Blue Heron Farm Blog

Our Kids' Book

2010-10-15T06:41:00.002-05:00

As you know, I will photograph just about anything on the farm. Goats breeding, goats birthing, poop....

I pulled out just the warm, fuzzy ones and turned them into a kids' book. You can read it here and buy a copy on blurb.com if you are so inclined.

A Day at Blue Heron Farm by Lisa Seger | Make Your Own Book

No plans yet to make a book of the goat sex and poo photos.
...just sayin'.

Sing-along with Blue Heron Farm

2010-08-30T12:21:00.006-05:00

This morning, Christian came into the dairy today singing a ridiculous new song that made me want to share our sad, sad history of bad made-up songs with you. I probably should apologize in advance.

For us, it started back when I was doing the Stupidest Job on the Farm with more regularity. One day Doralee was eyeballing me & the food from atop Christian's skateboard. For reasons still unclear, it made me get the Smith's Girlfriend in a Coma stuck in my head. But instead of girlfriend in a coma, I heard "Chicken on a Skateboard." I never got past the first couple of lines, but I never could do SJOTF without singing it a little. ...or rather a little of the song, a LOT.

...Chicken on a skateboard, I know - I know it's serious....

I don't remember when, but some months later, I finally shared it with C. No point in keeping that kind of crazy to yourself. I think I embarrassed us both. But succeeded in getting it into his head.

Many months later, we learned we were not alone. Our friend Eric has a pet monkey named Mick Jagger. (Long story - don't ask.) When Mick gets bathed - which is pretty frequently - Eric sings him, "Wash the Monkey". You know, to the Peter Gabriel song Shock the Monkey.

Then, when Mick gets dried off, he is apparently treated to a jaunty rendition of "Funky Towel". Eric swears that Mick really enjoys this.

It is a comfort and a sadness to know our affliction is shared. Christian told Eric about Chicken on a Skateboard and we bathed in the knowledge that we were charter members of a small, weird club.

Anyhoo-- back to this morning. C announced that in the grand tradition of singing warped Peter Gabriel to your animals, he had a new song for the pigs.

Pig Time.

He started in with..

I've got the whey, you're drinking it.
It's gonna make you grow, yeah!

We both cracked up like mental patients and then went about our dairy work. Until I couldn't stand it anymore and belted out:

Your ham's getting bigger!

You're thigh's getting bigger!

Anyway, that's all. I defy you to not sing one of these little ditties for the rest of the day. It is a sickness. It is hard to cure.

I'm gonna watch you grow, yeah!

You’re Doing It Wrong!

2010-08-20T10:44:00.002-05:00

**spoiler alert** If you are a SCTGC member, this is this month's article. So don't read any further if you want to have a mailbox surprise.

This is an oft repeated mantra at our farm. “You’re doing it wrong!” We tell it to the ducks who want to eat the cat food, or to the dogs who want to eat the goat poop, or to the pigs who knock over their whey bowl. “You’re doing it wrong!”

But the queens of doing it wrong are the goats. And I don’t know if this is all goats or just our neurotic friends the Nubians – but once they decide something is done a certain way, it doesn’t really matter what you tell them. They are convinced that their way IS the right way and it takes an act of God or an equally bizarre new behavioral obsession to get them back to doing it right.

Exhibit A: Sweet Feed. Sweet Feed is our nickname for Carrie Underwood, our first goat to make doing it wrong the new doing it right. Carrie would wander away from the stand when the milking was done and look for an open bag of sweet feed to pillage. Mind you, we don’t feed Sweet Feed. We had an open bag ONCE, for the pigs. One winter, when we were low on whey. Two years ago. She still looks pretty much every day. Most times she plunges her head into a bag, she is disappointed to find just used teat wipes. Occasionally, however, she finds an open bag of beet pulp, so fat chance we have of breaking this habit.

Exhibit B: Sunday Driving with Elle Mai. Recently Elle decided she should exit the wrong side of the stand – away from the exit door - and just kind of hang out there, in the far corner of the milk parlor until we grab her and push her out. Sometimes she wanders a little, sometimes she just stands and contemplates life. Aimlessly. Sometimes she actually forgets about her new meditation spot and exits the stand like she is supposed to – but only sometimes.

Exhibit C: Jade. Jade is a big dumb love. She could do it wrong every single day and never make me mad. Which is good, because she does it wrong almost every single day. Somewhere along the line, Jade decided that she could not get on the stand without first going around front and eating some of her feed from the front side of the bucket. Completely moronic, but it’s Jade. So, Ok. Maybe I accept it because she doesn’t dally. She eats until we tell her to do it right and then she goes back around and jumps up in the right place by herself.

Most of our oddball behavior manifests in the milk room, though there are definite strange quirks outside the parlor, too. Penny Lane, for instance, likes to drink horrible little stagnant puddles of water from the bottom of trashcans or utility carts. LeeAnn likes to drink from the air conditioner unit, a drop at a time. These events almost always occur less than 20 feet from a full, clean water bucket.

What can I say? These girls – they are the cray-zee. And mostly I love them for it. Oh – and one last example. See how the girls in the photo are all lined up nicely in a row?? Now look under their feet.

That was their hoop house.

You're doing it wrong!!!

An Evening with Terroir-ists

2010-08-10T12:41:00.002-05:00

My brother just reminded me I suck at blogging. Guilty. I am great at keeping Facebook up to date, though. If you haven't friended us there, please do so.

But here's a blog-worthy thing: We're havin' a party.

An event, really. Here are the details, stolen from our Facebook event page. (Told you!)

Join Blue Heron Farm, the Houston Dairymaids and Retreat Hill Winery & Vineyard as we eat and drink where our food lives.

*Texas cheeses by Blue Heron Farm and others, as represented by the Houston Dairymaids

*Wines by Retreat Hill

*Dessert tasting by
Chantal Duvall and Dragana Harris

*Music by Westbound

*Goat hugs by the ladies of Blue Heron Farm.

Sunday, September 19, 6-8 pm * Blue Heron Farm * Field Store, TX
Tickets are $25 and, per the ornery folks at the TABC, are exclusive of wine.
Wine will be available as a tasting, by the glass and by the bottle, but must be purchased on-site, directly from Retreat Hill.

For tickets, email Lisa (bosslady@blueherontexas.com)
or buy them from Blue Heron Farm at the Farmers Market.

The girls like wine, but please don't get them drunk.

Playing with Picasa

2010-06-04T12:12:00.002-05:00

Neat. I just found out that Picasa will make photo collages. Here's one of the turkeys.

So we sold 8 poults, set mama free with the other nine and are now down to six. :( We think she lost three in the tall grass on their first outing. But the good news is, she seems more careful now.

The duck hatched out four little ones. But lost two to a big ol' snake at the pond. :( We're down to two - who are locked up with mom in the coop until they can move a little more adeptly. And that, we hope, is that for poultry this season.

...except for the guinea nest we just found with -- wait for it --

26 eggs.

Oy. I hope to return to GOAT blogging soon.

Fertile Fowl Alert

2010-05-27T19:52:00.002-05:00

Muscovy ducks hatching right now. The coop is full. I have no idea where we will put them. Ah, fecundity. It makes me smile. Photos when the hatch is over.

More turkeys!

2010-05-26T19:44:00.001-05:00

Turkey Lean hatched out all six of her eggs!! I found her sitting in her nest with her babies tonight when we went out to milk.

We tried to relocate her and all the kiddoes to the coop, but she wasn't having it. We put the poults in with their cousins (All of whom are STILL alive and thriving, BTW) and Aunt and hope they will get adopted - so far so good.

Here is the first photo. I sure hope that Aunt Shadrac doesn't notice that the new kids are all spotty. :)

Camp Blue Heron

2010-05-26T16:27:00.006-05:00

Many of the goats we sell go to "normal" homes. You know... not dairies. Places where the inhabitants sometimes -- get this -- sometimes get to... go. on. vacation.

When that happens, and it's a home where no other goats live, we happily allow them to come back and spend a little time at Camp Blue Heron.

Currently we have Patty (Jazz's daughter) and Annie (Penny Lane's daughter) bounding around in the kid pen while their new parents get a little R&R.

It was perfect timing. I was getting a touch of empty nest syndrome.

She did it!!!!!

2010-05-19T12:31:00.005-05:00

We just found mama hen with 12 tiny poults! We scooped them all up and moved them into the coop, hoping to give them a better chance. (Sorry, the photos are pretty crappy. That second one is C scooping up the babies. The nest was off the ground in a hay feeder.)

...And we finally found Turkey Lean's nest a couple days ago. We are hopeful that at least some of the eggs are fertile. ...She got less time with the dude.

May Kids

2010-05-13T07:10:00.003-05:00

When our breeding plans go, well, as planned, we finish kidding by the end of April. But let's be real. When have goats ever respected a plan?

We had some rare May babies last week and are expecting one more set at the end of the month.

...and two more in June. !Ay carumba!

Oh well, at least they're cute.

A Tale of Two Turkeys

2010-05-12T07:35:00.005-05:00

OK -it's really, like four or five turkeys when it's all said and done, but that is not a great story title.

So about those turkeys...

At Thanksgiving last year, Turkey Lan went to the Lan family and we ate one of the three remaining Black Spanish birds. That left us with the following:

Turkey Lean: Turkey Lan's gimpy friend who had a goat step on her foot as a poult, leaving her with a permanent limp. She never gained enough weight to even consider eating, so she became a pet.

Shadrach & Abednego: The other two Black Spanish survivors that, it turns out, ended up pets, too. Both females and both of lovely disposition.

So by Spring, we had three pet turkeys. And then one started acting weird. Really weird.

One of the black turkeys started following us around on tours. When we got out to the field with the goats, she would lay down and, we later realized, "present herself". The poor dear was looking for a boyfriend.

Lacking any male turkeys, she happily accepted the attentions of anyone who would give her the time of day. And that's how we found her the first time we freaked out: slightly catatonic in the lap of a tween girl who was petting her & hugging her. Things that a normal, healthy turkey would never allow.

We were sure the turkey was at death's door. This, based on the fact that the EXACT scenario happened on a tour a couple years ago with an elderly chicken we owned. Someone said, "Oh! How sweet this chicken is," while holding her in their arms. She died the next day, quietly, in her sleep, on a cushy bed of hay.

So yeah, we asked the girl to put the turkey down and let her rest. And we both said a little poultry prayer.

Well, after she was fine in the morning, we realized what that behavior was, and so we went through months of this. A tame pet turkey who asked for and received the love of many tour guests. (Light petting. Not any kind of pervy "turkey love")

A little over a month ago, we found our first egg. Well, Nightshift found it and brought it to us in her mouth. But we never found a nest. ...Until one of the girls went AWOL. I finally found her, in a broody trance, on a high tack cabinet sitting on 10 eggs.

Poor, sweet, turkey was trying to hatch out babies. :( I gently removed the unfertilized eggs to break the trance and sent her on her way. But I felt incredibly guilty for not giving her the opportunity to be a mom. I began to hound Christian relentlessly about our need for a male. Having had bad experiences with Dory, he resisted.

After a week, I switched tack and tried to convince him we could just BORROW a male. He gave in. We were brought a big, strapping Bourbon Red tom by our friends at Swede Farm. We set him loose from his cardboard transport box and the dude bonked all of the ladies in his first 10 minutes here. Incredible. He stayed for a few more days for good measure.

I am excited to report that We have one mama on a nest in the barn with an expected hatch date in a little over a week. The other two females have gone AWOL, but I sight them every couple of days, which means they, too, likely have nests somewhere.

I am looking forward to an explosion of poults. ..fingers crossed. If they hatch out, we'll lock them up with mama in the coop for a while and then just hope for the best. Like we always do. Knowing we may not get a single one to adulthood. Sigh.

