot. We have 22 boys in the side pasture and the girls in the pasture next to them.

For those of you who don't know anything about goats and breeding (besides the basics) it is something to see. The boys start out by urinating on their own face and the back of their front legs. This makes them very fragrant indeed. Not all that pleasant for people but the girls just love it! So, the girls that are ready to breed stand by the fence and wag their tails at the boys. This drives the boys crazy and they walk up and down the fence stomping the ground and whupping. They talk to the girls by making a noise that sound like "whup, whup" and then they wag their tongues at them. I think this is pretty much the funniest thing I've ever seen and I don't even mind that they stink. I think you have to be a farmer at heart to appreciate this. On the 28^th of September we put Romeo in with the girls. He's pretty small and not a year old yet. The girls mobbed him. He had 4 or 5 girls surrounding him all the time wagging their tails at him. We left him in for 2 days and then we had to take him out and give him a rest. He ate, lay down and went to sleep, poor guy. I even caught him standing up and leaning against the fence sleeping. Two days later he seemed recovered and we put him back in. The girls seem to know that he'll be there now so they are not so frantic to be around him. The plan is to leave him in for a month, leave a week with no boy in with the girls and then put Casanova in with them. That way we can tell who the father is by the birth date. Goats are pretty exact with gestation being 5 months. We are expecting our first babies at the end of February.

Yesterday we took 20 boys off to the auction. This was not easy for me and I'm glad we are going into breeding stock so I know when we sell them they are going to live happily on some other farm. We didn't stay for the auction, which would have been too much. So, now we only have our two Kiko boys until the next kidding.

The brick and stone work on the house is finished, including the fireplace.
It looks great and we couldn't be happier. We have finished priming on the inside and have some of the ceilings done. Tomorrow we start on the real paint doing the rooms that will get the built in cabinets first so we can get the floors down. Once that's done the trim carpenters start. Still a lot to do but we are making progress. I'm still hoping to be in this winter but I don't think it will be by Christmas, we'll just have to see how it goes.

The cats are cute as ever and Bear and Sophie are playmates. Sally is moving slow these days and is getting pretty fat. I told you about the puppies didn't I? If not, puppies in about 3 weeks.

Now back to the skinny thing. When my sister in law, Barbara, was here in July we naturally started talking about gaining weight as women always do. She was lamenting that she had put on a few pounds and I said, "Barbara"
I work like a dog and I've put on 20 pounds since we moved here. And yes, I know muscle weighs more than fat and yes, I am stronger and have better stamina, but no, this 20 pounds is not muscle.

She then said the magic works, "yes, but you don't have to dress!" I had to think about that for awhile and then realized that that was so true. There is not a place that I go that I can't wear jeans, sometimes nice jeans but jeans all the same. I don't wear makeup anymore and I'm fine with that. It is such a liberating concept. I now eat some of the skin on the Kentucky fried chicken and I have ice cream without guilt, or not much guilt anyway. I haven't gained anymore weight although I haven't lost any either. We did not go to Hilton Head this summer and we won't be going on the cruise this year either so I'll only have to start worrying about it by late spring. Till then I'll just try and hold my own. The cows, goats, dogs and Rory don't seem to mind so I'm not going to either, till the spring. Till next time…………..

The Dog Days Return

So, the rain finally stopped, completely. It hasn't rained in a month and we are now back to 100 plus degrees every day. Of course since it rained so much this spring we didn't get the things done that we needed to do and that would include (let's hear it now, all together) FENCING! YEAH! We are in a mad rush to get a couple of the next pastures fenced before breeding season. The little girls really need to be back there since they are out of leaves in the front, of course we have to worm them again before they go so they don't infect the new pasture, we will also wean off all remaining babies to get the girls ready for breeding season. I would have thought that the mommies would have done this themselves but no. Some of these babies will be a year old in November and are almost as big as their mothers, but they are still nursing. We will bring the first batch of boys to the livestock auction around this time. This will be pretty hard for me, but we hope to bring the bigger ones to the local auction in Maud where they have a better chance of being bought by people who want to keep them.

We lost Billy Bob this summer. He was never healthy and we couldn't put any weight on him no matter how much we fed him. I'm pretty sure stomach worms got him even though we had just wormed him three weeks before. It was very sad since he thought he was a dog and followed us around. He was our first goat and we were very attached to him. This leaves us without a herd sire this season. We are thinking of changing the whole concept of the goat thing and move away from slaughter animals more into the breeding end. We will switch breeds and focus more on the Kiko goat. These guys are more parasite resistant, better mothers and generally a hardier goat. We found a guy who will lease us one of his boys for a couple of months this season. We are also looking to buy a boy of our own. We will then split up the girls into two herds so we can start two different blood lines to help avoid inbreeding, lots of record keeping.

