Goat Kids

Okay, so it's been a rough year so far, what with me being injured and all.  I have already had a trip to the urgent care center and the ER, and that all happened before spring even got here.  In January, I managed to slip on the ice getting out of my truck and sprain just about everything in my ankle and foot.  If you are going to do something, you might as well do a thorough job.  So that is still recovering (but no more crutches!  Although no one really expects you to do barn chores in crutches.  It does, however, mean that you can't really go out and play with the baby goats either).  And then there was the migraine that sent me to the ER a few weeks ago.  That took a little while to recover from.

So I have finally managed to get some pictures of the goat kids that were born at the end of January/early February.  Unfortunately we did not have any angora kids.  One of our angoras miscarried triplets early in the season, and another had a stillborn kid. We are sad about that.  But we do have a boeragora kid (Boer/Angora cross).  Missy, one of our Boer crosses, decided to get busy with Basil, the Angora buck.  My husband was not happy about the resulting kid, even if she is totally adorable.  He would report back to me daily on the progress of the goat kids, and jokingly tell me that there was a "llama" baby in the barn (the mixed goat kid).  So somehow she got stuck with the name "Princess Llama."

"Princess Lllama," our Boeragora.

We also have three other goat kids, also doelings:

Butterscotch, Copine, and Sierra.

One set of twins and a single.  Since there were three of them, we each got to name one.  You can tell they all have the same dad!

Here's my girl, Butterscotch, giving me a weird look:

My husband's goat, Sierra, has a peculiar habit of jumping on top of any adult goat willing to let her.  And then standing there for as long as she can.  Usually her mother is the only goat willing to put up with this (I will spare you the pictures of her falling off all the other goats, as those aren't as funny to look at as it is to watch).

This photo is not staged. And apparently none of the goats are impressed.

And finally, Colleen hanging out with Princess Llama:

Tutorial: DIY Dog Training Pads

And the Toby saga continues....

So, after The Chocolate Incident, Toby began sucking down water like a camel, except for the retaining-it-in-a-hump-for-later part.  Yay! More carpet steam-cleaning! My floors are so clean right now! This is not why I took vacation time. However.

After a few hours at the vet the day after Christmas, Toby was diagnosed with diabetes.  Not sure if that was the chicken or the egg with regards to The Chocolate Incident, but now he is receiving insulin shots twice a day (not too bad, except that he is very furry).  Unfortunately he is a on a strict 12-hour feeding/shot schedule (which doesn't seem too bad in theory, but the practice of it is a little more difficult) and we are still working on the proper dosage.  Which means he is still peeing everywhere.  And since this apparently what I am going to be spending my vacation days on, I decided to upcycle some of the zillions of the empty grain bags sitting in our barn and make some of my own doggy training pads for him. 

The Tutorial is below.  There is one for a large pad and one for a smaller pad.

You will need:

• Absorbent fabric (fleece, old towels, flannel).  I used 2 layers per pad, but you can use as few or many as you want.
• Empty grain bags (you can rinse them out and let them dry beforehand).  This will be used for the bottom, water-proof layer, so a waterproof fabric may be used for a substitute.
• A sewing machine
• Thread
• Scissors
• A measuring device

Instructions (large pad):

Large-sized dog training pad.

• Measure the length and width of the grain bag (leave it folded in half to provide extra protection).  The ones I used measured 19"x 36".
• Cut the fabric layers to measure 19"x36" if you are using fleece (I highly recommend this as you do not need to worry about finishing the edges of fleece).  If you are using another fabric, you can serge-over the edge or add 1" around each of the edges and sew under prior to putting on top of the grain bag.

The flannel has been cut to 19"x36".

The edges of the flannel have been stitched.

• Layer your fabrics, like a sandwich, and pin in place.  Because fleece is stretchy, you can usually overlap a little over the edge and fold in place.

The underside of the training pad, with the fleece pinned in place and ready for stitching.

• Sew around the outside edges. I used a zig-zag stitch.
• Sew a line down the center of the shortest side (in this case, at the 18" line).  Sew two additional lines at 9" and 27".  This will help hold the fabric in place.