But at least we satisfied the three we do have. And that is something.

Proud Papa-to-Be

And now for something completely different

2010-04-22T19:14:00.004-05:00

So, it's the time of year that an organized farmer needs to start thinking about Thanksgiving. A standard, nasty, franken-bred turkey can get started later, but a heritage breed bird needs to get started about now to be big enough by the big day.

If you've been with us for a while, you know how our turkey raising has gone in the past. It's been pretty hit or miss. Mostly miss. I decided back during the turkey-Bhutan-death march of 09 that maybe we should think about other options this year.

Well, we did more than think.

Christian let me get these guys today.

They are geese. But I don't actually know what breed. We got them from a guy who puts up a sign on the side of the road and sells them, as well as a multitude of other fowl, from behind his auto shop. This being the country, those fowl are his wife's. You know - wimminz work. He fixes cars and motorbikes and other manly things. So he knew the price of the geese. (After calling his wife) And I convinced him these were, in fact, the geese - and well, that's about that.

We're pretty sure that we've got a male and a female. They sure are cute. I hope they enjoy their time at Blue Heron Farm. They will not be getting names. They are collectively to be called Happy Thanksgiving.

And in supreme ironies, we may actually be hatching out turkey babies in another month or so. Oy vey. I'll try to write that one up tomorrow.

Tring to catch up...

2010-04-15T07:41:00.003-05:00

I do have a few things to talk about, but kidding season has me a little behind. I'll try to sit down today, if I can. Until then, here are a few photos to make you feel warm and fuzzy. And possibly nauseated...

Oh, also - you should friend us on facebook. I am way better at tiny little daily updates this time of year.

Aaaaaaaaagghhh!

2010-03-26T14:06:00.003-05:00

Another unanticipated kid-a-palooza. LeeAnne went yesterday afternoon, (four days early) followed by June, (3am today- three days late), followed by Challenge (about two hours ago -five days early). That's six kids in the last 24 hours.

I made the following joke on my facebook: 24 hour kid total: 2 de Beauvoirs, 4 Balzacs. That is way too many Balzacs.

I don't know if it is actually as funny as I think it is, but I cracked myself up. Guess I'm a little punchy from lack of sleep.

A big day of firsts

2010-03-25T14:29:00.004-05:00

Well, it has happened. Binder the miracle doe is a mama. And her big buckling is also Skeeter's first child. Cigars all around!

Sadly for me, I totally missed Binder's big event. I came out for chores Tuesday morning and she was standing in the chicken coop, with the little dude all cleaned up and fed, looking at me with a face that said, "You will not BELIEVE what just happened to me." After I got past the guilt of not being there, I could not be more proud. She is a trooper and a keeper. Way to go, Bindee-boo.

Her little guy is the frosty one on the right. The other two are Wynona's kids, born the day before.

LeeAnne just had two a couple hours ago and Challenge is on deck.

...we're a little busy at the mo'.

Check it....

2010-03-13T19:59:00.005-06:00

I know it's a terrible picture, but look at it. Closely.

Diva and Radiance. For real.

This doesn't happen a lot, hence the poo-ey pic, but still... Crazy, huh? These cats don't even remember what a barn is anymore.

Comings and Goings

2010-03-12T11:06:00.006-06:00

We have seriously upended the status quo at Blue Heron Farm. We are moving goats around in ways we never dreamed.

We'll start with Emmylou Hyde. As I blog this, she is on her way to a new home, where she can be some variation of Emmylou Rita Hyde Broadbent.

This is an excellent move for us and for Emmy. The Broadbents are a lovely couple we met and see regularly at our monthly market at Home Sweet Farm. They have been steadily moving towards getting a couple goats and we have had quite a few conversations about goats in the past year or so of markets. Recently they saw Emmy's story on our blog and decided that it was time. They approached us with the offer of re-homing her and we jumped on it. They have a couple old sheep to keep her company and Emmylou will become a mama in April, so will have a built-in friend if she doesn't end up loving the sheep. She will not be a milker, she will just be a loved and spoiled pet and new goat mama. I could not dream of a better home for her.

While I am glad she will be producing her own little friend, we have a second plan for her company. At the end of the milking season, Naomi will go to the Broadbents, too.

This one is more bittersweet.

Naomi has had a tough haul in her three years. She narrowly escaped euthanasia her first year when she got sick and we thought she was just too scrawny to get through it. Nothing particular was wrong, she just seemed to be failing to thrive and gain weight. We thought it might be a worm issue and then accidentally overdosed her on the wormer in a critical calculation error. She didn't die, though. And we didn't put her down that week because my parents were here and it seemed an awful thing to do on their visit. By the time they left, she had turned the corner. And strangely, a year later had gone through the most amazing growth spurt and was actually our largest goat from her age group. Move forward a year.

Last year was her first year to kid and her milk came in early and strong. We now know we could have milked her before she kidded, but at the time we didn't know. And the extreme pressure in her udder led her to a case of mastitis in one half, soon after kidding. We treated it and moved on. Poor girl. She did get better, but within only a few months, she had developed calcium blockages in that side of her udder that made milking difficult. We decided to just let her dry up, treat her in the dry season with a preventative antibiotic and hope for the best in year three. Move forward a year.

This year Naomi kidded with another huge udder. We decided to milk her out a few days before kidding to prevent a repeat of last year. And that was when we found that the previously affected half of her udder was completely blocked. Completely. After consultation with the vet, it was left at us having to let that side dry up while we continued to milk the good half. And it left us with the question, what do you do with a dairy goat who can't milk? It took over a week for that side to go down and it looked painful as all hell, so we knew that Naomi should never be bred again. We simply could not put her through that.

One option was to get her a mastectomy in the dry season to remove the blind half, but really - to us that was never a serious option. It also was not an option to keep her here in the herd and spend the next 10 years being vigilant about her never getting bred again. The logistics are just too hard. Euthanasia was untenable option three. She is the sweetest love of a goat and she is not sick. She is just no longer a functioning dairy doe. Enter the Broadbents. We asked if they could do two goats and they said sure.

Naomi will stay here and milk for the rest of the season as we say our long goodbye. She is milking great from the one side and the other is down to almost nothing again. Though I know she will be going to a great home and they will treat her like a queen, I am having a hard time with letting her go. Naomi was born here and developed her wonderful personality here and it is just way harder to say goodbye. I am glad we have a full season to make the transition.

Our last egress is Liberty. She was one of our original five goats, and after three years here will be going to another dairy at the end of this week. Our friends who are just starting their dairy are in dire need of milkers. Liberty has always annoyed Christian with her slow speed of milking and so he offered her up to "help us both". Libby milked like a cow her first year here but after having a single kid this year is not producing quite as well. She has it in her, but it's just not happening yet this year. Her new family is just happy to have the milk at all and can sell her down the road if her production doesn't pick up. I will miss Libby, too. She's a sweet little weirdo. But again - I know she is going to a good home, so this will not be too difficult of a goodbye.

So that's the traffic flow. I titled this entry Comings and Goings - but it looks like it's really just goings. Sigh. Well, that's a bummer.

But the babies keep coming, so there is that. Oh! And Penny Lane is on deck for kidding and should be a milker in another week or so, if we caught the right breeding. So yeah - comings and goings.

I look forward to updates and photos of Emmylou & Liberty at their new homes. I am sure they will both be very happy.

Ah, the irony

2010-03-06T18:54:00.002-06:00

Today when I was at the farmers market, a train went past. (The market is adjacent to the tracks.) The train was nothing but tanker cars full of high fructose corn syrup. At least 75, maybe 100.

[[[shudder]]]

I don't need the reminder of why we are doing this farming thing, but it was good reinforcement.

It made me crave a salad.

Kidding Seaon: Chapter One

2010-03-02T07:32:00.005-06:00

Well, our first segment of the kidding season is behind us and to say it was a bit unusual is an understatement. On our first day, we had four births in 18 hours - NOT what we had planned.

Lucinda was the first doe due, with Peggy Sue and Liberty due a full week later. Naomi was a wildcard - she was the only doe for whom we did not have a known breeding date, as she had been dried off early and was living with the Bishop for a while. Here's how it played out:

Lucinda was the size of a house. We thought she would have babies before her due date. The due date is 150 days after conception, but can happen anywhere between 145 and 155 and still be considered normal. On day 155, she still showed no sign of being ready to kid, so for the first time ever, we induced. To do this, you administer a shot of prostaglandins and they will kid within 36 hours. If they were already "starting" the process, they will often go earlier.

Next morning we go out (about 24 hours later) and she's still nowhere close. But Naomi has lined up in the kidding stall we reserved for Lucy and started to paw the ground. Labor. This day 156 for Lucinda was also day 146 for Peggy and Libby. And it looked like 150 for Naomi. Sigh.

Lucinda waddled in as we kept an eye on Naomi. Her countdown began in earnest. While Naomi engaged in the standard pre-labor activities, Liberty waltzed into the barn. I very clearly explained to her that she was not due yet and that I did not appreciate her sense of humor. Her udder was not full, so I wrote it off to her weird personality and let her stay.

When it became clear that Naomi had a couple hours to go and that Lucinda had not even begun a pre-labor, I went in the house to play on the computer a little. Twenty minutes later, I went to go check on Naomi again and Liberty had a kid on the ground. Bam! Just like that.

I scooped her up to bring her inside and noticed that Naomi had gotten serious. She kidded shortly thereafter with triplets.

A few hours later - during evening milking chores - Lucinda finally did her thing, and as she started labor, Peggy Sue came in and thought it looked fun. Her pre-labor started at about 7 pm.

Having kids is exhausting. Because we bottle feed from the get-go, we are going non-stop for about 24 hours after a single kidding. By 7pm, we had had three kiddings - with a total of six kids. And we were still going out to check on Peggy every half hour or so. As the night wore on, we spaced the checks out a little further, as she didn't seem ready to push. Finally at about 2am, Christian pulled the kids out. We needed to get some sleep.

I was actually sleeping when he left at abut 1:45 to do a check. I woke up at about 3:00 and saw he hadn't come back. I freaked out, bundled up in my puffy suit and shuffled out to the barn. C wasn't there. Peggy was. She clearly had kidded, but I saw no kids. There was a light on in the dairy, so I went there. Nothing. And in my confused sleep fog, I freaked the frack out. WHERE DID THEY GO????

I came back to the house and saw a light on in the guest room. C was calmly bottle feeding one of the eight kids born that day. I don't remember which. I just collapsed in tired relief. Longest day ever.

Ellie Mae kidded about a week later - four days ahead of schedule, and Emmy Lou followed the day after that with triplets that I needed to assist. (One breech up front gummed up the whole works.) So that brings us to 12 babies and counting.

All but five have gone on to their new homes. We still have doelings for sale if you know anyone looking and we start again any day now. Limerick and Kelly are due this weekend.

We had an issue with poor Naomi - I alluded to that in my earlier post. I will get to that in the next post. She's OK, but OK is relative on a dairy farm. More on that as soon as I can swing it. Life gets busy in the baby season.

Filler

2010-02-21T07:07:00.002-06:00

Ok-- I know I owe a nice, meaty post about our kidding season so far (12 babies in a week - so tired!)but I have another market today, so probably won't get to it until next week.

In the meantime, check out this nice article on Haven. The soup they mention is not on the menu anymore, as the menu changes frequently to support the farm-to-table concept....winter squash is all gone now. But the chef says he'll probably make a similar soup soon with sweet potatoes which ARE available now.

Sweeet, huh?

Oh, baby!

