Goats - Grrrrr

This week, we DO NOT have funny goats. We have super naughty, going to ship or butcher goats.

We've been setting up an electric net fence around the yard and moving them to it every day and back to their permanent fence at night.  It's amazing what a shake of corn can lead those guys to.  Until this week, when they decided that "heck with that awesome patch of brush and bushes and tall grass that she weed-whacked around for us - let's go for her burning bush, and her lily trees, and the asparagus patch"

Why did I let them go to all these places?

I didn't, they have now learned to resist the siren's call of the corn shaking in the feed bucket and madness and mayhem have resulted in goats all over the blasted yard - 7 of them in 7 different directions.

They are on house arrest and can longingly look at the grass and brush and have to be happy with their crappy hay and the tall weeds I whacked down for them.

I can no longer lead the beasts to the fencing and put them out by myself.  In fact, this weekend, all five of use couldn't get them in the correct spot.

Last night, I weed-whacked a path across the creek and then back again.  There is a huge patch of grass and brush to be eaten in this path.  I'm not going to be able to set up the fence by myself and definitely not be able to get them over there by myself.

The cattle did appreciate getting all the weeds I whacked, though.  Might have to keep doing that to clear out the creek and feeding them.  I am still messed up in the head, though.  (Wow, that came out wrong!)  Even after taking allergy medicine, I am still stuffed up from that, though.

I love having animals.  The goats are getting reconsidered, however.  They might end up on Craigslist.  The human kids don't like the goats' milk and they are drying off.  Which is my fault, but I had to worm them all and the withdrawl on the wormer was 2-3 weeks.  I wasn't going to milk them to just throw the milk away.  Therefore, I left the babies with them.

I think Craigslist is the answer for at least 5 of the 7.  Two of them might get a reprieve because they are cute.

Monday Musing August 20, 2012

Right now... it is 6:50 a.m. and I just got done wrapping my ankle in an Ace bandage.  I did too much this weekend and I can't find my structured ankle wrap.  SOmeone helped me take it off late last week, and it's been missing ever since.  It would be really sore if I hadn't been wearing a pair of Bob's military boots.  They are about 1 size too big for me, but really work around the ankles.  K is being helpful and making Fixit some breakfast.  Bug and Bob are still sleeping.  Bob has the day off, so I'll let him enjoy it.

This weekend... was busy!  Saturday, Bob and I put in another 100 feet of fence and built the gate for the new pen.  This was a first, building a pen before we had a critter to occupy it. (smile) My Dad has a twist-style post hole digger that I can actually help use, after the hole is started.  It's a heavy son-of-a-gun, but it really works much better than the pinch kind. 

Saturday afternoon, we headed over to Mom and Dad's to pick up the trailer for use on Sunday.  Saturday evening, Bob and I enjoyed a date night.  It was the first time in a LONG time for us to go out with just us.  We started our evening at Fleet Farm and picked up the rest of the stuff we needed for the gate.  Then we headed to Barnes & Noble to look around and picked up a few books.  Our next stop was to Margarita's for dinner - it was so good, but we were so full.  Finally, we didn't want the evening to end, and we were too full to go out to a coffee shop, so we parked in the local Woodman's grocery store parking lot and read our books for 1/2 hour. 

Sunday, we were going to go to church, but I had found fence panels for sale on Craigslist and the lady was going to be gone after 10, so we had to go get them.  Loaded up the kids and drove with Bob and the trailer to a town about 40 minutes away to pick up 9 fence panels.  They are going to work great to build the sides of our animal shelters.  We're not putting in the fence posts for those, yet. For the tops of the shelters, we bought some heavy duty tarps - they used to be billboards, so should last for a long time.  Still working out the exact logistics of it, but it'll work.

