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.........