2010-02-13T07:33:00.003-06:00

We have finally started the kidding season after a 6 day delay on our first birth. Then three more decided to kid along with her. So we had 8 babies between 11am yesterday and 2am today. Tired does not begin to describe....

I will try to update with photos soon. We are trying to keep up with the demand of eight bottle babies plus one mamas who is not doing so well. I'll update when I can.

Trudy's on the HuffPo!

2010-02-10T09:04:00.003-06:00

Go check it out - it's on the front page now (9am Central, Feb 10) and it should be in the "Animals we Love" if it's not still there when you click..

Go visit the story and give us a 10 on the cute-o-meter to bump us up in the rankings. :)

Edited at 3pm: She is off of the main page, but still on the page layout if you click the tab that says "Green"

OMG

2010-02-04T14:15:00.005-06:00

That is Radiance the Eviscerator and her friend Little Chicken on our bed. Sure, LC is refusing to look at the cat, but still -- it's a step.

And as I type, Rosebud & Radiance are both running around the office - on the other side of the house from their bedroom. The kitties are getting bold. And in Radiance's case, a little less aggro.

This is too fun.

What the....?

2010-02-02T11:00:00.001-06:00

I don't know how this happened, but Rosebud and Radiance are spooning on our bed now.

I guess we have two indoor kitties.

Serious Craziness

2010-01-31T07:16:00.001-06:00

That is Radiance.

In my lap.

I am woefully overdue for a barn kitty update.

Right around Thanksgiving, Radiance started getting very bold. And very interested in people. She began to swagger about the barnyard, mingling with goats, turkeys and even the working dogs to a lesser extent. And then finally, she approached me outside of dinner hours to investigate this thing we call "petting." She was hooked. Just a few days later, she allowed a friend's daughter to pick her up and carry her around, eventually just dozing in her arms. A crazy transformation was complete.

Radiance became so affectionate that we actually gave her a trial run as a house kitty, though I was reluctant to take her away from the more timid Rosebud. She did "OK" in the house, but ultimately always asked to go back out by jumping four feet in the air and smooshing herself against the windows of the back door for an instant of longing before falling back to the floor. Oh well. It was worth a tray.

After her visits inside the house, she became a regular visitor to the back porch, but never really wanted to come in when invited. She just wanted me to come out and pet her.

And when I say me, I mean me. Not me and the dogs. Sometime around Christmas, Radiance became increasingly aggressive with the dogs - especially our house dogs, and sealed her fate as a barnyard cat who will be granted several petting sessions a day, but in the absence of Diva and Chicken when possible. (Poor Diva didn't ask to be beat up - swear!)

In all this time, Rosebud remained aloof. I saw her at mealtimes, but she still wouldn't let me pet her.

And then one day it was as if a switch had been flipped. I was out in the back acreage and she followed Radiance out to see me. I squatted and patiently waited for her to approach. She let me pet her briefly, the purr motor went on and she suddenly was a real pet kitty. Who had a burning need to make up for the five months of her life with no human contact. She would not let me stop petting her.

She got so affectionate that in the past couple of weeks, she would actually stop eating and demand some lovin' from us as we performed the Stupidest Job on the Farm.

So anyway, in the middle of all of this, I started getting desperate for a house kitty. Since Radiance didn't work out, I started looking for a new kitten online, in pet stores, at shelters...wherever. Until we got the wild hair to try Rosebud in the house three days ago.

She sleeps with us in the bed now.

She still is not 100% comfortable with house cat status. She spends about 90% of the day under our bed, but will come out if we ask her to and bribe her with sweet, delicious petting. She won't voluntarily leave the bedroom yet, other than a few tentative steps into the hallway - if no dogs are there. But she is making huge progress every day.

I hope to have photos of her enjoying the sofa, watching American Idol with us soon.

As soon as she stops being afraid of the TV, that is. Silly kitty. Silly, indoor kitty.

2010 Calendar

2010-01-25T19:44:00.002-06:00

Hey, peeps - we just designed a calendar on lulu.

I know January is almost over - sorry about that.

And I know they are a bit pricey - but that is because they are print-on-demand. That means we don't have to buy a bunch of calendars up-front and hope to sell them. You can just go order one. Or ten. Or whatever. We're not making bank on this - it was just a fun project and would be a nice gift for the goat/farm/animal lover in your life.

Will post real stuff soon. Wait until you hear what's up with Rosebud and Radiance.

The Ballad of Emmylou Hyde

2010-01-17T09:08:00.004-06:00

Do you remember the song, “The Cat Came Back”? It's been around forever. Generations of kids have delighted in the tale of that stupid, persistent yellow cat. This is the chorus:

But the cat came back the very next day,
The cat came back, we thought he was a goner
But the cat came back; it just couldn't stay away.

We have a goat like that.

It started two years ago. It was our second kidding year and the first year that we planned to sell every last goat born on our place. We had a pretty good success rate including a rather large sale to a man from our community who found our ad at the feed store.

Mr. X, as he will be known here, came to visit a couple times, brought his wife and kids and eventually picked out a couple goats. As the season wore on, he bought a couple more and by season's end, he was a man with a plan – and five of our good does, plus two goats for cabrito. He was also a man with a payment plan. Five does is a lot of dough, as you know.

Late that summer, the economy started its dive. That, plus family issues out of the country, forced Mr. X to liquidate his small herd. I don't know how he found buyers, what kind of prices he got or where four of the girls went, but
what I do know is that he figured he'd just bring back the doe that was not yet paid for. … and so we found ourselves with “Rita”. A scrawny kid, fed milk from a sale barn doe.

Oh the goat came back the very next day,
The goat came back, we thought she was a goner
But the goat came back; it just couldn't stay away.

We knew better than to take her back. Really we did. But we just were not sure what to do. So we stuck her in the paddock with the buck and our two (at the time) dry does and tried to figure out a decent quarantine option that would not be too hard on her while we tried to figure out if we could even sell her again.

She promptly infected that pen with pink eye (which she carried with no visible signs) which then spread like wildfire to the whole herd a week later. Sigh. The lessons we learn the hard way.

So right around the time we got the stupid pink eye cleaned up, we were arranging the sale of a newly bred June. Since the Hydes had no other goats, we made a deal: Take the runt as a companion goat and we will give her to you for free. We said that in six months we would come out and test her for CAE (a disease transmissible through milk that she may have contracted while being fed milk of unknown origins)and if she got the all clear, they could breed her and count their blessing of an extra doe/milker. If she came back positive, we said they should consider not ever breeding her to avoid the hassle. Deal made. Bye bye Rita's dumb eye!

At her new home, Rita was called Emmylou. We also had a doe named Emmylou, so when we talked about her, we called her Emmylou Hyde. Months passed and we went out to do her blood draw/CAE test as planned. And dang near killed her.

OK- in the end, it was not a near kill, but at the time we freaked. After we removed the sample, we pulled the needle out and a pretty healthy flow of blood dripped out onto her chest and my hand. And there was a small-ish hematoma. We didn't talk about it, but Christian and I locked eyes for a sec and then stretched out our conversation with Justin to be sure she wasn't going to drop dead right there. 10 minutes later, we headed home. Another 10 minutes later, the phone rang. I joked to Christian that it was Justin telling us Emmylou Hyde had died. He looked at his phone. It was Justin.

But it was about something unrelated.

Oh the goat came back the very next day,
The goat came back, we thought she was a goner
But the goat came back; it just couldn't stay away.

Emmy Hyde was fine, but she never really grew at the rate of a normal doe. We think she must have been a little stunted from poor nutrition at her first home. Certainly the Hydes fed her well, but she just never caught up to June. The CAE test was clear, but she just didn't look big enough to breed that year. So she stayed on as June's friend. June's sweet, runty friend.

That brings us to this past fall. As you know from a couple posts ago, we very happily bought June back this year. And so she came back, with little Emmylou in tow.

Oh the goat came back the very next day,
The goat came back, we thought she was a goner
But the goat came back; it just couldn't stay away.

So Emmylou Hyde is back. She's two but is as small as a yearling. She's from a
doe who is, at best, a mediocre milker. She is a total drain of resources. But she is awfully sweet.

And she is ours. Again.

You can talk tough all you like, but in the end, some decisions are made by circumstances. We are breeding her this year and will try to sell her as a family milker after she kids. Possibly along with her mama, Miranda. And hope this time maybe she stays away.

Away, away, yea, yea, yea

Wow, do I suck!

2009-12-30T07:46:00.002-06:00

So, when I got behind on the blogging, I went out to take pictures to make a little throwaway post about Kelly. (Two posts below this.)

Turns out I made that same post about a year ago. Heh. I suck. I will start blogging for real again now. New Years resolution.

...to be fair, at least I took a new photo....

Junebug

2009-12-29T07:43:00.005-06:00

If you've followed the blog for a while, you know about June. June was one of the first kids born on our farm. And June was the first adult goat we ever sold.

June was a silly, sweet clown of a goat, but did not have the best milk production her first year. She made enough milk for a family goat, but not really enough to stay at a dairy. So we found her a wonderful family and we threw in a second goat to keep her company(blog post to come on this story)and said our goodbyes.

We told June's new family, who have become friends of ours, that we would babysit her anytime they needed us. They took us up on it a year ago and June had her kids here at BHF last Chanukah.

And then she exploded with milk. June more than doubled the capacity of her udder in her second year as a milker, and we had some serious seller's remorse. But we were happy for the Hydes, who got a lot of good milk and obviously really loved old Junebug.

This year we babysat June again as her family took a last vacation before the arrival of their third baby. (Human baby, that is.) As the enormity of the prospect of milking goats while caring for a new infant and home schooling the other two kids set in, they began to wonder if they shouldn't re-home June and Emmylou. Long story short, we snapped her up. June has come back to Blue Heron Farm.

We learned a lot of things in the unfolding of this story.

First, it reinforced our idea of how important it is to sell goats to good families. We got to see June a lot in the time she lived with the Hydes and we were so thankful that she went to such a good home. It would be so hard to think of an animal you love in a place where they would not be treated like family. June was and is happy and healthy in both of her homes.

Next, we realized that you can't make decisions about milking potential in the first year. Many goats don't really come into their full production until age three or sometimes even later. This has been true with a number of our goats - they just keep getting better as they get more mature.

This leads to the fact that we can't raise babies. We knew this, but really - this is huge. One and two year olds will eat just as much as three year olds, but give you half the milk? Stupid. We knew this a year ago, but we're hanging on to Binder and Penny Lane anyway. Sigh. That, as you know, is its own story.

The biggest takeaway for me was the realization that I am going to stress any time we sell an adult goat. It is SO much harder than selling the babies you don't really know. We have a couple we have considered selling this year for production reasons, but I just don't know if I can bear to let them go. Even when they go to a great place - as June did - I know how much I will miss them.

We'll see if I can get over this. Because Miranda - while sweet as pie, just had a second mediocre milk season. If she doesn't get it together in year three, she may have to move on. I should probably start screening applicants now. Who knows how long this might take.

Mmmmmmm....foamy

2009-12-21T06:50:00.002-06:00

One of our older does, Kelly, developed a really peculiar behavior in the last year or so. It has intensified in the past weeks into something almost cartoon-like.

Kelly foams at the mouth at meal time.

It starts about an hour before dinner. Everyone is usually hanging out, chewing cud, thinking about getting milked and the delicious treats that come with that. And then Kelly starts to salivate.

A lot.

And it's thick, like meringue.

And it gets all over anything she touches. Fence posts. Other goats. Her own ears. The cat.

I've given her a new nickname. Kelli-ccino.

Mmmmmm--foamy.

Seeing Ghosts

2009-12-01T07:22:00.006-06:00

Last winter we sold a pair of goats to some farmer friends. Poinsettia was born on Christmas and Daisy was born on New Years Eve Day.