Sunday afternoon, we went to pick up our new buckling from a neighbor.  They also let us buy a little doeling.  We built the new pen with 4' sides for the buckling.  They weren't high enough.  When we went back outside to check on them, he was in with all the girls.  Yes, we're going to have to put him in there eventually, but we really didn't want December babies, so we're hoping nothing happened and that we can initiate goat date night more for March or April babies.  I don't think anything happened, because Bell, our milking doe kept slamming into him, showing him who is boss.  Trying to catch him was a whole 'nother rodeo.  We didn't have a collar on him, yet, and that bugger can jump. (Obviously, since he jumped a 4' fence). 

So, now, the buck is back in his pen, with a lot less opportunity to join the girls.  We put Carmel's collar on him, after we finally cornered and caught him, and used the dog tie out to tie him in the far corner of his pen away from the girls.

This episode helped provide the names for the new goats.  The buckling is Knuckles, as in Knucklehead, which was a much nicer name than we were tempted to call him.  The new doeling we got is just a little thing - she was never aggressive enough to shove in to get feed.  I'm hoping only have two other goats to deal with, that she'll grow.  We're going to call her Bitty, as in Itty Bitty.

They are both "used" to humans, but are also used to being in with several hundred other goats, so no petting or snuggling.  Don't think we're going to get "snuggly" with the buckling, since I've had a few choice words for him, but K said she got Bitty to actually come up to her this morning and could pet her.

Some plans for this week...  Today, we're taking a family trip into Green Bay to go to Sam's to stock up. We might take the kids to McDonald's for lunch.  I need to get a batch of refrigerator pickles going with some cucumbers that Dad gave me.  I need to dehydrate some more zucchini and shred more for the freezer.  We also need to help K finish her fair projects and pick up the tags for the fair.  I have a Catechist meeting tonight at church to get ready for teaching 7th grade religion again this fall. 

I have to call on the rest of my appointments for work and try and get them all scheduled this week.  I also have to go in to the Tech College center to pick up my student ID and download the assignments onto my flash drive.

Wednesday evening, at least one of us needs to go school for the Kindergarten meeting.  There is a different teacher this year for Bug, otherwise, we probably wouldn't go. 

We're probably going to try and put in some fence panels for a shelter this week, if I can convince Bob to help me after work.

Saturday, Bob and K have to go to pre-fair judging for her Visual Arts and Woodworking projects. 

If I find some time for myself, I would like to... straighten out the crafting room and uncover some completed projects that I need to list on Etsy.  I would also like to stop at the library and pick up the books that I have on hold.

I am grateful for... my super husband and his indulging me and getting more animals and building more fence.  I am grateful that K's fair projects are almost done and that we've started on the fair book - ugh.  For super-hero-loving girls with great imaginations.

Some prayer intentions for this week... That my Aunt Fran continues to improve from serious pneumonia that was caused by MERSA bacteria. She's been in the hospital for 2 weeks, and will be there for at least another week.  She is finally out of the ICU, the drainage tube has been removed, and they got her up and walking again.  I also need to do some praying to get excited about teaching Catechism again.

Something that makes me smile...  Fixit wearing a superhero shirt from her Aunt Vikki, a sweater from Grandma, the toolbelt from her cousin, and holding a superhero figurine and dinosaurs.

Canning, Fencing, and Sunburn

It was a very busy weekend around here.

I knew it was going to be a busy weekend when I bought two 5-gallon pails of cucumbers.  This was probably a bushel and a quarter of cucumbers. 

So, 52 quarts of garlic dill pickles later - the cucumbers are finally gone.  We only had one jar not seal and one jar cracked after going through the canner.  The unsealed jar is in the fridge pickling and the broken jar and contents have been thrown away for safety's sake.

I also canned 6 pints of pickled garlic.  You'd think the 4 cloves of garlic that I have to put into each jar of pickles would be enough for my family when they are going after it.  Nope.  Have to make pickled garlic, too.  Then, went to work on the bucket of beets that Dad gave me and that yielded another 5 pints of beets.  I didn't even have to make the brine for that one - Mom had extra after doing her beets and gave me the brine.

We blanched some beans and added another 3 quarts of green beans to the freezer.  Dehydrated 9 racks of sliced zucchini and need to do some more.  That is so good in soup.  It adds a taste of summer during winter.