The training pad has been stitched down in thirds, to help hold the fabric in place.

Instructions (small pad):

Small-sized dog training pad with a 2-inch plastic border.

• Measure the length and width of the grain bag (leave it folded in half to provide extra protection).  The ones I used measured 19"x 36".
• Cut the fabric layers to measure 15"x32" if you are using fleece (I highly recommend this as you do not need to worry about finishing the edges of fleece).  If you are using another fabric, you can serge-over the edge or add 1" around each of the edges and sew under prior to putting on top of the grain bag.  This size will allow a 2" plastic border for the edge at the end.
• Once you have your fabrics cut and the edges finished as needed, layer them and center them on the pad.  Pin in place for stitching.
• Stitch down the center (at 18") and the two "thirds" (approximately 8" off each side from the center) to hold the layers in place.  You may also stitch around the edges prior to folding the plastic edges up if so desired.
• Fold up the plastic edges.  Pin and sew in place.

Washing recommendations: Soak in cold/lukewarm water with detergent prior to washing.  Wash on a delicate cycle in cold/water water.  Line dry, DO NOT put in dryer.

Trying not to take small things for granted

This has been a crazy week.  It's cold and flu season.  I despise cold and flu season.  Mostly because I have to use many public restrooms during the course of my daily work, and the number of people who also use these restrooms, and then walk out without washing their hands, is appalling.  My unofficial estimate is easily 30-50% of people.  Gross.  And we wonder why we all get so sick.

Also I have a child.  Children pass germs around like they are bffs.  And then they bring them home, sneeze on your shared computer, or offer to wash the dishes (who wants to say "no" to that?) and BAM, you have a cold.  But then there are also nice people in the world.  People who notice that you are sick, and try to make your life just a little easier.  Who say,"Why don't you sit in the warm truck while we finish up out here? If you need something, come out and let us know."  People who are ok with just going somewhere where you can get soup for lunch and not making a big deal out of it.  Husbands who don't mind picking up ginger ale on the way home from work, again, because I drank it all and really don't feel like stopping myself.  These are the things that make me happy.

And then Friday happened.  Let me preface it by saying that I cannot take Sudafed or other cold medicine during the workday, because it makes me really sleepy. So, after working all week, I was really, really looking forward to coming home, taking some cold meds, and crashing hard.  Unfortunately, when I walked into my house, I was greeted to a scene from the Walking Dead.

Toby, the older corgi, has been put on Senior dog food this year.  The vitamins and glucosamine chondroitin really give him lots more pep.  It also gives him the energy to get into lots more trouble.  On Friday he decided to get into lots of trouble.  He pushed a 6-8 lb toolbox out from in front of a cabinet door (it was there specifically to keep the animals out, since the cabinet latch no longer works), and helped himself to some baking supplies.  Specifically, a large number of chocolate chips.

I think it was fortunate that most of it came back up (fortunate for Toby, not for the carpets).  However, as I had been at work all day, it had already been several hours since he had eaten the chocolate, and I had no idea how much he had eaten.  Suffice it to say, it was a rough weekend for both of us.  Today was the first day Toby is back on solid food.  He gets oatmeal and boiled egg mixed with chicken broth - which he is not too impressed with.  He ate it, but only after giving me a look.  If he is feeling well enough to be that upset about his food, I will take it.  I never thought I would be so happy to have one of my dogs give me the stink eye.

Spiced Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

The rest of our pumpkins came in.  I had a hard time not eating them all.  We have actually discussed having an entire garden just for pumpkins next year, and adding a few other varieties.  I am all for it.  I love pumpkin.

So, in the spirit of the pumpkin season, here is a recipe for spiced pumpkin oatmeal cookies.

