Bananarama and Rice Paddies

 

At least the cool summer has been good for the July kids

Wasn't it the Eighties group Bananarama that had that song, "Cruel Summer?"  It really has been a cruel one here, although the weather itself has been almost unbelievably mild.  This morning, on August 17 in the upper South, it is 62 degrees and drizzling.  That's right folks - 62.  The normal high for August, per Intellicast.com, is 87 degrees.  The other unusual thing around here has been the rain.  We have not had the July and August dry spell that we usually have.  Our winter temperatures are not cold enough for long enough to kill off any parasites to speak of.  In a "normal" summer, the dry spell causes the pastures to quit growing and the goats (or cows, or horses) eat them down short, so the hot sun can bake the fields and reduce the parasite load somewhat.  That isn't going to happen this summer, so I will be deworming does after they kid during our cold snap to reduce the load next spring, and we really need to get some more areas fenced so we can properly rest a field.

the unexpected - green grass and kids in July

If you've read my blog at all, you know I don't typically deworm the goats much, but we were going through a rough patch with them and they looked, for lack of a better word, like crap.  I tried to use Ivermectin.  I didn't see much improvement, so I used COWP (copper wire particles) as usual because I know they are proven to be effective against Barber Pole worm, although only against Barber Pole.  I noticed some improvement in the goats, but just some, although a BIG improvement in the richness of coat color on the black and red goats I have.  I had forgotten just how much copper the goats on our farm seem to need just to maintain.  The iron in our soil is so high, it must be keeping the goats from absorbing enough copper from our mineral mix.

Red goat - she was rawhide colored before the copper, and is even redder now.

Several of the goats still appeared unthrifty - even the ones with Famacha scores of 1.  I started reading all I could find about the specific symptoms I was seeing, and I came across a mention of goats not shedding well and goats with guard hairs standing up.  Now, that was one thing I noticed about several of the does - they constantly looked like they had stuck a finger in a light socket.  Their hairs were always standing on end.  The cause of this for the person writing about it?  Liver flukes.  Ahhhh.  Now that made sense in our situation this year.  Our pastures never dried out.  I didn't see snails, but Chip caught enough slugs in the fields that I know the conditions were right for them.  I got some Ivomec Plus injectible, and lo and behold, the goats that were looking poorly are now shedding and getting shiny and sleek.  Live and learn.  Knowing we've had the liver fluke problem, my dewormer of choice for the newly kidded does this winter is going to be Ivomec Plus.  Apparently the liver fluke egg resembles the Barber Pole egg in a fecal, as well, so if you have goats who seem to decline gradually in condition and have a "fuzzball" appearance out of season, you might consider the possibility of liver flukes - especially if you've had enough water on your fields that you could've turned them into rice paddies.

Speaking of rice paddies - the other issue caused by the unseasonably cool, wet summer has been that I am starting back to teach and the tomatoes are all still green in the field.  Some have rotted on the vine.  I don't know if they will ever ripen or the crop will be a total loss, but even if they do ripen, I won't be available to pick them.  I spent so much of my summer in that 'mater field, it is pretty disappointing.  It was the first year, though, and we learned a lot, and I learned that, barring a few of the steps, this produce thing is something I can do.  I have put myself on the five year plan.  Each summer, I am going to work on perfecting a crop or learning a new one, so that at the end of five years, if I am burned out on teaching, I can step away and replace the money with the farm.  Now, in North Carolina, the teacher pay is almost the lowest in the entire US, so this should be an attainable goal.  My children will be old enough I should be able to have all of them at the farm with me and not have to pay for day care, and it would free me to focus on their schoolwork, which will be a pretty heavy load I feel sure.  Annalee will be in 7th grade by then, and for her to get into Duke, she will have to be ready to be topping the charts grade-wise when she hits 9th grade.  The only way I see us affording Duke will be by her getting a scholarship, so she will also be doing every bit of community service we can do by then, and she will have to do some sort of sport.  Chip will be in 5th grade, and Virginia will probably be in 2nd, so all three of them will have homework.  Plans aren't realities, of course, but I'll be working it, and we'll see how it goes.