I had been (kind of) joking with my "little" 6'2" 300-lb brother on Facebook the other day. He was going to be at my parents' house and he wanted to do some strongman workout.  I asked if strongman workout included building fence.  Luckily for me, he decided that it did.  He dug at least 11 fence post holes, 3 1/2 feet deep each.  Then, he helped us put the posts in and put up the fence.  Not only did we put up about 250' of new fence, we undid some of the existing fence and spread that out further.  The goat pen is at least 6 times the size it was.  Even though my ankle is killing me today and Bob's wrist is spasming on him.

The goats didn't know what to do with all that space.  Carmel zoomed back and forth and then panted.  She did this several times.  What a goofball!

Which leads us to the sunburn.  We built fence for about 4 hours yesterday, and my shoulders and the back of my neck are burned.  The back of Bob's neck is RED!  Luckily, I've seen lots of sun doing stuff outside this summer, so the sunburn just needed some aloe.

Ugh, my body is sore, especially down the entire right side of my body.  That is the side with the sore ankle.  So, walking over all that uneven ground yesterday messed me up.  Woke up with a charlie horse in my calf. My hip hurts. The right side of my back has already been iced this morning. My shoulder is tight and it hurts down into my upper arm and elbow.  I think I have a pinched nerve in my shoulder, because I can trace the nerve path into my arm.  I'm hoping to get to the chiropractor tomorrow morning.

Ok, back to real life and trying to get work appointments for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Huge Sigh of Relief

Carmel, the goat, is okay.

Why, you might ask, is this important?

Because we had a very scary early evening yesterday.

We have yet to build a bigger fenced in area for the goats to eat more browse, so have been tying them out on dog tie outs in a different part of the overgrown yard for the past week or so and putting them in their pen at night.

Last night, I was just getting ready to go milk her, when the kids accidentally let our dog, Marley, out.  Now, Marley is pretty much a moron, a sweetheart, but a moron, as in her brain stops working as soon as she's off the leash.  Last night was one of these nights.  She realized she was loose and made a break for it.

The neighbor's dog, Mason - a BIG BLACK Lab, saw her running and dashed across our yard.  He is usually very good and stays in their yard.  However, the opportunity to chase Marley was more than he could handle.  (It's worked to my advantage before, because he has caught Marley and kept her in one spot until I could get the leash back on her.)

Last night, this was not a simple game of chase and hold.  Last night, it turned scary.

Carmel, our little doeling, is an escape artist.  She gets out of the pen and she can get her self unhooked from the tie out.  Has never been an issue, because she hangs out around mom and comes right to us.

Well, last night, with Mason (95lbs+) chasing Marley, Carmel freaked and ran.  She was off her tie out, so she headed for the hills, or in this case, the back wall of their fenced-in pen.  Mason couldn't resist this tempting little morsel dashing away from him and screaming.

It only was a minute tops for us, but I'm sure Carmel thought it was a lifetime.  The kids were screaming and crying that Mason was killing Carmel.  I RAN (even with a sprained ankle) to get the poor baby away from Mason.  I was screaming at the BLEEP dog, yelling at the kids to get Marley on the BLEEP leash, and trying to carry Carmel away from it all to check her out.

I was crying. The kids were crying.  I thought Carmel was a goner.  When I had picked her up, she gave the mose piteous bleat ever and I thought for sure I was carrying a dead goat.  The dog had only broken the skin in one spot, and I think it was just a tooth.  Her neck was worked over and so was her belly.  When I was feeling her neck, I just about screamed when I felt something hanging out of her neck. I forced myself to look and thank God it was just one of her wattles.  God, that was scary.

I was really worried about her, because my poor baby had no spunk and was just shaking like crazy.  I spent over an hour outside with her and she just wanted to snuggle with me. 

I was SOOOO worried that I was going to go outside this morning to a dead goat.  Luckily, that didn't happen.