Normally we don't see the goats we sell again, except in photos, but since we have Skeeter the Magnificent here, we offered to take the girls back for breeding. (Not an option when the only male you have is their dad.)

The girls came back a couple weeks ago and are staying for two heat cycles to make sure Skeet gets the job done. While I love having them around, it has been a profoundly bittersweet experience.

In a remarkable coincidence, Poinsettia is Loretta's daughter and looks almost exactly like her. If you don't remember, Loretta was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer and had to be put down in June.

Daisy is Miranda's daughter and she came out looking exactly like her great aunt Patty. ...the other goat we had to euthanize this year.

Seeing these two brings a smile to my face every day and has brought me close to tears on several occasions. It is like having Loretta and Patty's ghosts here reminding us how awesome and yet how hard it is to be a compassionate farmer.

I am glad our goats are living on through their genes and bringing their goofy personalities to a whole new farm.

Daisy

Patty

Poinsettia

Loretta

My papaya is bisexual!!!

2009-11-11T10:02:00.003-06:00

I wonder how often that exact combination of words has been used in the history of the English language.

Whatever- it's true and it's good news...I have a teeny, eeeny, tiny papaya starting. Now if we can just keep the plant from freezing until it grows into something edible.

Yay, bisexual plants! You rock!

Eeeeeeeeee!

2009-11-09T19:14:00.003-06:00

I am HORRIBLY behind in blogging and will try to catch up in the next couple days. Sorry. But in the meantime,look what I found enjoying my green beans the other night. He was so tiny I thought it was a ladybug at first.

Is that not the cutest little frog you've ever seen???

An oldie but a goodie

2009-10-30T08:06:00.004-05:00

A little trivia: I belong to a goat club.

Yes, that's right a goat club. Whatever you are imagining, it is that...plus some. We get together with other goat folks to eat, chit-chat and talk goats. It rocks.

Back in 2007 I was asked, based on writings from my own website, to contribute a regular article to the club's newsletter. I accepted the invitation and went after the task with gusto.

Apparently, too much gusto. My first article was rejected. Too "racy" for a family club.

That rejected article was about our first-ever breeding season and appears below, in its entirety. Some of you may have seen it before. Without being a self-important jerk, I think it only gets funnier to read it again now, years later.

For the rest of you, a couple points: I used to stress about EVERY single thing the goats did or did not do. And I still worked in Houston to make the startup money for the dairy. The combination, well... you'll see. Enjoy.

I am obsessed with sex.

Oh, it’s not what you think….it’s our first breeding season. (OK- maybe that is what you were thinking, and if so—good for you!)
See-- we got into goats a little bit backwards, and so in our first year with goats have already been through the joys of milking and drying off does, watching their ballooning pregnancies, and even kidding. And then more milking. Lots and lots of milking. But this is our first season of goat nookie.

We brought our first little buck onto our farm a couple weeks ago, and ever since I have been obsessively viewing vulva, staring at sheathes and yes, even touching testes. (I just had to see what they felt like. Surely I can’t be the only one. …can I? Hm, maybe I can.)
The poor buck. I am obsessive and relentless, and the longer I go without actually seeing active breeding, the more obsessive I become. What if he’s too young? What if he can’t reach? What if he’s just “not into girls”??? It is just like all of my goat obsessions, which if you have ever read my website, are plentiful and strange. I am a woman possessed.

I find myself standing outside the pen with him and whichever “doe du jour”, gently pleading, then kind of begging and then finally demanding he get it on. Go for it. Come on! Do the deed! …which he never does. Well, not in front of me, at least.
Did I mention I’m obsessed? Last week I had some time off work, and so I headed out to the buck pen with a lawn chair, a book and - of course - my camera (Surely I can’t be the only one. …can I?)

And? ...Nada. Oh, I got a good read, but The Bishop, as we call him, only enjoyed a leisurely two-hour graze while ignoring the overt signs of interest from our very “heaty” herd queen. I even propped him up into position once. He just looked at me like I was a lunatic and kind of fell off. What if he’s too young? What if he can’t reach? What if he’s just “not into girls”???

Of course when I went back to work, he became more active. On one of my 40 or so daily calls home, I found out that “Bishop Don” had chewed his own penis (can I say penis in the Caprine Courier?), urinated on my husband and “styled” his pompadour in a very buck-specific way.

WHY DO I MISS ALL THE GOOD STUFF????!

So that’s where we are now. Those are all good signs, right? I mean, if he wasn’t ready before, surely he is “readier” now. At least he’s “yellower” now. That I can confirm. And he no longer gets kisses on the muzzle from me. I know waaay too much about where that muzzle has been.

So we sit and wait. And we bring the ladies out as they ask us to, and then leave them there overnight in the hopes that Bishop Don Magic Juan perhaps just prefers to work his magic at night.

In these very tense couple of weeks, we have found one doe with a satisfactorily crusty tail and another with a nice plug of white goo. We are very hopeful. And not any less obsessed.

My name is Lisa and I am obsessed with goat sex. Maybe you can relate.

In retrospect, I kinda understand their decision. ;)

Pig Butt Garden Update

2009-10-23T15:05:00.004-05:00

Some of the tomato plants are flowering

The sunflower is starting to open

The watermelon is flowering

And I am still pretty sure this is either ground cherries or cape gooseberries, and not planted by the pigs so much as their seeds were probably uncovered in the ground while rooting.

Cool, huh?

Papaya Pok Pok

2009-10-16T12:46:00.003-05:00

Back in the summer we planted a papaya tree. Bush. Whatever.

I don't really know anything about papayas (obviously), but we now have flowers. And according to my online research, placement of said flowers makes this a female plant. (??)

Now, I know I make fun of non-farm folk for not understanding fundamentals of reproduction, lactation, etc., but here I go: does this mean I need a male plant to actually get fruit?

I don't get botany. But ask me about the mating habits of a goat and we can talk.

Anyhooo-- here's my papaya plant thing.

Kindnesses

2009-10-09T13:56:00.003-05:00

Well, Patty's time came sooner than we had hoped. After it had become obvious that our treatments were not making her life significantly easier, we made the decision to put her down. She was a trooper and kept her silly, food-obsessed personality to the end, but I knew we owed her the kindness of ending her pain.

In a kindness much greater than the one we made for Patty, our friends and fellow goat farmers, The Carlsons, offered to put her doown for us. I am so grateful for their strength and the amazing, meaningful gift they offered us at a very difficult time. Thank you, Carlson family and thank you Patty for being a (mostly) good little goaty. Peace.

The accidental gardener

2009-10-08T07:41:00.003-05:00

After a dismal finish to the spring/summer garden (Nothing grows with 45 days of 100+ weather!) my fall garden is looking pretty good. Last night we ate pattypan squash, jalapenos and okra from the new crop. Delish.

As a relative gardening newbie, I am still not confident enough to start anything from seed; the only exception being green beans. That seems to be the only thing I can just poke into the ground and expect success. For everything else, I buy transplants and hope that the head start will make up for my inexperience and any future neglect.

Our pigs do not have this lack of confidence.

We move the pigs around frequently to give them pasture to eat. This plus whey is almost their entire diet. ...though they do get occasional veggies and other treats from our garden or from some of the farmers at the market who have excess items on the brink of going unsalable. Yesterday I went out to identify all of the amazing things growing in their former pen. Those little buggers have green thumbs. Or more accurately, green butts, I suppose. Here is what I found:

Watermelon

Cow Peas or Purple Hull Peas

Tomatoes

Sunflowers

And an unknown plant that I hope you can help me ID.

I don't know if any of these things will come to harvest before it gets cold, but we will keep an eye on them all. It would be awesome to have wild field tomatoes.

Maybelline is a cougar

2009-10-07T11:31:00.004-05:00

Maybelline - and several other of the ladies - are completely smitten with little Skeeter.

That's right, Maybelline...I'm talking about you. May-belle is seven years old. That's middle aged for a goat. Skeeter is not quite five months old.

Skeeter is some kind of stud.

He has kind of figured out his job, but is still not very good at it. We know he managed to breed Penny Lane, and he gave it his best shot with Wynona, Tawanda and Miranda. We'll see if any of them actually settled in about 20 days.

The Miranda thing was an accident. She had already been serviced by the Bishop. But Tawanda and some of the other girls felt like they needed more Skeeter time and they broke him out of his barn the other night. BROKE HIM OUT OF HIS BARN! So C put him back in there, but accidentally allowed Miranda to spend the night in there, too; so assuming she settles, we will not know who the baby-daddy is without a DNA test. I guess we'll just sell her kids unregistered if it comes down to that. Sigh.

Today while the other girls were out grazing, I found Maybelline and Plum mooning, singing, rubbing the Skeetman's little face and mounting each other in frustration when the fence kept them from their new obsession, King Skeeter the Magnificent.

I hope the Bishop doesn't find out.

What's new on Bunting Road?

2009-09-29T10:42:00.004-05:00

So, Saturday night we were coming back from OITF. It was about 1030 - late for your BHFarmers. As we turned onto our road, Christian said, "I wonder what's new on Bunting Road." I smiled, as nothing is ever new on Bunting Road.

And then we saw the donkeys.

A family of donkeys, three adults and a young'un were loose and wandering down our road. It was made even more strange by the fact that not one resident of Bunting Road owns donkeys. We had no idea where they came from.

They paraded up and down our street eating grass from various properties pretty much all night. ...Which drove Goatrude and Nightshift in-freaking-sane. It was an epic, all-night bark-fest.

In the morning they were still there and the little bastards had knocked off our mailbox. I immediately suspected the jackasses, as the box was on the ground, but there were no telltale dents to suggest wayward teens playing mailbox baseball. No, it was the jerk-faced donkeys.

My suspicion was confirmed as they started in on the neighbor's box, right in front of me.

Jerky, jerk faces.

Still and all - they were pretty cute.

We still have no idea whose donkeys they were. We alerted the sheriff and hoped someone would come collect them. After Sunday mid-day, we did not seen them again, so I guess they either were picked up by their owners or are off destroying mailboxes on some other road.

...what's new on Bunting Road, indeed.

Outstanding in the Field

2009-09-28T13:59:00.005-05:00

This year we were privileged to be a part of Outstanding in the Field again. I say priveleged, which we were, but honestly I solicited the invitation with some less than gentle self promotion. I was not willing to let the opportunity pass.

Based on the success of last year's, they held two in the Houston area this year. One back at Jolie Vue and one at Animal Farm in Cat Spring. We went to Animal Farm this time.

Last year I used the word fabulous at least a dozen times to describe the event. This year was no different. Beyond fabulous.

The chef for the Animal Farm event was Randy Evans, whose new restaurant Haven will open soon. (Randy was formerly at Brennans - before it burned down during Hurricane Ike.) He used our feta in a LOVELY salad with arugula and sun chokes and he also served our cajeta for dessert. Practicing my new "friendatarian" diet, I also indulged in the main protein course this year, too - the most amazing chicken dish I have ever eaten. Ever. (Chicken raised by Olde Wold Farms in Dobbin - friends of ours at Bayou City farmers market.)

Wine and food flowed with a crazy abundance and a good time was had by all. If you can get tickets to one of these events near you next year, you really should. They are the most inspiring combination of art, sustainable farming and fine dining. Truly an unbeatable night out.

Skeeter

2009-09-27T12:55:00.009-05:00

Meet Skeeter. He is so cute, I can't stand it.

Skeeter is on loan at BHF and will be in charge of knocking up a few of the ladies here, including Binder and Penny Lane, who we did not want to breed back to their Daddy.

Penny is big enough and has already had at least one heat cycle, but little Skeets is still only about 4 1/2 months old, so I'm not sure how ready he is to work. I guess we'll see in the next 21 days when Penny cycles again.