Fifty, before her demise, surrounded by doelings

The weather was not the only evil of this particularly cruel summer.  I mentioned we lost a really reliable doe to a hay bale collapse.  I was at the farm one day, and as I looked around the field, I noticed I couldn't find Fifty.  She just wasn't there.  I looked in the sheds and then, with growing unease, looked over at the hay pile in the middle of the field.  It was about three feet high, and several does were resting on top of it quietly chewing their cud.  I told Chuck my concerns and he started digging his arm in under the pile, and confirmed my fears - she was in there.  He got the tractor and moved the pile, and she was dead in the absolute center of it, both figuratively and literally.  She was a strong doe, so all we can figure is they ate a hole in the center and she had her head in it when it collapsed or the other does jumped on it, and her horns likely locked in the hay fibers and suffocated her, and then the rest of the bale collapsed around her, because she was completely engulfed.  That was a real drag. 

The blackberries in the weanling area.

The doelings Fifty raised were still in the field, and when I bush hogged the next field down later that day, I noticed one of them standing with her front feet on a rock, looking around and calling for Fifty.  No matter how practical I try to be, I can't watch things like that without them weighing heavy on my heart.  Fifty gave them a good start, so we moved them on down to the blackberries in the electronet with the weanlings we had pulled off their moms earlier (Fifty had kept her weight so we just left hers with her), and they transitioned pretty well.   She was one of the does with a possible kid swap, so we will need to DNA her does, but she raised them beautifullyand I will miss that reliability.



Fifty's doelings.

Shaw/Iron Temptress buckling

We are taking some of the Shaw doelings that are decent size and exposing them to a young Shaw buckling.  I normally don't breed that close, but I am trying to "concentrate" the line since we lost Shaw.  I am going to DNA the buckling because he has curly hair much like Ace, but it would be highly unlikely he is anyone but Shaw's.  Ace stamps his kids absolutely with the "Ace Face," and this buckling doesn't have it.  What he does have is a muscle pattern and frame different from any other bucklings this spring.  He is very long bodied, long hipped, and round muscled.  I assume it came from Tempy's side of the family (she is by Iron Horse and out of a Tasman Temptress daughter - Tasman Temptress was Sports Kat's mother), but I have several of her half sisters and I have only seen this muscle type once before in a buckling we have raised, and we had sold him.  We'll see.  It will be an interesting experiment.

Piper (in the background) and her doelings.

My favorite doelings of the season are still Piper's (Piper is Ace's full sister) by Shaw.  We have had a "cough" go through the herd this summer, and I have been giving Bovi Sera (direct antibodies to pasteurella, among other things) to anyone that has had it (that I can catch), so I am hoping it doesn't take a turn for the worse.  Piper's girls have had the cough, and if I lose them, I will just sit down and bawl like a baby.  I did not get anyone vaccinated for pneumonia this summer, and Chuck says he has had many people come in to his work with herds that have been hit by pneumonia this year.  What a summer it has been. 

I will be going back to teaching within the next two weeks, and I am frustrated that I must since I am just getting the farm and the house back in order, but I am also excited to start a new year and see if I can improve my teaching.  I learned so much last year.  When it was all said and done, I was lucky to have the opportunity to learn alongside my students, and I hope this year I can help them enjoy reading more than last year.  They look at me and say, "but Ms. Shaffer, we just don't read," and I get that - they live in an electronic world... but I think about the fact that if I wasn't driven to read and search for answers to my own real-life problems, I would never have come across that little blurb about guard hairs and liver flukes.  And what if the person who wrote that wasn't a reader or a writer!  Even in an electronic world, reading is fundamental.  It is what allows us to share knowledge, athough it still seems like I am going to have to make every single mistake myself.  *Sigh*

Tragedy and little victories.

