 |
| Bailey thinking deep thoughts as he watches the snowflakes |
 |
| Springs for feet |
 |
| Zooming around mom |
 |
| Karate kid |
 |
| How high can I jump? |
 |
| Voltron - he's a sweetheart |
 |
| Quinn and Graupel - snowstorm babies |
 |
| Our angora girls |
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
First Day of Spring
As we move from winter into spring today, the sky celebrates with us by dropping the first snowflakes of spring on the ground. The corgis are quite excited by this, as they love snow.
Yesterday was almost sixty degrees, much closer to our normal spring weather. The goat kids were quite excited to be outside and zoomed around, showing off for their moms. The mothers were rather unimpressed, having seen the antics of their kids before, and rather more interested in finding any greens that were sprouting. Below are some of my favorite pictures from yesterday's fun in the sun:
And now for the adorable pictures:
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Cocoa Loco
This year we were fortunate in having a brown goat doeling that lived (something my husband apparently really wanted) . We have had ones born previously, but they all seemed to catch pneumonia within days of birth and die, no matter what we did, and even if their twins were fine. I chalked it up to some kind of genetic inferiority on the part of the brown goats, some kind of hereditary immune issue being passed on from our previous buck, Spike.
As I said before, this year was different. Perhaps it was due to multiple factors: Cocoa was born to our best mother goat (Chocolate will let any goat kid nurse off of her) and she was a single rather than a twin. As she was all brown, given the history we'd had with previous goat kids, we took special care with her, checking on her multiple times a day, watching every sneeze (goats sneeze a lot normally anyway), making sure every poop was regular, giving her the warmest stall. Although we may not have needed to worry about that last part, because within a day of her birth, she was zooming laps around the stall, jumping in and out of the hay feeder, and trying to jump onto her mother. Maybe we should have named her Spitfire. Unfortunately for her, because of her unique (to our herd) coloring and our inability within the household to decide on a name, she has three: Cocoa Cinnamon Bon Bon. Fancy. Usually we just call her Cocoa; if she's bad we'll add "Loco" to the end of that.
All that personal attention has turned her into a personable goat, in that she enjoys being around people, and nibbling on their clothes while being petted. However, around goats she is the instigator and troublemaker, always finding new ways of making life exciting.
Like our other goats, she has decided that the grass on the outside of the fence must somehow taste much different and better than the pasture. Our pasture fence-line has a perfectly manicured one-foot area all around it from the goats eating it. Unfortunately for Cocoa, as she has grown, so have her horns. With her wedge-shaped head, this has resulted in her being able to get her head through the fence to the other side, but not back. Which is all fine and well until she runs out of grass to eat. So we've had to put the Pipe of Shame on her. It works wonderfully to keep her from getting her head stuck in the fence, isn't too heavy (yay for PVC and duct tape!) and only took the other goats a day to get used to.
 |
| Cocoa and her mother, Chocolate. |
As I said before, this year was different. Perhaps it was due to multiple factors: Cocoa was born to our best mother goat (Chocolate will let any goat kid nurse off of her) and she was a single rather than a twin. As she was all brown, given the history we'd had with previous goat kids, we took special care with her, checking on her multiple times a day, watching every sneeze (goats sneeze a lot normally anyway), making sure every poop was regular, giving her the warmest stall. Although we may not have needed to worry about that last part, because within a day of her birth, she was zooming laps around the stall, jumping in and out of the hay feeder, and trying to jump onto her mother. Maybe we should have named her Spitfire. Unfortunately for her, because of her unique (to our herd) coloring and our inability within the household to decide on a name, she has three: Cocoa Cinnamon Bon Bon. Fancy. Usually we just call her Cocoa; if she's bad we'll add "Loco" to the end of that.
 |
| Cocoa trying to get as far into the hay feeder as possible. |
All that personal attention has turned her into a personable goat, in that she enjoys being around people, and nibbling on their clothes while being petted. However, around goats she is the instigator and troublemaker, always finding new ways of making life exciting.
