Yet there are few things as beautiful as snow on trees. Often our snow only lasts a few days. With the lingering cold, there is some ice in the creek, and patchy snow stays for more than a week.
Little Simon Sez is growing, but he will never be able to be an outside cat. He absolutely loves dogs, and lets them play with him -- For a ranging hound, he would make merely a couple of bites. He shows no fear, only pleasure at the company of dogs. He loves goats, too. This series is him with one of our Boer bottle babies.
So, you say this is for goats?
Are they warm?
Are you sure?
Okay.
Simon, as I said, loves Dogs. Here he is with Nikki, and with Chica.
And of course, Simon Sez plays with Chessie, too: "Can you get my tail?"
Well, now the photo essay is done, so on with the news. In the Boer herd, we had 32 live births. 4 bottle babies were placed. All 10 doelings have been spoken for, and 5 of the bucklings. That's 19 babies placed within 2 weeks or less of their birth. They will all stay on their mamas for 12 - 16 weeks. We would prefer not to have them go to auction, but to send them out with private sales. Our big buck, Spunky, has a buyer, as does Pam's little Boer/Nubian doeling. Jammies and Nick, two little friendly 9 month old wethers, also found a home with a pair of great families that want to start a viewing and petting zoo for handicapped kids. My friend Holly's 5 rabbits went with them, along with some Mille Fleur D'uccle cross chicks and a non-matched pair of Silkies and their mixed breed pair of chicks. We were very excited!
Holly is getting the white Sultan pair (chickens) the end of the month, and she is excited to have her first chickens since childhood. They're named Seuss and Sully now. All the chickens are laying, including the Sultan hen, so Holly has purchased an incubator and has already started her first set of eggs. Now she has sheep, rabbits, a baby donkey, and .... CHICKENS! Congratulations, Holly!
With the onset of cold weather, the Sultans, two trios of Silkies and a few leftover roosters raised from eggs are sharing the brooder house for extra warmth. It's an 8x8 structure, heated with a red heat lamp bulb -- not too warm, but above freezing. We also are keeping all the feed in that shed, so Chessie makes regular inspection trips to eliminate the mouse population. Chessie (the siamese looking cat) tried very hard to get pregnant a few weeks ago, and we have had requests for mouser babies out of her. That will be her only litter.
Today's warm weather put the turkeys in mind of spring. They are still young, but they were trying to figure out the birds and the bees. Not very successfully I might add! Halfway through their self-education, Ducky Duck (who is their close friend) decided that Tommy was beating up Chelle, and flew over into the pasture and started pulling Tommy's feathers. Hey! You get off her, you big bully! Of course, then everyone was even MORE confused.
Day before yesterday, Hildy, the big Alpine doe, kidded twin doelings. They will stay with her for a month. Longer than usual with dairy babies, but she has been ill and although on the road to recovery won't be milkable for a while, so the babies might as well stay with her. The babies have been sold, and their family-to-be will come tomorrow to inspect them.
Poor little Fawn, a Nigerian Dwarf doe, is still as round as a melon, and if you thumped her, I am sure she would sound hollow. We expected her to kid in September (!) or October, so you can guess how big she is now. January should see Gracie's kids, and maybe Keelee's. February will bring Ursa's, and then in March we should have kids from Olga, Martha, Bev, Myrtle, Mocha, Hayley, Luna, and Spring. We have 3 new Alpine/Nubian cross does that are open (not bred) we think, gifted to us by friends who couldn't keep them. We are milking four right now. We are also getting 20 Oberhasli doeling bottle babies to sell. They are coming from a big dairy that needs to focus on their cheese products rather than feeding babies. And one of Pam's new purchases has been dehorned, so she will stay with my herd and try to be a milking doe. She is a Boer, and we are working to develop some Boer/Nubian crosses to strengthen the milker in the Boer for families that just want a small amount of milk to use at home.
Summer's proposed projects (yes, we are already thinking about summer!) include an earth oven for bread baking outside and some new chicken pens, a buck pen so we can bring Duke home, and maybe some other fencing. Neil is going to tackle building a new milking stand as the one I built for the miniature goats hardly holds the big girls. Some stalls for the run-in barn are also on the "possible" list.
I've been baking bread and enjoying it, and as the milk supply increases, I have in mind to try my hand at some cheesemaking. Our little woodstove is very nice in the house, keeping us toasty, and friend Neil is generous with his time and energy and keeps us in split wood for the fire. Mom was here for a few weeks, got to visit with some of our friends, and she enjoyed the woodstove, too. She sent out pictures of it, labelled "My new best friend!" She was here during the very bitter cold a year ago January. I think she felt like she would never get warm again.
I hope you've passed your time warm, around friends, enjoying moments of reflection, watching the fruits of your labor come in -- that's what we've been doing, and would wish the same to you! Until next time, friends!
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