This spring and summer has been relatively cool (not many days over 90) and unusually wet.  The guy who is teaching us how to do tomatoes says he's never seen a year like this one - his tomatoes are weeks behind where they should be because the plants don't grow without the sun and heat.  It has been a mixed blessing for us - the forage is holding up, but the warm, moist days are always high parasite days, and we don't have the fencing done that we had planned.  Seems like that's always the way. 

We don't love to lose goats, but we expect to lose a few each year, and normally this helps us retain the strongest individuals as breeding stock.  Losing six goats overnight, though, during a severe storm, well... that was not exactly in the plans.  The thing that hurt the most about it was that one of the two bucks that died in the front field was our new herdsire - Southwest Shaw.  There were trees down all over the area, and we had many limbs down in that field.  We are reasonably sure they ate some of the wilting cherry leaves and died of poisoning.  The body of the second buck we have yet to even find, but he disappeared that night, so we assume we'll find it sooner or later in the woods.  We will continue cutting down cherry trees, but the woods are just full of them.

The batch of doelings that died in the same storm are more of a mystery.  All but one was right next to the metal shelter.  That corner of the field has some cherry trees outside the fence and it is plausible some limbs could have blown in, but our neighbors thought it was lightning.  Apparently, there were many strikes in the area.  I just don't know.  It took out some doelings we planned to sell and also some we planned to keep, so now, we've had to readjust.  This is going to be the year we just don't sell much of anything.  We are keeping anything that is by Shaw, and anything that was exposed to him this Spring (we decided to test breed for some Fall kids).  I have also decided to keep any doelings out of my best producing does.  I need to build up a string of "Plan B" goats.  Otherwise, if we have another event like this storm (Heaven forbid) - we could lose some of our best genetics forever.

Virginia, telling me "It raining, Momma"

This continues to be an incredibly wet year.  The parasite load has to be through the roof, and Chuck isn't able to do moving pens like we used to do because his farm time is so limited.  The worst part of his work schedule is that it changes from day to day.  We can't plan for anything.  I only had weekends off during the school year, and if he had to work the weekend, that left only me - and to be honest, even on the rare days we both had the same day off - we can't do much of anything at the farm with Virginia running wild.  We get about an hour to get stuff done as she naps in the car.  She just turned two on July 2nd, and she is truly a little Firecracker.  She's a one-baby wrecking machine, and is absolute proof tthat humans are closely related to apes (put her at the bottom of anything and she'll have climbed to the top in seconds), but is still just a joy.  She runs me ragged, but is so full of personality she practically sparkles with it.  I cherish every snuggle with her, especially as she sleeps, because I know all too well that her babyhood is coming to an end.

The exccessive rain brings me to the second reason we are behind on the goat work.  Our hay man suggested to Chuck that he grow tomatoes.  I understand that the hay man's son has done quite well with his produce, but I think Chuck has clearly lost his mind this time.  Of course, I know I lost mine long ago (as is evidenced by the fact I am looking forward to my next year with my, ummm, let's just say exuberant ninth and tenth graders!) because I agreed to help him.  The rain has made the field a muddy mess, and I often wonder as my wellie boots stick fast and I rock back and forth, struggling to pull a leg free, if this isn't how woolly mammoths felt when stuck in the LaBrea tar pits.

More rain.  Better than none, I guess.

Planting four thousand or so tomato plants ain't quick work.  Neither is pounding stakes or stringing the dang things.  I'm chief stringer, and I am way behind on my duty.  I have to get the German Johnsons up quick and I'm not even done with the Mountain Prides.  We discovered that the old well does indeed have water in it, but not enough to grow tomatoes.  We have to figure out why it went from the thousand gallons a day the tobacco guys say it used to produce to the 250 or so it produces today.  The hay man said if it was completely dry, we could throw in some crayfish and they'd dig their way to water and reopen the vein.  I guess that's plausible, if more than a little odd sounding.  I've learned to never say never.