Skeeter is so sweet and he's not all stinky yet, so I am giving him lots of love. I like to pet his silly dewlap thing. So soft and jiggly. Bishop doesn't have a dewlap.

Speaking of the Bishop, I vaguely remember when the he was this cute. Here is some pretty amazing Bishop before and after.

2007

2009

Skeeter will get burly and yellow someday, too.

Rosebud & Radiance

2009-09-22T07:41:00.003-05:00

Well, the kitties have adapted to their new life beautifully.

They have been out for a while now and are both, after about a week of separate feedings in the coop, eating with the big kitties now. This is good, because I like to make the Stupidest Job on the Farm worth it.

Radiance, the all-black one, is the braver of the two. She was the first to go chase bugs and do normal kitty things, and is now the one threatening to let me pet her just for the fun of it. Rosebud will generally follow Radiance around, but she stays a few paces back when Radiance does things like sniff a goat or take treats from a human.

I have yet to see them take down a varmint, but they are so adorable that I don't really care if they ever "work."

Here are some recent photos. Oh, and if you wondered about the names, they are actually the Secret Service code names for the Obama girls. We thought they were pretty awesome and had just been waiting for the chance to name some farm members the same..

Guest Cows

2009-09-21T14:38:00.003-05:00

After a painfully droughty summer, that big storm (and a few small ones that came through soon after) convinced our grass that it was really OK to go ahead and grow. Practically overnight, our brown, trampled pastures sprung up with grass and weeds. So much so, that we invited the neighbor's cows to come help graze it down a bit.

I love when we have guest cows. The babies make me go, "Eeeeeeeee!"

Chicken's Big Party

2009-09-15T10:25:00.005-05:00

Little Chicken is a bad dog. Sweet, sweet, sweet - but not to be trusted alone in the house. She is a chewer. :( The decision was made, after she chewed up a very expensive pair of my shoes, to put her outside every time we leave. Every time.

We did that last week, but then C had to come back for some reason and she snuck back in and did the "Home Alone" as we did evening chores.

This is what we came back to.For those of you counting at home, that is seven shoes. One of which - mine, of course - was chewed up pretty severely.

But what is all of that other stuff, you ask?

A zoom in reveals an expertly opened birthday gift, discarded it would seem, since Chicken's ears aren't pierced.

That gift (lovely seaglass earrings, one seen to the right of the boot) was beautifully wrapped with a nice bow (which we later found, intact in the dog bed) and pretty paper (seen here), around a sturdy, cotton-lined box (also pictured).
Bad, bad dog. But still-- a pretty impressive job for a girl without opposable thumbs.

Oh, yeah.

2009-09-10T08:06:00.005-05:00

Peep and Star have "matured".

Let me just that say unless you are a human, there is no privacy on this farm for your mating habits. None. I will be nearby. Oh, yes. And I will likely have a camera.

Now off to catch the Bishop (who is feeling great, BTW) with his girlfriend of the day, Lucinda. Bow-chicka-bow!

Whoa.

2009-09-09T13:16:00.006-05:00

We had an amazingly intense storm come through last week. I mean, seriously intense.

At the end of it all, we had more damage than we did with Ike, and a greater appreciation for our dairy barn, which -- while rated for 150 mph winds - had a little more "give" in the roof than we would like to ever see again. Sucking sounds and leaks aside, it did manage to keep us from being killed by flying things, and the roof did stay on, so there is that.

It started like any late afternoon pop-up shower, if slightly darker and more menacing. At the peak, it found me, Christian and 15 of the goats in the small milking parlor made for four goats. ...not ideal, in case you are wondering.

We came out to missing roof panels on three of four barns, several downed tree limbs, missing panels on one barn, a broken water pipe and some seriously freaked out goats.

This was Thursday, and most of the cleanup is done, though roof repairs still await. Good times on Blue Heron Farm. At least the girls helped do their part on the cleanup. (After an initial period of confused, investigatory unhelpfulnees.) Yummy trees!

SuckerS with two capital Ss

2009-08-31T07:50:00.003-05:00

About a month ago I got an email looking for a barn home for two little kitties.

Historically, I have been most excellent at resisting pleas to rehome animals. I used to get at least one email a month back when I worked in an office. Some were just inartful paragraphs about a dog or a cat and a parking lot and other blah blah blah. Some were more thoughtfully crafted with a bad, blown-out flash photograph of some miserable pet or other, not cute enough to trigger the "I want" instinct. And then a small minority were expertly created with a very high quality photo of an insanely cute animal looking unbearably needy. I resisted them all.

It is a mystery to me why I said, "OK" to an email in my box from a person I didn't know, looking for a barn home for two cats. I guess I blame it on our surplus of barns. ...and there WERE photos, so that was probably part of it.

Meet Rosebud and Radiance.(I changed their names from the less interesting Oreo and Java.)

These girls were strays and are still VERY suspicious of people. They are - after a couple weeks - still living in our chicken coop, adjusting to life at BHF. Most times they can be found up in the nesting boxes, which just cracks me up every time I see. Sometimes one or the other will be hiding in the wee holes in a cinder block, which also makes me smile.

I had planned to let them out after a week, but they seem to be perfectly happy with their own digs. And I know that if I open up the door, the other animals will steal their food.

I am also worried that they may go hide under the barn, once released, and that we may not see them again for months. This way I know, at least, they aren't missing meals.

We visit with them several times a day; we are trying to win them over with ear scratches. They rarely hiss at us anymore, so I think we're making progress. Slowly. I hope it won't be long before they seek attention and affection like our other barn kitties, and have no desire to hide. ...they've got until the next clutch of baby birds hatches to get there. Then they get evicted for more helpless animals. Sorry, girls. That's the way the farm works. I hope you can get yourselves ready.

Blue Heron Farm encourages sharing

2009-08-29T21:29:00.001-05:00

Sharing is nice.

Not counting my chickens...

2009-08-26T10:14:00.003-05:00

I hope I am not counting chickens before they hatch, but the Bishop seems to have turned the corner.

Either the sulfa drugs or the broad spectrum antibiotic - things we are loathe to use unless entirely necessary - seem to have helped. This tells me we had a bacterial issue of some sort.

The dude is alert, browsing and eager for attention. These are all really good signs. But he lost so much weight in the last few days that he still looks really wretched.

That being said, here's a fun fact for you. Male goats pretty much always look wretched when it's "the season." They are way more interested in, ahem, "burning calories" than consuming them. It will take a lot for us to put the weight back on him now, but we'll do it. It's not like we don't already have stupid jobs on the farm - surely I can keep the does away from his feed with a fishing pole.

Need a break

2009-08-25T12:28:00.002-05:00

Seriously. I need a break.

The Bishop is sick. Really sick.

We are desperately trying to pinpoint what is making him ill, but don't feel like we are there yet. We're trying everything in our homeopathic and conventional arsenals to go after the symptoms.

I feel like we are somehow paying the big karmic price for our first two years having been so problem free. It sucks. In case you were wondering.

Patty update

2009-08-24T20:26:00.004-05:00

Well, the massage seems to REALLY help Patty's knee. I am floored by the change it makes in her ability to use the leg properly. Today we even caught her running with the herd to flee the neighbors' dogs. (On their own side of the fence. Stupid goats.)

The one thing we're still waiting to see about is the joint supplement. I did all this research on MSM, went to get some and then accidentally brought home some made from beef tallow. Total no-no, feeding ruminants to ruminants. I had no idea there was even such a thing as animal-based MSM. I guess my research was incomplete. We'll go find a ruminant-suitable version soon. I don't know if it will really help, but I figure it can't hurt.

Oh - and we've been putting put a heat wrap on her knee while she's on the milkstand. It looks every bit as ridiculous as it sounds. I'll try to get a photo.

So, for the short term, I feel pretty good about our ability to help manage the pain. She's not ever going to be "normal", but I do think we can keep her feeling well enough to keep her going.

Sigh.

One day at a time.

Goodbye, cuteness.

2009-08-22T14:41:00.003-05:00

Thunder and Lightning finally found a new home. I will miss their insane cuteness. And I hope their new mom knows that they need daily kisses.

More tough news

2009-08-21T10:10:00.006-05:00

Having felt we had made really good progress with Patty's problem hoof, we were so disappointed when her limp came back worse than ever last week. We finally decided to bring her in to the vet to see if they could help us figure out why she was still having so much trouble.

It wasn't her hoof.

Patty has -- in another "totally-random-aliment-that-we-could-not-have-anticipated-or-prevented" moment -- pretty severe and irreversible arthritis.

Just to be clear, Patty does not have CAE, a systemic, virus-borne disease that manifests with arthritis symptoms, but is actually a much more serious - and preventable - disease. No, Patty just has plain-old, debilitating, painful, chronic arthritis in her right knee. The knee above the hoof that we treated (successfully, as it turns out) for a minor crack.

The diagnosis has left us facing the reality that we can do our best to manage her pain, but must be prepared to put her down if we are not successful.

Interestingly enough, it seems like - as with many people - Patty's knee can predict rain. We have had a little weather, and the last two days have been shockingly hard on her.

So, here we are. I am off to get joint supplements today and we are beginning a regular regimen of massaging a balm into her knee. After a particularly stiff morning that actually made me cry, I noticed an almost miraculous, instantaneous improvement simply from helping her get the joint moving with massage. It didn't make her normal, but it made her able to walk. I am trying to remain positive and hopeful that this is something we can help her live with, but am also fully prepared to act if the worst case develops. The way I figure it, that's probably all that Patty could want from us.

Let's Talk Turkey

2009-08-19T13:50:00.004-05:00

So, I realized I never updated the turkey count after the last bold, and ultimately incorrect declaration of, "The turkeys seem to have finally stopped dying." We were at nine then? Wow. I was wrong about six times over.

After one drowned himself in a bucket, two were apparently pecked to death by their bored coop mates and three managed to escape the coop and never be seen again, we were down to just three. THREE FREAKING BIRDS out of 16. Suddenly the price per bird moved from an already troubling $7 to a hefty, unsustainable $37 per poult. Did I mention that was $37 per roughly four ounce bird? So wrong.

Having proved themselves relatively indestructible, I named the remaining three birds Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego and set them free to forage the farm. I am happy to report that the three little guys are still alive and well.

Turkey Lan (the original wedding turkey) and his once gimpy friend, Turkey Lean are also doing well. And growing nicely. And it seems - and I am about as sure as I get on the whole turkey-sexing thing - that we actually do have a matched pair. Turkey Lan looks properly dude-like and turkey lean has NO wattle or snood to speak of.

No idea on genders for the Black Spanish birds yet - they have not started to develop their sex characteristics. They are deliciously ugly little dinosaurs still. Here are a few recent photos. The first is Turkey Lan trying to get in on some tasty goat dinner.

And here are a couple of the Black Spanish out on the prowl for delicious bugs.

Wish us luck. If we have mixed sexes, we will let them breed and try to recapture some of our lost turkey dollars.

Zoom!

2009-08-09T15:31:00.005-05:00

It is kind of shocking how fast large breed puppies grow.

Here is Nightshift with the Trude back on June 8.

Here they are July 27

Crazy.

Things that make me smile

2009-08-07T07:51:00.002-05:00

Some things force me to smile no matter how awful I am feeling. Baby goats jumping around is one. No sadness is immune to the power of jumpy kids.

Nightshift's extra toes are another.

Most Great Pyrenees have the double dewclaw. Trudy is a cross, so she only has one. Nightshift has them on both back feet. And she has more than just the toenail. There is a whole, big floppy toe attached. It is so cute, I can't not smile.

