Babies!

The baby goats arrived last week with a bang!


Icy kidded with triplets - aren't they adorable?? :)

Fall Pix

The goat's just looove acorns. Our neighbors bring tubs of them and many years I'll save old feed sacks full to feed throughout the winter

Update

I've been really bad about updates here recently, am trying to get back on track. I've changed my work schedule so I'm only working Monday, Wednesday and Friday in Champaign and have Tuesdays and Thursday to devote to soaping and candle making (amoungst other things of course!).

We've enjoyed a wonderful spring and early summer. I don't ever recall having such moderate weather. Usually we jump from snow to smothering humidity so I'm not complaing at all. The downside is its made all the plants etc much later than usual. This spells delay for the bees as well. Generally we expect our first honey "flow" late May. This year it was mid June, almost a month later. We are expecting we'll be able to take honey off our hives this week and will possibly have it at Market this Saturday!

The goats are doing very well. Babies are growing like weeds and the does have settled into the summer routine very amiably. I'm now milking all four and we are awash with milk. Time to do some serious soaping! :)

I'm happy to have a more relaxed schedule for summer and hopefully will be able to devote lots of time this week to making candles for Market Saturday.

More Rain

I didn't end up going to Market this past Saturday either though I really missed it. I had to get the goats sorted out - the floods and constant rain have made everything so difficult. Water levels earlier in the week forced me to bring the male goats up to the doe's pens but they have quickly trashed it, reducing the pens to muck and mud. Friday night yet more rain was forcasted so I made the decision not to attend. In the end I was glad! Although we only got a couple thunderstorms for a few hours early in the morning all the water up stream hit us and water levels rose to such an extent the town was blocked off again. What an odd year! In my memory we haven't had flooding like this so late in the season. Goats are somewhat sorted out, I took the two bucks (males) out to a neighbor's farm and shut them in his barn. They're unhappy to be there but at least they're safe and dry. The does have discovered how to open their gate to my great chargrin. Its making the whole housing issue dicey. I'm sure I will work it out somehow! :-)

Rain Rain Go Away

Our farmer neighbor informed us in January that this was going to be a drought year. Um, yeah about that.... when is the drought supposed to start?

This has been one of the wettest springs in a while. Usually our crazy IL weather will have about a week of spring weather and then jump directly into smotheringly muggy summer. Not this year! Most of the plants are aproximately a month behind in growth. The farmers are still trying to plant the rest of their crops. Its unreal!

Personally I love rain. But for my animal's sakes, I hope it stops soon. We had to run out at 5:30 this morning to pull up the goat pasture fence so it wouldn't get washed away by the rising flood waters. Everything is so over saturated, even though the rains have stopped for now the water will continue to rise as we get run off from the fields and larger cities where there's concrete instead of earth. Our pond has overflowed its banks and is creeping up to the pen where the male goats live. Unless it stops I'll have to move them in with the females - NOT ideal. The bees are on a raised platform so they should be fine unless it we get a substantial storm.

In the meantime the poor goats are cooped up in their shed. The mud is unreal and I seriously hope the rain at least holds off for a while now.

Goats in May Pasture

Icy and Sadie with her babies Jane and Annie

Sadie with Jane and Annie

Moon and Annie playing "King of the Mountain" while Pirate and Ellie look on

Star chewing on a stick while Annie and Jane come and investigate!

Angel relaxing under the fir trees.

Update

Market started two weeks ago - yay! I didn't attend last week but plan on going this next Saturday unless it rains. It was *so* nice to be there again, looks like it will be a great Farmer's Market this year! I'm working on candles, though I don't know how many I will have ready by Saturday. Life's kinda been throwing me curve balls recently so I haven't got as much completed as I had hoped.

Goats are doing really well. Since the babies were all born within a week of eachother they all are virtually the same size. They play together constantly, forming a "goat gang" racing around the pasture, trying to butt eachother off of tree stumps and high places. The recent rains have made everything a little muddy but it will probably all dry out soon and it brings the grass along really well so I'm not complaining.

I noticed the Black Locust blossoms are almost ready to open so we should have our first honey flow soon! Yay! The hives are doing very well considering how cool it's been and they are behind where they'd normally be this time of year.

Happy Pasture

Here are some pictures from last night. The goats are out on pasture and very happy. Yay for new grass!

Annie

Jane

Waiting to be brought up to the shed for supper.
L-R Sadie, babies, Icy, Ellie and Angel

Ellie's newborns are just so sleepy. They were curled up in the shelter.

Ellie's baby pix

As I posted earlier Ellie kidded, I've added a couple pictures.

Aren't they lovely? Such wild markings too!
On a side note, I'm still using my sister's camera which has a strange smear on the bottom of the pictures. I haven't got my camera back.

Ellie had Kids

The last of the goat kids for this season were born last night. Ellie is a proud mother of twins - a buckling and a doeling.

My little sister Elsie and I were home by ourselves and I knew Ellie was in labor. Elsie is almost 7 and loves the goats like they are her best friends. She spends hours each day playing with them and is heartbroken whenever one is sold, so you can imagine how tremendously excited she was about this birth. Kid number 1 was born relatively easily, I had to assist a little as he was a huge buck kid and got a bit stuck. Elsie has dubbed him "Pirate". First she wanted to call him "Patches" but now it's "Pirate". No idea how that evolved. The second kid was born 10 minutes later. There weren't any problems but I allowed Elsie to assist. As you can imagine she was estatic.

Both kids are large, very healthy, strong and WILD colored. Oh my, I will post pictures tonight so you can see for yourself, but they are black with all sorts of white patches and stripes.

This concludes the goat births for this year. All four of my does have had twins, 3 males and 5 females total. I'm not complaining at all. Everyone has been born healthy and the does didn't have any major problems giving birth - I'm happy!

More Babies!

Sadie had a surprise waiting for me as well when I got home! Sadie is very proud of her two babies!  R - Annie Oakley, L- Calamity Jane
Little "Jane"
Here are Icy's twins - no names yet!

Surprise Baby!

Icy wasn't due until next week but guess what I found waiting for me this morning when I went in to feed her?! Aren't they lovely?? My camera is broken so these are just some pix from my phone - please pardon the very poor quality.

Goat kids - More Pix!

See How We Grow!

They've Arrived!

After a long labor and a very difficult birth we have two babies! They are the first of the season and I don't know who's more excited, Elsie or Meg the dog.

The End of Winter Vacation!

Winter time is a bit of a lull. The market ends at Christmas, the animals require minimal involvement, life is quiet. I've really enjoyed my break, but its ending this week!

Despite the cold weather, Spring is here. How can I be so certain? I'm awaiting new arrivals! The 4-legged sort of course. "Angel" was due Monday 3/03 and has still not delivered yet. I think she's taking great delight in making me wake up two or three times a night and drudging miserably bleary eyed out to the goat shed to check on her. Its all worth it though, the sleep deprivation will be over soon and we'll have beautiful baby goats to care for. I can't wait! Oh and we'll be awash in fresh goat's milk!

On the down side, with the warm weather last weekend we were able to check the bee hives. We've had a higher winter kill this year than usual, which is really dissapointing. Two of the hives are very strong though and we will be able to split them, creating four total.

I'll post pictures as soon as I'm able. Finger's crossed for the safe arrival of Angel's babies!