Rows of tomatoes, with my "helpers" in the background.

Speaking of never say never, you may remember our three-legged doe, Kitty.  She had a horrendous compound fracture we could never set, and was too close to the hock to pin.  Our local vet said she'd be dead in a month even if we tried to save her.  Kitty had other plans.  Her bone would not stay together or inside the skin, but the skin healed over the bone.  Her leg flopped around as she escaped at a dead three-legged run from Chuck one day to meet Ace, the product of which rendezvous was a set of twins that she raised unassisted.  We gave her the breeding season off last year and let her hang out with her doe kid, and she exerted her freedom of choice earlier this spring when she decided not to allow us to catch her when we weaned bucklings, and then promptly came in heat and chose the one that tickled her fancy to initiate into buckhood.  All other hopeful suitors were met with swinging horns, or, when that was not enough, a bite in the face.  We don't know yet if she caught, but if so, her "baby daddy" will hopefully prove to have as much potential as a good sire as Kitty thinks he has.

Chuck and I finally had a day to work goats together and noticed as we administered the first dose of COWP that Kitty was bearing some weight on her injured leg.  Chuck caught her and found that sure enough, that leg is only bending at the hock now.  He obviously didn't get too carried away testing it, but we saw that she is indeed bearing some weight on it and walking almost normally.  Somehow, that bone has mended itself.  It isn't as good as new of course, but it is so much better than we could have hoped for.  I sure hope we can get another couple of doelings out of her and then allow her to retire and live a life of leisure.  Knowing Kitty, she'll make those decisions for us.

In past years, we've been selling all the doe kids from some of our best does.  That will change in order the implement the "Plan B" I mentioned going forward.  Having plain old "typical" does makes one really appreciate the "amazing" does.  I'll be keeping anything Kitty gives us, as well as any future doelings from the resident grand dame, Marshmallow.  I have more does from which I'll be retaining doelings, but, as explanation, Marshmallow is a ten year old.  She had triplets last year (we kept one doe) and twin bucklings this year.  She is one heck of good mothering old doe but I know her production days may be coming to an end.  Kitty, well, her toughness is the kind of thing Kiko ads could be made on, and she is a parasite resistant good mothering little doe as well.

We've been through some tough events this spring, but seeing Kitty bear weight on that leg yesterday - well, that was priceless.  It is tough for a "glass all the way empty with a hole in it" kinda girl like me to not get caught up with worry over all the loss, but moments like this give even old cynics like me a smile.


Kitty, on the left, with her doe kid from last year. Nature is amazing.

Have I mentioned we have amazing timing?

It just happens to be in the wrong direction.  Chuck is trying something new this summer with the help of our hay man and his son.  Chuck is trying his hand at growing 'maters on the farm.   Now, I have my trepidation about this whole venture - mainly because I don't know vegetative matter like I know critters.  I have some idea what to do when a four legged varmint has an issue, but when a plant looks sickly... well, that's another matter entirely.  I'm out of my element.  I've even gotten used to Chuck's crazy turkeys.  He found one of his Royal Palm hens holed up setting twelve eggs the other day.  They're better moms than most of the chicken hens.

One of Chuck's momma turkeys with some mixed breed poults.

Virginia enjoyed trying to poke holes in the plastic.

This enterprise has come about as an attempt to augment our income and learn to better utilize the land on the farm.  The goats are doing fine this spring - better than fine, actually - but I've had no time to fool with the blog or the website, and we've missed all the weights we like to take at the 30, 60, and 90 day marks.  We've just not been able to arrange to get both our bodies to the farm at the same time without three small helpers with us.  Annalee and Chip have gotten to the point that they actually are helpful catching goats, but Virginia is just too little.  She requires constant attention at the farm.  She is part either mountain goat or sherpa.  We turn our backs, and she's standing on the top of the car or has climbed to the top of the hay feeder. 