We are having a tough adjustment to the new household dynamic, but are working it out. I will just have to spend extra time looking at toes for a while.

The days you want to quit.

2009-08-06T09:56:00.002-05:00

Warning: I have a really awful story. Really. Awful. I am not sure I am ready to tell it - I don't know if you want to read it. I just know I am sick. So sad and so sick and so want to throw in the towel on loving animals.

Yesterday we found Milhouse dead. In the house. Several months - over a year actually, of serious denial have hit us so hard that I don't really know how to start coming back.

Max killed Milhouse. And we know know he must have also killed Boone. I had convinced myself that the Boone incident was a terrible accident. And I suppose it was. I don't think Max likely meant to kill either cat, but here we are. Two dead kittens and a dog in the animal shelter. I am devastated. I don't feel like I can ever have more pets. I just can't do this kind of pain again.

I am still in shock and after five ducks, two turkeys and two kittens, still in denial about Max. That dog slept with Milhouse. They were friends. I don't understand how this could have happened.

I just want Milhouse back. I failed him so miserably. I am trying to make things right, but losing two pets in one day does not feel "right." I just want Milhouse back.

And I really want to quit sometimes.

What I know is that we can't keep taking in hard luck strays. Not every animal can come live on our farm. We can't fix what is wrong with hard-to-place rescue dogs.

That being said, Little Chicken will stay. But without her best friend. We both just want Milhouse back. Sometimes life really, really sucks.

About those kids...

2009-08-06T07:29:00.003-05:00

So, about those late July kids...

About six months ago we decided we were going to sell Patty (their mom) and her sister Kelly. They are both nice goats who milk VERY well, but Patty has a bit of a personality issue. When we had fewer goats and milked one at a time, she was fine. When we started milking four or five at a time, she became a real pill.

Patty likes to bully the other goats on the way in the door, likes to sample the meals from their feed buckets while on the stand (and will bite the ears of the goat whose food she thinks she should be eating)), and then refuses to leave the milk parlor without sampling feed from every bucket first. ...it's ALL THE SAME FOOD!

Because Patty and Kelly are sisters and quite bonded, we decided we had to sell them together. We thought it would be a great idea to get them bred about five or six months apart so that their new family would have a nice, year-round supply of milk. In that vein, Patty got bred on the day of the Jakarta disaster.

So, not a week after being bred, Patty caught wind of or plan to sell her and came up with a serious hoof problem. She got a deeply cracked hoof wall and then also developed rot underneath it, but way up in the hoof. She immediately started a bad limp and then started walking on her knees as the rot (which we neither saw nor smelled at the time) set in. She was completely unsalable within days of being bred.

It has been a long, hard slog rehabilitating her, but she is finally close to normal again. Close. And in the meantime we have two kids. Oh well, at least Patty is milking like crazy. A gallon a day at only a few days fresh.

And we actually have a buyer coming to look at the kids today, so we'll see how it goes.

Here are updated photos of the little nuts. They are sweet, sweet, sweet. And actually, I kind of like the little late season surprise.

Figures...

2009-07-31T15:19:00.004-05:00

So today - hallelujah - we got a big, soaky thundershower. Finally.

Guess who thought that would be a fine time to go into labor?

I still need to blog out the reason we are having these strange, late/off season babies, but will have to get to it later. I just have time to post a couple quick pics.

Here are Patty's twins, Thunder and Lightning (doe and buck), fresh from the oven and not quite dry yet.

And here is a dry, sweet, tired Thunder-doe.

I'll tell their story soon.

The monkey-est butt around

2009-07-30T07:21:00.002-05:00

Day 152. Still no babies. Oh, Patty. If you ruin our off-farm dinner plans for tomorrow night I will be so very unhappy with you.

SJOTF - Family Style

2009-07-28T08:01:00.003-05:00

Mad props to the Danaher family for dividing the Stupidest Job on the Farm task three ways.

Brett took the first shift, which was relatively chicken free. Kristin took shift two, which included active defense against our rooster, Russell Crowe. Their sweet daughter Lily finished up and was so good she could do it with her eyes closed. ...or maybe that's just "covered."

Yay, SJOTF!

Monkey Butt

2009-07-27T20:26:00.005-05:00

When a goat gets ready to kid, her business end widens, flattens and, though this sounds contradictory to the flattening part, pooches out. Basically the whole apparatus takes on an appearance strikingly similar to that of an orangutan's face.

I call this monkey butt.

A call of "Monkey Butt!" means kids should be on the ground within 48 hours.

Patty has monkey butt. See?

Tomorrow is her due date. We are having late season kids. I'll explain it all when I post kid photos. For now just enjoy her monkey butt. Oh and here is a normal butt for comparison. ...and a pic of poor Patty doing what we call the "bred spread."

We're full of fun terms at BHF.

Freestyle Jazz

2009-07-23T17:45:00.006-05:00

So Christian had a bit of a minor Farmageddon moment while I was at market Tuesday. Heh. I love when I am not home for these.

He was nearing the end of milk chores and went to let the last group of goats into the parlor.(We milk four at a time. With 20 goats in milk, that is five shifts.)The last shift came in and there were only three goats. He crawled out of the tiny goat sized door to have a look to see if one was still in the barn for some reason. No dice. He looked around the barnyard. No straggler. At that point he had to figure out who was missing and why. Not a zen moment on the farm.

Since he is an old hand at the milking and kind of on autopilot while doing it now, and really spends more time looking at the business end than the faces, he wasn't sure who was missing. So he made a list. And then went out to check off who he had already seen.

I don't know why but to me -- this is the funniest part of the story. So much so, I had to take a photo of his handiwork. Heh.

Just as he got to his last two names, Challenge and Jazz, he spotted Challenge and his phone rang. It was the neighbor.

"Hey buddy. I got one of your goats over here."

At a time unknown and through methods COMPLETELY unknown, Jazz had left the comfort of Blue Heron Farm to cast her lot with the cows next door. A thorough examination of the fence, post incident, revealed no holes. It's a mystery how she got there. But it was no mystery how C would have to get her home. A walk down Bunting Road, my friends.

The neighbor was flabbergasted as Christian whistled for her and headed for home. Jazz followed him like a champ. No need to grab her chain, no need for a lead. While she may have had a bit of a yen for adventure, she also knew what side her bread was buttered on and that those cows were not going to give her any dinner.

C snapped the following with is phone on their trot home. Lookin' good Jazzy. Ya weirdo.

New Hobby

2009-07-22T10:37:00.004-05:00

We are officially trying to convince everyone who visits the farm at chore time to take a turn doing the Stupidest Job on the Farm. ...the only rule being that they have to wear the hat.

My dad was the first to oblige.

...and our friend Eric was the next.

Yes. This is our idea of fun.

...you know you want a turn.

A trip to the beach

2009-07-19T07:28:00.004-05:00

I haven't really talked about our drought here. We're in a serious drought. Serious.
So much so that our stock tank - or pond, if you are from the city - has a beach now. A %$#%$# &$^%$ ^*&^$&$ beach.

The lack of rain has ensured that we won't be bringing in hay this year. There is still enough standing grass and weeds on the acreage for the goats to eat for the time being, but we will have to start feeding them hay much earlier than normal this year. Like next month, probably. This, of course, means added expenses this year. While I hate to do it, I think it may mean a corresponding increase in our cheese prices this fall. We'll see. Stupid drought.

The silver lining, for us anyway, is that our back acreage is usually flooded in a normal year. This means that that part of our land still has lots of grass when the rest of our fields burn up. Small consolation, but it is better than what most folks around here have.

At some point you have to just stop worrying about it and move on. So yesterday we took the dogs to "the beach." Even old lady Diva enjoyed herself. Sweet girl.

Oh, come on!

2009-07-17T10:37:00.003-05:00

Does anything have the right to be this cute? For real. This is just sick.

A few photo updates

2009-07-16T07:44:00.007-05:00

So -- they say a picture is worth a thousand words. Since my last post looks like at least 1000 words (sorry!), I'll stick to photos this time. Here are a few updates.

Peep is almost fully manned out now. So handsome.

Gravy is almost as big as wild pig already. So precocious.

Bravey is not as big is Gravy, and so is way smaller than big pig. So cute.

We got more piglets. (I know this deserves a proper explanation, but I don't have time at the mo. Take your fake thousand words and be happy.)

We are hoping to take the last of the guinea keets to their new home today. ...as soon as we catch the last two, anyway. I think we waited too long. These birds are too good at the flying now.

The turkeys seem to have finally stopped dying. We have nine left from the original 16 mail-order poults. Plus the two feed store birds, so 11 in the coop. Gobble gobble!

There. That's, like, 6200 words. Now I gotta go make cheese already!

Weekend with Molly

2009-07-12T10:56:00.005-05:00

Sorry for the huge delay in updates. I guess we've been busy. ...Though I can't, for the life of me, explain what we may have been doing that was out of the ordinary. ...farming is sometimes like that. It's kind of a black hole for time and resources. It is a black hole so dense you can't even prove you ever had that time or those resources in the first place. In my mind, it is still July 5th or so and I don't know exactly how to reconcile today's actual date. Whatever -- water under the bridge.

So yeah. Molly was here last weekend. Molly is a lovely young Dexter cow, owned by FOF Leslie, who also sold us our very first goats. Leslie wanted to take some time to attend her kids' fencing tournament in Dallas, but as you may have gathered by now, there is no such thing as "time off" when you have dairy animals. They need to be milked twice a day, every day. Or they stop making milk. Oh, I suppose you could go down to one-a-days for a while, but what would be the point? You still couldn't leave town. Understanding that hard truth, we gladly took four of Leslie's goats and her cow for the weekend. We have been considering adding a Dexter to our farm for a while, so we thought this would be a great trial run.

Let me just say we will not be adding a cow based on this trial run.

This is not an indictment of Molly. And further, I'm not saying we won't ever have one, but poor Molly had a bit of a tough time at our farm and I do not think we can judge cows based on her brief, unusual stay at our farm. Here's the rundown.

Thursday 10 pm: Molly and the goats arrive. We get the full disclosure on Molly's situation. Her weanling calf had just been taken away that day and sent to its new home. Molly makes it apparent that she has no idea where in the hell she is and, more importantly where the hell her baby is, approximately 14 seconds after Leslie leaves. We are treated to sad, mournful and occasionally angry bellowing until about sunrise.

Friday 8 am: We put Molly's lead on and bring her to the milking area. She leads like a dream. She really is a sweet cow. We get the bucket out, set up a stool and coo gently to her as we clean her teats. The milk starts leaking out before I even get started. This bodes well.

8:05 am - Molly has decided she has given us enough milk. But it is only about 2/3 the amount Leslie said would be the minimum she should give. I remember Leslie saying we may have to sing to her to get her to let the milk down. Christian and I sing Happy Birthday (the only song we know all of the words to) about 10 times before we just start making up songs about cows and milk. Bad songs. There is to be no more milk this morning.

Friday 6 pm: After a day with much bellowing we repeat the morning ritual and get only 1/2 the milk we got that morning - or 1/3 the amount we should get per milking. We call Leslie to see if she has any other tricks to get Molly to let the milk down. No dice. She says not to worry and just take what we can get.

Repeat this for three days. (Minus the call to Leslie. That was, I am sure to her relief, a solo-event.) In each successive milking, we get only the amount we got that first night, which is less than our goats give on a bad day.

Let's just say I spent A LOT of time freaking out hoping we did not ruin Molly for the whole season.

The good news is that Molly's agitation level decreased with each day she was here. But the experience left me less than jazzed about getting a cow. I can't see adding another animal to the mix with a whole different milking mo-jam if we aren't going to get at least two or three gallons a day. ...which, honestly we probably would have if it weren't for the stress and the insane heat we were having here. I think the poor girl just didn't have it in her. I think she was mad. And to the extent she was able, I think she showed it by holding back her milk. She didn't know who I was, but she was dang sure I wasn't her calf.