 |
| Cocoa, having decided to join in the spring gardening frenzy, proudly goes to display her find to the other goats. |
Like our other goats, she has decided that the grass on the outside of the fence must somehow taste much different and better than the pasture. Our pasture fence-line has a perfectly manicured one-foot area all around it from the goats eating it. Unfortunately for Cocoa, as she has grown, so have her horns. With her wedge-shaped head, this has resulted in her being able to get her head through the fence to the other side, but not back. Which is all fine and well until she runs out of grass to eat. So we've had to put the Pipe of Shame on her. It works wonderfully to keep her from getting her head stuck in the fence, isn't too heavy (yay for PVC and duct tape!) and only took the other goats a day to get used to.
 |
| Cocoa, wearing her Pipe of Shame. |
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Spring!
It seems like Spring has finally made a commitment to stay. Which means several things here at the farm: mud season, spring cleaning, and shearing. I never knew the meaning of "mud room" until living here, and am already plotting for how to expand ours. Either that or how to make our kitchen look like an exact replica of the many shades of mud/leaves/sticks and other things that seem to be tracked inside every single day. Seriously, having a brown pergo floor does nothing; it needs to have nuances of outdoors. Even with daily cleaning, I will not see my actual floor again until the dry summer.
So I focus my energies on cleaning other things, like the barn. Spring is when we do one of our major semi-annual barn cleaning events. It's warn enough to stick the animals outside for a day while we overhaul and do general inventory.
Spring is also shearing time for the angora goats. The other goats always find it interesting and want to know what's going on, seeing the angora goats as strangers without their long coats.
Sassafrass was the first one done. As usual, she was best behaved of the group for her haircut. She did not take kindly to having her picture taken though, high-tailing it for the barn before I could get a good picture.
Basil, our buck, wasn't far behind. He was the last one shaved and apparently figured out what was going on. He jumped the fence and made a break for the pasture so that he wouldn't have to be shaved. Unfortunately his head was no match for his stomach, and we were able to get him back with a bowl of grain very quickly. But he wasn't sticking around after his trim either. Or maybe he thought there would be more grain in the barn, since Sassafrass went in there so quickly?
Leah decided to let me know what she thought about the whole thing:
As much as they do not seem to appreciate having been shaved right now, I bet they will appreciate their hair cuts once the weather really warms up!
So I focus my energies on cleaning other things, like the barn. Spring is when we do one of our major semi-annual barn cleaning events. It's warn enough to stick the animals outside for a day while we overhaul and do general inventory.
Spring is also shearing time for the angora goats. The other goats always find it interesting and want to know what's going on, seeing the angora goats as strangers without their long coats.
Sassafrass was the first one done. As usual, she was best behaved of the group for her haircut. She did not take kindly to having her picture taken though, high-tailing it for the barn before I could get a good picture.
Basil, our buck, wasn't far behind. He was the last one shaved and apparently figured out what was going on. He jumped the fence and made a break for the pasture so that he wouldn't have to be shaved. Unfortunately his head was no match for his stomach, and we were able to get him back with a bowl of grain very quickly. But he wasn't sticking around after his trim either. Or maybe he thought there would be more grain in the barn, since Sassafrass went in there so quickly?
Leah decided to let me know what she thought about the whole thing:
As much as they do not seem to appreciate having been shaved right now, I bet they will appreciate their hair cuts once the weather really warms up!
Friday, April 5, 2013
Spring is finally here!
It's finally started getting warmer (not counting the week of summer we had), and the goats are happy to be back outside and munching in the pasture. The bunny has left her winter accommodations on our front porch and is back in her hutch, where she can spend her time watching the world go by while the corgis nap in the yard and defend the house. Both of the angoras have had their spring shearing, and had lovely warm little coats put on. But the other goats made fun of them in their coats, so they fidgeted and bit at them until they came off. As you can see below, Midnight looks rather naked and scrawny without all her fleece. I'm surprised the other goats weren't making fun of her for that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)