Ingredients:

-          ½ c butter/margarine, softened

-          ½ c cinnamon applesauce

-          ¾ c brown sugar, packed

-          ¾ c sugar

-          1 tsp vanilla extract

-          1 c canned pumpkin puree

-          1 egg

-          2 c flour

-          1 ¼ c rolled oats

-          1 tsp baking soda

-          1 TBSP pumpkin pie spice mix

-          1 c golden raisins

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a large bowl, beat margarine, applesauce, sugars and vanilla together until light and fluffy.  Add pumpkin and egg and mix well. In a separate bowl, mix flour, oats, baking soda, spices and ¼ tsp salt together.  Gradually beat in flour mixture.  Stir in raisins.  Drop batter by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased shiny cookie sheets.  Bake 11-13 minutes or until firm to the touch and lightly brown on the bottom.  Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.  

No Snow Before Thanksgiving!

Once again it's been awhile since I've posted anything.  Life has still been happening.  A two-week migraine kept me busy for awhile.  It finally went away.  And then I got another really bad one; the kind where I don't drive anywhere for the safety of myself and others and spend the day sleeping.  And so I woke up in the middle of the afternoon, looked outside, and saw snow falling from the sky!  I thought I was hallucinating.  I actually went outside to check.  Thankfully I was not imagining things in my migraine-world, it was actually snowing.  Not that we haven't had snow in southern PA before Thanksgiving before; it's just unusual.  And the weather people had predicted a week of sun and no clouds.  Go figure. They are not on my list of favorite people.

In other news, I got my husband to pet an alpaca.  I have been asking for either llamas or alpacas practically since we got married.  For our 5-year anniversary we went to the Shenandoah Fiber Festival in Berryville, VA.  The weather was beautiful, the drive through the mountains was gorgeous, the fall foliage was awesome.  It was just a lovely time.  Also, I have to say that I prefer it to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.  I do not like large seething crowds of people.  While I understand that, as a vendor, one might prefer larger crowds, as a fair-goer, I prefer the intimacy of the smaller setting.  We were actually able to speak with several of the vendors for more than just a transaction's worth of time, and were not constantly pushed around by other people attending the fair.

Chad petting an alpaca at the Shenandoah Fiber Festival.

Now I just have to keep working on getting my own alpacas. They are so soft and cute! And they hum! How could you not want some??

Five years together.  Toby also wanted to be in the picture.

And now for some random pictures: sunrise and sunset.

I woke up to this one Saturday morning and enjoyed watching the sun looming over the trees.  Rudolph (the goat) seems concerned about having her picture taken.
 

Chad and I were out, waiting for the rocket launch that never happened (since it blew up).  I decided to take some pictures as the evening light faded.

Month in Review

It's been a little while since I've posted anything.  Which is not to say that we haven't been busy; anyone who harvests produce will understand that this is a busy time of year.  Also the concussion didn't help (one of my corgis thinks he is a ninja and thought it would be fun to practice on me).  I had all these ideas for posts, but instead this will have to be a mish-mash.

To make up for the strawberry harvest (which was abysmal with all the spring rain), we had a wonderful raspberry and blackberry crop this year.  Since raspberry/blackberry jam is my favorite jam, I really didn't mind so much.

Raspberry/blackberry jam

I also had a humbling experience.  With everything going on (health issues, dealing with all the produce coming in, keeping up with the goats, going to my day job, etc.) I can feel very overwhelmed sometimes.  Then people come along and do the completely unexpected.  I was working with my daughter and her 4H projects, and we were at one of the leader's houses finishing up a project and talking about things.  I happened to notice that they had one of the magnetic knife strips above their sink and asked about it (I have always thought they were really awesome and wanted to get one).  Next thing I know, one of their daughters goes into a closet and hands me one.  I had no words, but am very grateful and happy.

My new knife holder.  My husband says it looks intimidating, since it is now one of the first things you see when you come into our kitchen.

In that same week, friends of ours gave me another gift: a lovely goat bag, upcycled from a feed bag, with some dairy-free cookies in it (I made sure to hide those so that I actually got to eat them. They were tasty).  The bag has been used several times since.


My new grocery/stuff bag

 

It is wonderful to have people like this in my life.  One does not need to have lots of friends, at least I don't.  I would rather have a few friends that I know I can count on than lots of friends who are going to leave when things get bad.