Aside from the low milk output and the sad, sad and extraordinarily loud bellowing, we really enjoyed having her here. She was a gentle, sweet, easily handled love of a beast. I only wish we had had a better representation of what life with our own cow might be. I suspect we'll have to go visit her and milk her over at Leslie's place some day.

On Monday we were about to leave the farm for a dinner out on the town when I realized I hadn't taken any pictures of her before her scheduled departure that night. Christian snapped a couple before I realized how absurd it was to pose with a cow in makeup and a dress. Enjoy the silliness that followed. I call that last look "Blue Steel".

I don't think we'll be doing this again...

2009-07-04T15:49:00.004-05:00

Turkeys. Ugh.

We have lost five. These stupid things have become a ridiculous, expensive folly.

Now two I think I probably cooked. That was my own stupidity. The other three? I don't know. One died overnight. Christian found another while I was at market and I just picked up another one about five minutes ago. WTH??? Three of the five that have died are the Blue Slates - the ones I was most looking forward to raising. Sigh. Not doing this again. For real.

Here is how they looked yesterday evening. No gimps. I just don't know what is happening, but probably they are not all eating and drinking enough.

The ones that are still in there look good, but I am not counting my turkeys before the pop-up timer goes off.

Lest you think it is all Bhutan-Turkey Death March around here - we do have some new life. Molly the guest cow is here. I will post more on her soon - I need to take a few photos first.

Gobble gobble!

2009-07-02T12:14:00.005-05:00

OMG - the poults are here. We had one DOA, but they throw in extra just in case that happens. 16 of the little turklings survived their fantastic journey.

...and they came with no label.

I have no idea what we got, but it looks like there are two breeds. ...anyone?

Edited at 1:15: It seems the dark ones are Black Spanish. The light ones may either be Blue Slate or Royal Palm. We'll see as they begin to feather out.

Oh...and we almost killed them all already. It seems that they CAN get too warm - and leaving their box in the Texas sun would be just how that would happen. They are now inside the coop. I hope they survive our stupidity.

Peeperty Update

2009-07-01T07:16:00.003-05:00

Peep(Named by our nieces and not to be confused with peep peeps, who are guinea babies) is about half way though his transformation to manhood. Again I have included a photo of our female, Star, for comparison. Peep looked JUST like her a month ago.

Crazy. Nature is a trip.

Stupidest Job on the Farm

2009-06-30T09:46:00.007-05:00

Ok-- really. We're out of control. The lunatics are completely in charge of the asylum.

Somehow we have gotten into the habit of protecting the barn cats' breakfast and dinner from the chickens. I suppose we should start with the fact that our barn cats get two squares a day, but I actually find that one easy to defend. These are pet barn cats. Not unlovable, aloof barn cats. They interact with us, sit in our laps, come visit in the house yard and still, despite their small meals, do a darned fine job of catching and eating varmints. They are great cats.

What I am at odds to explain is how we began the ritual of sitting on a bucket and waving a fishing rod at the chickens to keep them out of the cats' food. It is a job I take on more frequently than Christian, but it is way funnier to see C doing it in his big farmer hat.

...enjoy.

Oh - and for the record - this is what it looks like from the bucket. Scary, huh?

Hi!

2009-06-29T20:24:00.004-05:00

Disaster Recovery

2009-06-29T11:14:00.005-05:00

Back around the time of Ike, a lot of people asked us what a hurricane/power outage would mean to us and how catastrophic it would be. We found out today that we were exactly right in our assessment.

Because of our extremely small size, the frequency with which we process milk, and our rate of sales, our worst case - a power failure with no backup generator - would mean we would have to dispose of everything we had on hand. Which again, worst-case for us, would mean the entire contents of two refrigerators.

Breaking that down further, it would likely mean no more than 24 or so gallons of milk and no more than 50 pounds of cheese - but it would be unlikely that we would ever have that much milk and cheese both at the same time, as we sell everything we make about every three days.

Last night one of our refrigerators succumbed to the insane heat wave and froze-up while working overtime to get down to temp. This happened overnight and we came out to a fridge full of milk idling at about 55 or 60 degrees this morning. Oh noez!

We were supposed to turn 22 gallons into feta today and instead, the milk began to curdle on its own and the pigs were treated to 18 gallons - or approximately 144 pounds of soured, slightly curdled "fridge cheese". Sigh.

Due to an unusually large accumulation of milk before processing, we actually had quite a bit of milk in the other fridge (normally we keep milk in one and cheese in the other) and so did not lose our entire stock - which was at a near record 33 gallons. Fifteen gallons were fine and are culturing away in the pasteurizer now.

But we will not be going to market tomorrow.

The good news is that we defrosted the frozen parts and the fridge is working fine again. We plan to get a better A/C unit for the dairy to keep the ambient temp at 86 or so for the rest of the summer to avoid this happening again. We had just been running the A/C while we were working or while cheese was hanging, but we have learned that this does not actually work when it's 100 plus outside.

All this being said, I am proud to report that my days of crying over spilt - or in this case spoilt - milk are firmly behind me. While I was incredibly frustrated today, I was able to see that it is not REALLY catastrophic. We lost money today, to be sure...but not so much that we won't bounce back next week.

Farming. The fun never ends.

Peep-mania!

2009-06-24T10:53:00.005-05:00

Well! Debbie came home from her broody sabbatical with three little white peeps this morning. We never did figure out where her nest was, so there is no telling how many eggs she actually hatched and how many babies she may have lost on the way back to the barn from her nest site. At this point she is three times better than Dawn on her first go and she blew out Audrey, who hatched two and came back with none.

Here are two of them with proud mama.

While I was out there, I caught a quick updated photo of Mickie and Dawn's remaining peeps. There are still five and they all fly now. That will make it exponentially harder to round them up and re-home them. :( But I think it's time for them to go. We don't need so many guineas and we have already arranged a trade for a future turkey processing.

And speaking of turkeys... We lost two of the poults. :( One, um, kind of, well...walked into our dog's mouth. Ahem. And one went completely AWOL. We quickly re-settled the other two in the coop whereupon one started to look really gimpy. To say I panicked is an understatement. I mean - one needs to make it to Thanksgiving. It was a freakin' wedding present. I briefly considered sending a photo of a dead turkey with a note, "I am sorry, but your turkey died. Take this as a lesson. If you do not properly care for your marriage, it too will die." But that seemed bad even for me. So we ordered 15 more that will be mailed out next week. Just in case.

Yes. 15.

Why, you ask? Good question. It's crazy, huh? Well, it is really the minimum order. They can't mail you just one or two - they need to fill a box to provide warmth and cushioning. That's why we get them at the feed store. They order in bulk and we can pick up as many as we want.

So anyway, the feed store is done now. I had to get serious. On 7/29 the hatchery will put 15 day-old heritage breed turkeys in a box and send them our way. I elected the "Hatchery Choice" option, meaning they can send us any kind they have on hand. We may get 15 of one kind or we may get 3-4 each of four kinds. I have no idea. I only hope they will tell us what they sent.

Our plan is to get them past the critical do or die point (6 weeks or so) and then sell all but maybe five on craigslist. And we're building a mobile coop - or turkey tractor - to avoid any more losses to our bad house dog, Max.

Ugh. Have I ever mentioned that we are NOT a poultry farm? You wouldn't really know it these days.

When it's time to change....

2009-06-21T07:21:00.004-05:00

Well, this is cool.

One of our mallards is having some kind of crazy puberty.

When we first started seeing plumage on our mallards, we thought we had all females. Very drab, brown coloring. It was a little bummer, but no biggie. I mean, it's not like we actually NEED them to breed and make more ducks. It's kind of poultry-palooza around here right now. Then I found out we actually had males in "eclipse" plumage. Which, I now believe was actually just juvenile, plumage, but whatever - same net: Brown. Drab. I think I posted about this before but am too lazy to check my archives.

In any case, Peep - our male - is starting to molt the boring browns and get his flashy adult male/breeding plumage. It is an amazing thing to watch. Here are a couple photos. The first is how he looked pre-molt. The second is a few days into the molt. Peep is the one in the back. In the front is Star - the female. Peep looked just like her until days before the photo was taken.

You can see the pretty silver-grey feathers coming in and his face is getting decidedly green.

I am blown away by this. Nature is just too weird. I'll take a few more pics in the next couple weeks and show you his progress. Go, Peep! I hope the mating follows. I can't help it...I just love baby ducks.

Testicles!

2009-06-12T07:52:00.006-05:00

Well, I guess Milhouse is not a girl after all. "She" is starting to grow some little testicles. Huh. Good thing we're not kitten farmers. We'd be way behind the curve.

Little Chicken is still a girl. So there's that. And the cuteness - it has not diminished. Ouch.

No means no!

2009-06-11T12:03:00.003-05:00

So Tuesday morning, all went well. Trudy seemed to sniff every inch of the back pasture and didn't come home with her fawn. Hooray!

Late Tuesday morning I began to feel incredibly ill. Christian had been sick/achy all day Monday, but mine was more of a stomach thing. A MAJOR, painful stomach thing. By afternoon, I was out for the count. The stomach part of the sickness caught Christian, too, and both of us whimpered our way through the rest of the day and bravely faced milking that night and the next morning, despite our crumminess.

So Wednesday morning I was looking out of the kitchen window while washing dishes and saw Trudy in a telltale posture. The - "OMG I can't believe I have this thing, this wonderful thing, and I hope Mom doesn't see it and take it away from me" pose. I clutched my tummy and strode out to the field to see what she had.

Between her paws, and covered in doggy saliva was her little buddy, who I had named Fawn Haul. (I'll blame that one on being delirious from sick). I took the wet fawn away and brought her back to the dairy barn. I put her down in front of Christian and set about locking Trudy up so I could bring her back to her field. We looked her over, decided she had been eating and was walking well and so I brought her back and put her in some tall grass and went inside to feel crummy. Hours later she was gone again.

Our best guess on what is happening here is that the mom was able to step over the hot wire and through the barbed wire at the back of our field, but the fawn was not. So the mom has been coming to feed her and move her and hide her daily and will eventually - when the fawn can get through the fence - take her away.

In any case, we did not see here again today. Thank god. Because really, we just can't have her here. For one, it is a huge distraction for the Trude. And beyond that, deer can carry parasites that are REALLY devastating to goats. If Trudy finds her again, we'll either have to put her on the other side of the fence or call a rescue agency. She's ridiculously cute, but enough is enough.

...besides, I'm pretty sure she's the one who gave us that awful deer-bola. I am just now feeling well enough to handle food/make cheese and we are WAY behind schedule because of it.

...stupid Fawn Haul.

No, you cannot stay.

2009-06-08T07:35:00.006-05:00

Sheesh. I think we have some kind of karmic wildlife sucker reputation. The animals won't stop comin'.

Yesterday, after much research and plans to be away from home for most of the day, we decided to try to return Tequila to his nest. Baby birds need to eat very frequently, and we jut were not going to be able to keep up. Christian rigged up an elaborate tractor/ladder combo to reach the nest and successfully deposited the little fledgling back where he belonged.

We spent the day in town and when we came back, saw Grumpy sitting on the tractor and the mama bird irritatedly swooping at him. That was all I needed to see to know that she had found her baby. Success!

So we brought the goats in from pasture and got ready to milk when Trudy showed up and presented this little gem to Christian.

I have to give her some credit. To a dog, this must certainly look like a baby goat. And lord knows where she found it, but she got it back to the barn without hurting it.

