A visit to the farm.

It's been a while since I made it to the farm.  The kids aren't "allowed" to go see Grandma right now because they've had a bug, so we went to the farm with Chuck.  We thought we might get goats caught up and weighed, but miscalculating just how cold it was put the quabbash on that.  It was gorgeous in NC yesterday - nearly 70 degrees, which worked out okay as the kids had soccer games.  It made the chill in the air more disappointing today, however.  I underdressed myself and the kids.  The weatherman said it would be in the fifties, but the thermometer on the car was reading 43 degrees this afternoon.  As Chuck rode around moving round bales with the tractor, he was breathing steam.  I did not plan for that bite in the air.

 

Piper's doelings playing "who is the fastest." (GNX Piper x Shaw)

I did not get as much done as I planned at the farm, but I did manage a few things.  I managed to find the kids I could not locate when I first arrived - they had squeezed into the middle field.  We're fertilizing and liming the middle and bottom fields and have the goats off of them at the moment.  These few kids apparently didn't get the memo.  After we got these little rogues back where they were supposed to be, I went to nail a board to the post to try to keep this from happening again.  By this time I was chilly anyway, and I discovered that the hammer(s) are all missing.  I don't know how that happens.  I bet I've bought forty hammers over the years.  Someday an archaeologist is going to have a dig at the farm and they will no doubt wonder about the amazing collection of tools buried all over the farm.  Chuck produced a hatchet with a blunt back side, and off I went.  I managed to squash my thumb and turn it blue on the first nail, but hopefully the gate is now modified so it is goat kid resistant.

I did at least get some pictures today of the kids.  For the most part, they are growing well.  The Ace kids are in general a month older than the Shaw kids, with the the Boomer kids just behind.   The big exception would be the straggler does.  All three straggler does had single doelings, and we lost one, unfortunately, to some type of predator that prefers hindquarters only (or at least that was the point it was interrupted in its meal).  I get so mad about things like that, but it happens.  I just hate when anything brand new doesn't even get a chance.  It offends me on some kind of cosmic level.

On the left with the star, GNX Ginger.  Her Shaw kids are in the foreground.

Louisianna's doeling (by GNX Ace)

 We've got a good group of bucklings coming along, I think.  The doelings are okay, too, but this year I hope to keep a few more than I normally do, and I've already had some interest in a few of them. 

Two monster PB bucklings by Ace, out of BWP 117 (UPS)

The dark buckling is Louisianna's.  On the right is one of the red Shaw bucklings (hard to say which).

The black doeling belongs is one of Angus' (by Ace).  Her larger twin is the milkshake colored kid hidden behind the brown doeling in the foreground (one of Piper's by Shaw).

The whole herd.  We have four distinct kidding groups, and four sizes of kids.