Annalee was less impressed.

With rain in the forecast, we spent a day poking holes in the black plastic to prepare for planting, but found the ground under the plastic very dry even though the mud between the rows clung to my shoes and made them resemble giant snowshoes.  Not cool.  Chuck had to wait to plant, and of course, got plants in right as the rain quit cold turkey and the heat came on.  It has been nearly 90 degrees most days this week, and those baby tomato plants are not loving it.  He is trying to get used to the irrigation, and that offers some challenges since we have no power.  I do hate being on the bottom of any learning curve, but it is part of life.  If we quit learning, I fear we lose the ability to learn.  We ought to be in pretty good shape, with all the things we've had to learn in the past few years!

This new venture means we won't be able to make it to the SEKGA sale, and I hate that.  We had really been looking forward to it.  We had a blast there last year.  The kids enjoyed Go Fish Georgia, and it was just a really fun sale with a lot of nice people.  I wish it were a few weeks later into the summer, but it is what it is, and we have work and tomatoes to handle. There are a couple of does for sale that would blend rather nicely with our bucks, but such is not to be.  I also hate that we are missing the opportunity for fresh ripe Georgia peaches.  There's a stand in Walnut Cove that says it has S.C. and Georgia peaches, but I stopped and took a look at the pathetic imposters.  They felt akin to little baseballs - not a good sign for a tasty peach.  I passed on the disappointing little orbs, and left quite unsatisfied.

The beautiful peaches we bought last year.

If anyone feels rather generous, pick me up a couple of does at the sale and with any luck, we'll have a mess of tomatoes we can trade later this summer.  At least, I hope so.  I guess I'll just be satisfied if we have ANY tomatoes to peddle this summer at the Farmer's Market.  I'm not even going to worry about how I'm going to manage three kids at the Farmer's Market yet.  I have a little more than a week of school left with students, so I won't have time to take a breath until that's done.  I can't believe the school year is almost over.  When I first started the year I'd not have believed I would say this, but I'm going to miss those characters. They are irreverently funny, unconventionally smart, and worldly-wise, yet so innocent, and so very, very resilient.  Hopefully, I'll get to work with them again in the fall. 

Where's Chip-do

It has been a strange spring.  We found an unexpected consequence of kidding extra early: if spring comes late, nobody much grows because there's nothing to eat!  Finally, the kids are growing because they finally have some forage.  I can't remember many Mays where it has been so chilly, to be honest.  It has at least been wet, though, and the continued showers are not only bringing flowers, but taller and taller grass.  Chuck opened the gate to allow the goats to mow some of the bottom field although we wanted to wait and use it for weaning.  We couldn't find the time between family and work obligations, and we didn't want the forage quality to tank completely.  Chuck took this picture before he let goats in the bottom field.  It is our version of "Where's Waldo," except we're looking for Chip.  Annalee went to school the next day covered in stinging little grass cuts and whining, but she was reading Little House on the Prairie, so her teacher thought it was quite appropriate and even hummed the TV series theme song for her.  Annalee remained unconvinced...

You can find him if you look reaalllly close.  He was walking, if that tells you about the height of the grass.  The goats are loving it.  Chuck assumes they are okay, but there are some he can't find, so we'll know more when they mow it down a bit. 

We are coming up on EOC tests at school, so the pressure is on.  I vow to update the "for sale" part of the website as soon as school is over, but right now, I have a long evening ahead of me.  I am still grading last week's tests and I have to create new ones, too.  I must relate that we are reading and watching To Kill A Mockingbird right now, and the magic created by that book never ceases to amaze me.  The most die-hard "I don't care" kid fights right alongside Atticus, and is heartbroken when Tom Robinson is convicted.  They all can't wait to finally see Boo Radley, and the message of the movie - don't judge anyone until you've seen the world from their eyes - sticks with them at least a little bit.  I am pretty lucky to be in a spot where I can reread such a gift of novel every few months!