She still doesn't have her normal nutsiness and spunk, but she actually jumped into the window sill in their pen this morning and was trying to steal Mom's grain, so I think she will be just fine.

Mason was lucky that I had to carry Carmel, otherwise I would have beaten that dog.

The neighbors felt horrible and the dog is grounded. 

So, the darn goat has worked it's way into our hearts and we'd be really sad if she wasn't okay.  Extra treats for the next couple of days and extra snuggles for the poor goat.

It Started Out as a Normal Day

Surely, "normal day" was already a misnomer, so that's where we headed from there.

Woke up early to take care of the goats.  First thing that I noticed, was that Carmel had gotten herself out of the pen and couldn't get back in.  Obviously time to wean little miss greedy guss, because most mornings I've only been getting about 1/2 cup of milk.  This morning, I got almost a full QUART of milk.

Then, I took them out to their tie outs for the day.

Came in the house, strained the milk, and went to wash my hands.  This is where the day went down hill.

No Water.  NOT EVEN A DROP came from the faucet.

Hmm.  Bob had just gotten water for his coffee and had taken a shower this morning.

So, now we are waiting for the plumber to come.  No breakers were flipped, but there was a buzzing by the pressure tank, so the over-the-phone diagnosis was the switch on the pressure tank is kapput.

Good thing, just got a call from the plumber and he's on his way over.  Yeah, hopefully on our way back to water.

edited to add:  Plumber was here and gone already.  The relay and the capacitor on the pressure tank had gone kaplow, but they are fixed now.  Now, waiting until we get the bill....  but, we have water.  And he also told me that the amps on the well pump were running a bit high.   which means?  that sometime, might be soon, might be 5 years, we'll have to replace the well pump - which means digging into the well.  Guess it's better to know about it now, so I can start squirreling some money away for it.

Hard Lesson Learned

or Water and a Crust of Bread.

Since that is was K got to eat Saturday night after lying to me.

I asked if she had watered the goats.  "Yes, their water is full!"

Fifteen minutes later, I had to go outside for something else, so went to talk to my goats.  Their water was completely empty.

I'm hoping that the dinner of a half cup of water and the heel of plain bread (more than I WAS going to give her) made an impression on her that our animals DEPEND on us.  If we don't take care of them, they don't live!  They don't have any way to turn on the hose to get a drink or a way to get the hay, unless we give it to them.

We've got GOATS!!!!

Pictures to come later - since that would require I remember to take the camera out when I go to stare at my critters.

Saturday, the neighbor (wonderful man who managed to find a small cattle trailer for me to use for the price of a 12-pack of beer and his truck!) and I headed north in search of the elusive Capra aegagrus hircus. 

Ok, nothing really elusive about a good ole domesticated dairy goat, except finding one in our price range and just doing it, rather than hearing, "But I've got to build fence."

We still have to build fence, we still need to clean out the old milkhouse, but we managed to borrow dog kennel panels from my brother and managed to set up a nice (for now) area for them outside with a tarp across the back and part of the top for some shelter.

Now, we HAVE to be motivated to build fence!

So, wehave  maybe a Saanen cross yearling doe and her doeling kid.  Snowbell (formerly Snowball is about 14 months old - she is now Snowbell because Bug said she could be Snowball if she was all white, but since she looks like she was dusted with gold she has to be Snowbell) is a friendly girl.  Unfortunately, her hooves are in pretty rough shape, so that will have to be a first order of business is getting them taken care of.

Her daughter, who came to us without a name, through Mommy-arbitration and with Mommy-veto power, is now Carmel, which is much better than the suggested Goat-Goat and Sheepie.  She's about 3 weeks old, a really cute light carmel color, and full of bounce - quite literally, since she has been running and bouncing off the walls.  She's too old to use the disbudding caustic paste (disbudding in goats - not dehorning, because you are trying to get rid of the horn buds), so now I have to find someone to help burn them off.  Craigslist, here I come.

And now, here I go, because I have a momma goat to go milk, that is if Carmel left me anything this morning.