Meantime we are doing some pasture management. We are going to try Management Intensive grazing, MIG for short, for the Big girls (cows). This will involve several years of improvement starting now. We are cleaning up, cutting down cedars, removing tree "stobs", brush hogging, drag harrowing, fertilizing, picking up sticks,and planting seed for fall and early spring forage. Do you know how much your shoulders and arms hurt after swinging an ax a good part of the day? I do! It was hard to fold laundry the next day.

I've been reading a book called "Salad Bar Beef" about this, it's fascinating, and I don't want to put it down. Who would have ever thought? The idea is to eventually keep your pastures productive longer to eliminate feed and fertilizer just adding some hay in the winter and some minerals. The cost savings is tremendous. Great in theory, we'll see. This years contribution will be to plant the front pastures with rye, wheat, alfalfa, and purple top turnips in different combinations to see what works and what doesn't.

August 19^th we had 7 inches of rain! Flash floods all around, the local rivers and creeks were out of their banks and we had lakes where there were no lakes before. Those of you who have been here know about the low water crossing we have to get to our house in Shawnee. It's usually a trickle; it was about 10 feet deep on this day. The house here is high enough that there wasn't a problem and the house at the farm is on the highest point around.

Projects

When it gets unbearably hot we retreat to the red barn and work on projects. Heaven forbid that we waste a day. This month's project was building hay feeders for the winter. Last year we just put out bales of hay and let them go for it. We lost a tremendous amount because the goats like to get on top of the bale and into the sides tearing it down and spreading it out. While this is going on no one takes a potty break so they just poop and pee all over the hay and then they won't eat it. This year we bought square bales, built feeders and we will calculate how much in pounds everyone needs and that's what we will put out. We've done a test run to see if they could get on top of the feeders and they can't. We'll see how it goes when winter comes.

August 28^th, 2007

Eclipse

We had another surprise baby. He was born the morning of the lunar eclipse, hence the name. He is our first black baby, just the cutest thing. In this part of the country black cattle is worth more than any other color, I have no idea why. I'm trying to touch this one much sooner than we tried with Rocket Man hoping he will be friendlier. With his mother watching I was able to pet him on day one. All was going well until he decided he had enough and let out a little moo. Well, mama's head perked up and she started to charge. Needless to say I retreated rather quickly. Now, when she sees me coming she moves him away. I am not one of her favorite people at this time, maybe in a week or so.

Rocket Man was close by for the whole process it seemed like he was on guard. I'm sure he will be so happy when this one is old enough to play. Of course Bear is willing to play with him but Rocket doesn't get it and runs away.

And then there was Sheetrock

The house is being taped and mudded as we speak. The boys, Leroy and Dave, have been doing a great job and we are very impressed with their work. They hope to be shooting the texture this week and then they will be done. We have been totally fascinated with this process. These two guys do all the mud and tape and are unbelievably meticulous. The job is perfect we couldn't have asked for more. And to think we found them in the yellow pages. Imagine that!

After they finish we have to paint and get the floors down where the cabinets will be in about 4 weeks to get ready for the trim carpenters. In the meantime we have to worm the little girls, brush hog the pastures, fertilize and seed.

The Maud auction

This was a first for us, we actually sold two goats. Uno and Dos now belong to someone else. I was sad to see them go but at least I know they went to another home where I'm sure they will have a bunch of girls to hang out with. I know they will be happy. The auction itself was something to see. Goats, llamas, chickens, pea fowl, kids, all at this small town livestock auction held every Thursday night. I love a small town.

Max loves Sally

The only dog I had in my adult life was OB, the best dog ever! Now I have guardian dogs for the goats which I have turned into pets. I have not experienced dogs in love before. It works pretty much the same as for anyone else except that Sally loves Bear. Max won't have any of that so we had to put Bear in dogie jail over with the goat boys behind a fence to save his life. Max wouldn't let him anywhere near and wouldn't even let him eat. Bear was too proud to back down. It wasn't pretty. I'm told that dog love only lasts about a week and by all observations I would say we can expect puppies by the beginning of November. I'm hoping we can let Bear out soon, he's very depressed.

And then there is the Bear

Poor Bear. I really feel sorry for him. Its day three for him in jail. At least he has stopped crying and chewing on the fence to get out, and he has started eating again. Of course I've been giving him some canned dog food as an incentive. I sit with him and play with him for some time every day. I can't wait to let him out. I'm going to put Max out with the little girls in the new pasture when he falls out of love and let Bear back in. Max is the adult out he goes.

Bear still loves the kitties, I see him licking killer's head all the time. Killer doesn't really like it much but he tolerates it for awhile. We are down to two cats. The other two just disappeared. We chose to believe that they went to live at some other families house.

Sophie comes in to play with him every day too. Look how beautiful Bear is. Like everything else he does things his own way. He decided to shed in the middle of August. I thought Max lost a lot of hair, it was nothing compared to Bear. He's white again and he flounces when he runs. I just think he's the most gorgeous dog!

And this is Rocket Man now, he's just too months old. It continues to amaze me how fast these animals grow. He still won't let us touch him although he's thinking about it.




We are getting ready to paint, another adventure, I can hardly wait.........