Okay, moving on.  So, now that the weather seems to (finally!) be getting cooler, our pumpkins are coming in.  Everyone seems to think this is too early, but one cannot argue with produce.  Also, I love pumpkin anything, so I am not going to complain.  The plan was to have some pumpkin for eating now and some to freeze.  However, the first batch came in for labor day and we already ate all of it.  I'm not sure that anything will make it to the freezer from the remaining pumpkins.  I made a lovely pumpkin bar/cake thing and a pumpkin pie (that's right, we had pumpkin pie for labor day and it was awesome).  We are already discussing dedicating an entire (new) garden just to pumpkins next year.  And this is how we end up with so many gardens.


Pumpkin bars

And this morning we had an unexpected visitor.  We live in an area with a local hot air balloon company, and they frequently fly over our house.  It still surprises me every time, although it is just normal to my daughter.  They were flying over this morning.  Even the goats were stopping to look.

The hot air balloon flying over this morning

I tried to get a picture of the goats all looking at the hot air balloon, but of course they all turned to look at me instead. I must work on my sneaking skills.  I guess it would help if I didn't have a squeaky front porch door to contend with.

The goats, turning from the hot air balloon to look at me

What they don't tell you in Motherhood Books: Plumbing

When you're pregnant, people love to give you advice and motherhood books.  Heck, they love to do that anytime they realize that you have a kid, whether they have raised one  or not.  But the things that no one tells you sometimes end up being the things you need to know.  Like how to do minor plumbing repairs on your own.

Since my husband and I both work full-time non-farming jobs, my daughter is in camps during the summer daytime hours.  Which means she comes home with all kinds of crafts and things.  Mostly these involve paper, paint, yarn, and those darn rubber band things (just like school!).  But then there are the Orbeez(R).  According to their website:

Orbeez are superabsorbent polymers—that means they are made of several smaller molecules joined together. With the addition of water they can grow to more than 100 times their volume. That’s right, place a tiny Orbeez bead in water and watch it swell! The water is absorbed into the spaces between the molecules. These polymers were invented for agricultural use back in the 1960s to irrigate crops during times of drought. Today you will find superabsorbent polymers in diapers to prevent leaks, in food packages to absorb liquid and in floral vases to hydrate cut flowers.

Of course, using them for agricultural uses must not have been profitable enough, so now they are marketing them for children to make in kits.  Colleen makes them at daycare and brings them home in cups.  I guess they stress the "water" part of these darn things, because she is obsessed with washing them; they are also slimy and attract all kinds of dirt and animal hair, which may contribute to their needing to be cleaned. 

Fast forward a week into their entry into our house.  Suddenly our bathroom sink is clogged.  My husband was the first one to discover it, and asked my daughter, as she had been washing the beads and there were some remnants of them on the bathroom floor.  She blamed the cat, insisting that the cat had somehow clogged the bathroom sink.  Right.  Later that evening I spent quite awhile pulling the things out with tweezers (for some reason our new faucet set-up does now allow you to remove the drain plug, which I think is completely ridiculous.  So, short of my husband disconnecting the pipes and removing them, which wasn't going to happen anytime soon, we were going to have a clogged drain).  Then I got out the vinegar and baking soda and let that go to work (this is an eco-friendly version of drain unclogger and works in a pinch when the clog is not horrible and you have no drain unclogger on hand).  The sink is not quite back to normal, but is much more usable. 

So keep in mind that all conversations regarding the sink/beads/clog/cat had been between my daughter and husband at this point.  I had unclogged the drain after she went to bed.  She certainly noticed the next morning when she got up that it was working, and made a comment to that effect.  I gave her a look.  And the very next words out of her mouth were, "I don't know how the orbeez got down the drain Mommy. I didn't put them there." Right.

Sadly, this is not the only time I've had to do this kind of thing.  Those tweezers live in our bathroom and are strictly for pulling things out of drains.  Colleen is in her "experimental science" and "taxidermy" phases.  This involves a lot of washing things down sinks.  I never know what dead insect she will decide has to be washed off in our sink so she can study it better. I don't mind the washing and studying of the insect so much, but we do have a utility sink in the basement for this kind of thing.