A few pictures to show that Spring has sprung. Finally.

What a difference just a little warm weather can make!  We had a really warm week with a little rain, followed by a bit of a chill, but overall, spring is here.  I just had to post a picture of the difference in the bottom field.  We'll be weaning and moving goats likely this weekend.  There is a blend of grasses and legumes, and what I think is my chicory or the rape coming up.  I'm not sure which.  I need to get better at plant identification.  We also need to lime the front areas to get some better stuff growing.  My aunt has always told me that broomstraw is a natural pH monitor - when the broomstraw grows, you know you need some lime.

The bottom field, April 4, 2013

The bottom field April 21, 2013.  It's about time.  Note the blond heads.

Some grass, clover, and alfalfa.

Even the top field is starting to catch up with the goats.

My favorite Boomer buckling this season - out of a Tay Onyx granddaughter.

One of my favorite Shaw bucklings this season - out of an Iron Horse daughter (and Tasman Temptress granddaughter)

I knew better...



Bo stopped as I stopped to take the picture, and looked at me as if to say, "You ARE coming, aren't you?"

But I didn't get it ordered sooner.  The temperatures have been all over the place - balmy one day and frigid and icy the next.  I should have known it was the kind of season that would cause problems.  In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if there is any season that doesn't have some inherent problems?  Chuck mentioned (or at least he tells me he mentioned - I have my mind so full of Siddhartha and Night and The Odyssey as of late there isn't much room for anything else) we had run out of Bovi Sera.  Bovi Sera is one of those things I like to have on hand, although we don't use it a lot this time of year.  I tend to use it more when we ship goats, as it provides direct antibodies for a few of the things that can get goats down when they are under stress - the stress of being hauled down the highway in a shipping crate for twelve hours, for example.  It has antibodies to E.Coli, Salmonella, and two types of Pasteurella organisms that can cause pneumonia.  In theory, these antibodies can go right to work and combat the pathogens quickly, and hopefully buy the animal time as it tries to mount its own immune response.



Enjoying the warmth of the sun, blocked by Momma from the chilly winds.

Although I am still under the weather myself (thankfully, although the whole rest of the family has been sick, I waited until Spring Break to get mine - no missed work!) I loaded Annalee and Chip in the car and dropped Virginia off at day care.  Loaded with packs of snack crackers, a box of Capri-Sun, and a bag of half price Scooby Doo Easter candy, we set out for the farm.  The weather really has been crazy lately.  I think it was Monday it was seventy degrees again, and the goats, who are still sporting long winter coats, were all flaked out in the sun.  Tuesday brought an abrupt decrease in temperature, and a cold wind whipped across the flats of the farm.  Yesterday started with a sharp, frosty morning, but gently mellowed into the upper fifties.  Since I felt poorly, after I fed the goats I told the kids to play as I took it easy in the warm car for a little while.  I sat and rested, and watched the goats.  Having the time to watch them gave me an opportunity to notice a couple of the kids breathing heavier than they should.  One sounded a little raspy, too.  Crap.  Sounds like pneumonia brewing. 

Normally, my first line of defense for pneumonia is a dose of Bovi Sera.  I use it even before I pull out an antibiotic.  Unfortunately, I am unprepared this time, and Bovi Sera is not something we can get at the local feed store.  I placed an order online, and it should arrive later today.  The kids were still upright as of a quick trip up to check this morning, so when the package gets here, I will try to run up and catch these two kids and give them a quick dose of it.  This is one of those days I hope soccer practice is cancelled.  It sleeted on us as we returned home from the farm earlier today, and I just don't think I am up to sitting out on the soccer field for an hour trying to corral Virginia.  Annalee has plenty to wear to keep her warm, but I'm just not feeling that tough today.  My pastures are even feeling the effects off this prolonged winter.  I looked at pictures from last year, and the pastures were much taller and greener in April last year than they are today.  Maybe next week's projected warm temperatures will kick them into high growth gear.  I sure hope so.

