Ok, so the bucks actually got here 2 weeks ago, but we finally made some pictures this evening. We got one Oberhasli and one Lamancha (his ears are supposed to look like that). They are young, but will be ready to breed soon. Here they are:
Blue-Ridge Mohawk (registration # pending)
Sire Blue-Ridge Titus (AB1311788) Dam CH Blue-Ridge Sheena (AB1277945)
Blue-Ridge Apache (registration # pending)
Sire Blue-Ridge Zulu (AL1501363) Dam Blue-Ridge Yanni’s Serenade (AL1466941)
Today, Alex and Vicki spent the day with Great Goats 4H Club at Cedars of Lebanon Farm. They learned about getting ready for shows and how to show a goat. They also learned about showing chickens, sheep, and dogs. It was a very educational day and we got to meet a lot of other families who are new to showing goats. While we are not joining 4H yet, we do plan to attend some fair shows.
Since the base was having a “big drill” last week, the Nautilus Museum was closed Thursday and Friday so I had the day off. Of course, we are always behind on the list of farm projects, so it seemed like a great time to catch up (a little). In fact, I have yet to meet a farmer who feels everything is just right and caught up on their farm…
The biggest project for the weekend was goat fencing. I hired 2 high schoolers to work for me Thursday, Friday, and Saturday because I needed the extra hands. My neighbor Tim has a large backhoe that he brought down to remove a couple of stumps for me. After that, I put up 1 long stretch of fence to create a corridor between the horses and goats. Now we can easily go back and forth across the bottom of the property. Of course, that 12′ wide by 180′ long corridor can also be used as a grazing area for ponies, calf, etc. Then I built a fully contained by field fence kid area inside the goat pen. I’ll explain why.
When a doe has kids, the kids get all of momma’s milk for the first 2 weeks. After that, we start to isolate the kids at night so we can milk the doe in the morning. For Betty’s kids, we just locked them in the kidding stall at night. However, since Maggie is due this week, we needed a better/larger solution. Now, our 30’x30′ kid pen can be used as the overnight isolation area. I’m sure it will get lots of other use too.
As I have discussed before, we like to recycle as much as possible. I have previously posted about recycling pallets into goat shelters and chicken coops. Last week when I went to get another load of pallets, I found out the moving company that supplies us is going out of business. Bad news for them, but good for us because they are emptying out their warehouses. That means I was able to get 4’x4′ wood crates and 7’x7′ shipping crates. Add a recycled door, and what do you have? How about a storage shed for the rabbitry. Now all of the rabbit supplies, feed, hay, etc are conveniently located next to the cages (it just needs some paint).
Of course, we had people coming and going all weekend. Some were here to buy chicks, while other were just here to meet us or catch up. For example, we placed an ad in the North Stonington Bulletin Board classifieds. Some neighbors a couple of miles away saw the ad and found our page. It turns out they have a very similar mindset with slightly different focus. Check out this blog to learn more about Morning Star Meadows Farms and their Icelandic Sheep! You can also see what other blogs we like on the right side of our home page.
And there was one other little thing. Turbo. We were waiting to get serious about finding a new horse for me until we placed Cinder in a new home. Well, on Wednesday Cinder went to a new home. On Friday, I test rode Turbo. And Sunday morning, I brought him home on a 30 day trial. I never have been very patient. Vicki approves.
It’s good to be crazy.
It’s a dreary Saturday morning. Since the morning chores are done and Anna is gone with Vicki for some shopping, I am inside with Alex and Amanda. I was working on researching some plans on the computer when Amanda came and grabbed my arm, repeating “goat milk Betty.” Betty is our only doe in milk right now, and at dinner the other night I was talking with Alex and Vicki about how they should appreciate what Betty provides for us. Apparently Amanda has been listening too. Well, earlier I had actually already poured Amanda a cup of milk, but she wanted it in a different cup. In addition, when I simply transferred her milk from one cup to another, she got very upset. She refused to take the cup from me until I actually added some milk out of the container in the fridge so she could see it was “goat milk Betty”. As soon as I did that, she grabbed the cup and started drinking. Spoiled kid.
In January, we added Cedars of Lebanon Betty Ford (Betty) to our goat herd. We specifically bought her because she was due to kid before any of our other does, and therefore we would resume getting milk for the family sooner.
Today, Betty had twin doelings! Both are healthy and doing well. I’ll take some better pictures tomorrow in the light. We haven’t decided on names yet. The 2 legged kids have some ideas, but I am looking for a theme for the year.
But that’s not all we did today. This morning it was snowing, and we were expecting to get about 2.5-3″ of accumulation. However, it warmed up and never even stuck to the roads. By the late afternoon, it was almost all melted.
I had another craigslist find for the weekend. I felt like I was in American Pickers when I went to a farm to look at some rabbit cages. I ended up buying a large double cage for growing young ones, a 16′ quad cage for whatever, 1 transport cage for rabbits, 2 transport cages for mid size animals (maybe young goats or pigs), and a 100 gal Rubbermaid water trough. I spent the afternoon working on one of the cages since we are getting more rabbits tomorrow.
The power was out at work this morning, so I came home at lunch. Of course, I got the call that the power came back when I was within a mile of the house. No worry, I still took the afternoon off to work with Anna on stuff around the farm. We had our lunch and once Amanda was down for a nap, we got to work outside.
Last year, the garden consisted of 3 raised beds inside a fenced in area. It was pre-existing, so we just added some compost and used it like that. Our total planting area was about 130 sqft. Today, we removed the raised beds, put down a layer of cardboard to kill grass and weeds, then added about 8″ of compost on top of the cardboard. We reused the boards from the raised beds to go around the fence and hold the soil inside the garden. We now have about 300 sqft of planting space ready to go.
After that, the kids got home, Anna went jogging, and I kept working. I built a new coop for raising young chickens. I should be able to finish it up tomorrow afternoon with another hour or so of work. Of course, I also have to get to work prepping more rabbit hutches, because we are picking up 3 more rabbits on Sunday. We anticipate 2 will be dinner in the next week or two and 1 will be retained for breeding with our New Zealand does.
Thanks to a tip I got this morning, we have decided on our Oberhasli buck. Well, sort of. We decided on a farm that has a lot of Oberhasli’s and we sent in a deposit to reserve a buckling that should be born in March. I’ll pick him up from Maryland in May when I go to DC for business.