Still bald spots, but at least most are becoming covered with organic matter.

This time last year, the field was almost a foot high.

Since we had no Bovi Sera, I texted Chuck to pick up a fresh bottle of LA-200 at the store to bring to the farm.  We had some, but it was expired.  When he and Virginia got to the farm with it, he caught the two kids and we gave them each a dose of it, hoping whatever organism they have is susceptible.  We don't use antibiotics on the farm very often, but we do bring in animals from other places, and the germs they bring - well, there's just no telling.  It's like the dewormer thing.  We've had a few does go bottle-jawed lately, and I imagine if we had preventively dewormed them right after they kidded, we wouldn't have had an issue.  Two of the does are first timers, one raising a single and the other raising a nice set of twin does.  The third is a mature doe, and her two kids are mega-chunks (her buck is as big as one of the junk bucks leftover from last year and looking for a soup pot) and have really pulled the weight off of her.  I can forgive having to deworm those does.  Now, we might gamble and lose one (I hope not), but I'd rather be sparing with the dewormer so that when I need to use it, it works, and we know who is tougher than whom.  We don't know much about the Shaw kids yet, but we're finding Ace's kids to be even more parasite tolerant than Boomer's.  This knowledge helps me decide which does go with which bucks.  If a doe has good growth and parasite tolerance traits but a poor udder, isn't a fabulous mom, or is a hard keeper, I'll likely breed her to Boomer for first generation does.  If a doe is a great mom with a good udder and just isn't the most parasite tolerant doe, I'll breed her to Ace to bring his strengths to the mix.  There are the other odd traits they throw - Ace's kids look like small yaks in the winter due to three inch long (and often wavy) hair - but I hope in the long run, breeding this way helps me have the best does I can in the herd. 


Goats in the middle field - sooner than we wanted, but the top field is bare.

I am still not sure yet how I feel about the "size" issue.  I know people like big goats, and big kids do sell, but I still like a small doe who gets her kids to close to her size in six months.  Unless she is a hard keeper, it just makes more sense to me.  I have a couple of squatty little does who look like they are bred year round, and raise fast growing kids that look just like them.  I am an avid Goat Rancher fan (it is a wonderful aperitif to enjoy before diving into some Shakespeare), and have been reading with great interest Craig Adams' articles on Kiko bloodlines and the traits for which they are known.  He has so much experience with the breed, and I eagerly looked forward to seeing if my observations from our few individuals mirrored what his many years have proven to be true in general.  One thing he said has gotten me thinking - he suggests we need to aim towards a heavier framed goat.  I'm not sure how I feel about that.  I have both types in my herd.  The Shaw kids are lighter framed - the doelings have a more deerlike, feminine look to them, while the Ace doelings look like little boys, to be honest.  Boomer's kids are somewhere in the middle, but don't have much mature height.  I can understand that with heavier muscle, a heavier frame may be necessary.  I wonder if there is any sort of genetic link between the two traits?  Hmm.  Food for thought, but unfortunately, thoughts that will likely need to wait until after school is out for summer.  Poetry, To Kill A Mockingbird, and more World Lit await!

Addendum: I took a short nap after my post and awoke to the delightful tap tap of sleet pouring down (example of sarcarm, here, folks).  The roof is white, and it is accumulating on parts of the yard.  Yay (more sarcasm).  It increases my concern for those kids that are already ill.  I hope they made it somewhere dry and warm.  I also hope that truck with the Bovi Sera makes it here before long.  I also doubt I will put the human kids out on the road to go to the farm if I don't absolutely have to do it.  It is a long drive, and there is an awful lot of frozen junk coming out of the sky.  Sigh.

Ace twin doelings (out of a half sister to Ace) in the foregound - a Shaw doeling walks behind them

 

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.