We decided in VERY short order that we would not be bottle raising a deer and called a friend with lots of rescue experience for advice. She said to bring her back to the field and that mama would most likely come looking for her. It is part of the deal that they leave newborns (and this little one could not have been more than 24 hours old) to eat and come back later. We put her in some tall grass under a tree and hoped for the best.

This morning Christian crossed his fingers and went out to look for her. He couldn't find her anywhere and we think nature actually did its thing and that mama came to get her.

Thank goodness. Quite frankly, the inn is full right now. We only have room for pictures.

Because we don't have enough to do around here....

2009-06-06T14:33:00.004-05:00

Yesterday evening we found Grumpy crouched in the driveway, being harassed by a couple of mockingbirds. It was another chance for me to assume there was something dead.

Turns out -- again -- I was wrong. It was something alive. But 20 feet below its nest. I guess Grumpy was just watching it for us.

We are now hand-raising a baby mockingbird who Christian named Tequila. (Get it?) Because, you know we have so much free time around here. *roll eyes*

I admit - the pathetic-ness of this little guy has won me over.

Get your anti-nausea meds ready...

2009-06-05T11:15:00.003-05:00

Meet Night Shift. Our new Great Pyrenees puppy. She came home today.

Penny Lane and Binder aren't so sure about her. Little Chicken, on the other hand, thinks she's fab.

She'll live in the kid pen for a few months with periodic training outings with Trudy and the big girls. I hope she's even half as good at her job as the Trude.

Kitmo

2009-06-05T07:52:00.003-05:00

This is Milhouse in self-imposed exile under a coffee table in the office. We call it Kitmo.

Because I feel bad for bumming everyone out with the Loretta story.And because this is just the kind of thing that forces me to laugh.

We're doing OK here, BTW. The vet put Lo down yesterday. It was peaceful and quiet and she is no longer in any pain. Totally worth every penny.

Seriously???

2009-06-03T19:12:00.003-05:00

Went out for our nightly ritual of watching ducks play in the baby pool. Six ducks are gone. And one peep peep. No sign of any of them. No feathers, no carcasses. Nothing. I seriously don't need this right now.

Edited at 7:28. Christian found the ducks. They were lost in the waaaay back acreage. They are all there.

The peep peep, not so much. :(

I am sure I've mentioned this before -- that I always think everything is dead. Christian never does. I love that sometimes he's right. Most of the time, actually. Thanks, C.

You just can't say...

2009-06-03T14:14:00.005-05:00

When we first started out farming we said a lot of things about how our farm would be run and how we, as business people, would handle situations from land stewardship to animal health and everything in between.

What we have learned is that all that talk really doesn't mean anything. You can only make the decisions you have to make as you are faced with them, and you can't know what circumstances will have led to that point.

Early on we said there would be no vets. With great hubris, we would announce things like, "our vets will be Smith and Wesson"; because ultimately a good quality milk goat can be purchased for between three and five hundred dollars, so accruing a vet bill for $300 would simply be bad business.

But here we are. With $300 already spent to diagnose Loretta's cancer and another $120 or so to go to have her euthanized and incinerated. Which I think we may do tomorrow.

So how did we get here? It is a number of things, but here are the factors unique to this decision:

1. Loretta presented with symptoms we were unable to process into a diagnosis we could be sure of.

She had a slight facial paralysis, difficulty eating and controlling her tongue and what we though were swollen lymph nodes. No fever, which made us wary of calling it a simple infection. She did not respond to our first line measures including benadryl (in case it was bee/scorpion sting or snakebite) and an anti-inflammatory pain medication to help reduce inflammation and pain related to eating. Neither helped her at all. Having ruled out bite/sting, we started thinking it actually WAS an infection of some sort, even though she had no fever. We needed a prescription antibiotic anyway, assuming it might have been an inner ear infection or something dental, so we figured we might as well take her in to be sure what we were facing and to get the proper antibiotic. It wouldn't take much for a vet to figure it out if it were one of those two things. And we could get the drugs as well as a few backup prescription meds for our stash. Normally, we are our own vets.

When we got to the vet, she ruled out teeth and ears. She thought the swelling we saw on her neck were abscesses, not swollen nodes,and as I mentioned in my last post,you do not mess around with abscesses on a goat. Our management philospohy says you must culture the pus and isolate the goat until you can be sure you are not dealing with CL. So we did. We also had to address the appetite issues and the fact that if a goat stops eating for too long it can irreversibly damage its rumen. Total vet bill for blood testing, medicines, theraputic drugs and outlab CL testing - $300.

2. We recently had the world's worst farm experience in having to euthanize Jakarta.

Christian is still affected by that day in the barn and honestly is not prepared to do it again. And he is pretty sure that even though I offered to do it this morning, I am not either. I can't say. You can't know until you do something. You can talk big about shooting a goat - and a lot of people have no problem doing it. We are just not those people. Not yet anyway. This is something that may or may not change. Add to that the fact that we don't have a good place to leave the carcass (Because I REALLY don't want parts to come home in Trudy's weird pile) and we decided we may as well pay the $75 to have them dispose of the body, too. My guess is that the whole thing will be between $120-150.

So there we are.

We talked about all of this at length. We asked whether this made us "bad" farmers. We know it makes no sense financially. But here it is: It's who we are today. And what feels right for us in this specific situation. And in the end, that's all you have. You just can't say how you'll be until the time comes to be.

I hope we don't have hard choices like this again soon, though we are not so naive to think we won't have them again. This is part of farming and having animals. The very, very hard part. Does it make us bad farmers? No. I think I could argue that it is what makes us good farmers. Be the change you want to see. These are the farmers we are.

Sweet Loretta

2009-06-02T10:52:00.004-05:00

Oh, shit.

Loretta has cancer.

She took ill last week and we brought her to the vet. The vet thought she had CL, which would have been devastating to our herd. CL is a highly contagious disease that results in abscesses and can never fully be eradicated once it is in your soil. We have been very careful about buying from clean herds only and not allowing strange animals on the property, so we were skeptical that that could be what was wrong.

The good news for the herd is that we were right. The bad news for all of us is that it is Lymphosarcoma and death will come rapidly now that she has shown signs.

We will be doing our best to keep her comfortable and when it gets too hard for her to eat and play, we will have her put down, quietly, at the vet.

I am so sad. It is always the sweetest goats that this kind of thing hits. Lo has been a wonderful, sweet, clowny girl in our herd and we will miss her so much. I'm not much on the praying for livestock, but if you will keep us in your thoughts, it would be much appreciated.

More ToDs!

2009-05-31T09:20:00.002-05:00

We have poults!

A couple days ago our feed store finally got in the annual turkeys. We bought four. Little poults are notoriously dumb and delicate - an often lethal combination. We hope to get two adults out of this, though it would be great if we could successfully raise all four.

One is actually going to be a wedding present for some friends. (I'm pretty sure they don't read the blog...hope I'm not ruining the surprise.) I'm going to crop the photo below and put it in a card. We will be raising a free range, naturally fed turkey for their first married Thanksgiving together. This is arguably the weirdest wedding gift I have ever given. Oh wait - no. I gave a taxidermy jackalope once. Long story.

Anyway - someone gave the bride a nice Calphalon roaster at the shower and she seemed pretty jazzed about it. I think this will complement that nicely.

The poults are in the house now, but will move to the coop shortly; we recently vacated the guineas to make room. Our friend D'Ann took 10 of the keets. The other six are free ranging with their mamas and proud papa. We are in a serious bird-a-palooza now. Let's hope all of the little ones are tough.

W.Y.O.C.

2009-05-28T07:49:00.001-05:00

For serious. My explaining this photo can't possibly be as good as whatever story you might be making up in your mind. Write your own caption.

It is love

2009-05-27T10:17:00.004-05:00

Milhouse and Chicken sittin' in a tree...

13, 14, 15 ....16!

2009-05-25T15:54:00.004-05:00

I was washing dishes in the dairy yesterday morning when Christian came in and told me to hurry up and follow him. I followed him out back and looked where he had pointed his finger and saw Mickie with three little white peeps. She had hatched them out and was on walkabout with them.

We went back to her nest where nine eggs remained. It was reminiscent of Dawn's first attempt at motherhood when she came home with one peep. She probably felt it, thought she was done and came home, abandoning who knows how many eggs in the process. Anyway, experience told us she wouldn't return to hatch more, so we set off to get her in the coop with the new peeps before the impending rain started.

We got the peeps in right away, but Mickie wouldn't follow at first. I figured Dawn could raise them if she never came, and left them in the coop to go finish chores. I asked C if we could gather the remaining eggs and put them under a lamp, just to see if we could get more and he got it all set up while I kept washing.

Let me just say I had NO IDEA how close to put the light to the eggs. But more than once I thought I saw an egg or two move.

We finished morning chores and found Mickie at the coop door with one peep who squeezed out to be with her and one more wedged under the door. I sent all of them in with Dawn and the others and hoped for the best. When I came out later, Mickie was sitting on all 14 peeps and Dawn was just stretching her legs. Success. We have co-mommies.

Later that morning I went back to check on the eggs and heard peeping. For real. From solid eggs. Totally creepy. But also exciting.

By that night, one egg had a hairline crack in it and more peeping.

...and a couple started to stink. I think I may have cooked the duds.

Long story short, we hatched out one last peep this morning. We let him sit under the lamp until he was dry and moved him off with his mommies and sibs. We chucked the rest of the eggs, which showed no signs of life. At last count, all 16 were doing fine, though "Retarded Peep", as we are calling the late hatch, was a little slow. (Hence the name. Please know we are using retarded as it is intended, to mean slowed - not as a pejorative.) We hope he'll make it, but if he doesn't we are still pretty pleased. 16 guineas at $5 each... time to line up buyers.

Oh, and as a cute update, here's a shot my dad took when my folks were here Friday. Eeeee!

Peep Saga Redux

2009-05-21T07:14:00.004-05:00

Well-- the peep story ended up being way less than straightforward.

Dawn is in the coop with 11 right now.

One of the original 12 died overnight - and we think one more looks a little weak. It's one that Christian helped out of its shell, so it wasn't too likely to make it on its own anyway. But we'll see.

Mickie is back on the nest with 12 eggs. This after we initially cleared the nest to try -- unsuccessfully -- to move all moms, babies and remaining eggs to the coop. Mickie wouldn't go and Dawn wouldn't sit on the moved eggs. So we left the babies with Dawn and moved the unbroken eggs back to Mic.

We think there were two clutches of eggs at different stages of development. That the mamas started to brood at different times and that some aren't "cooked" yet.

At least that's the thought this morning. From two farmers who know very little about birds and who have been too lazy or busy to look up the odds of that happening.

I didn't get around to taking photos until the light was really difficult last night, so here's a kind of cruddy one. I'll try to get more soon and will post an update if the rest of the eggs start to hatch. Again - they are cute but totally not needed at BHF. They can be yours if the price is right.

Edited at 9:33 -- OK- it's hard to count squirmy peep peeps. Looks like we have 12 now, not 11. So I guess that means we started with 13. No movement on the rest of the eggs yet. Oh! And Audrey, the other pied guineas, has started to brood a nest of 20-30 eggs. Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

Slippery Slope

2009-05-20T10:10:00.006-05:00

So-- I'm not sure I am a vegetarian anymore.

If you remember back to April, I ate Dory, the she-male ninja turkey. Never posted about the whole fry, but it went well and I would highly recommend the cooking method to anyone considering it. We brined him for about 24 hours - an hour per pound - and then thoroughly dried him before beginning. The result between the brining and the quick sear of the hot oil was a really moist, flavorful bird. I actually enjoyed it.

Here's a photo for fun.

So last week we were telling our neighbor, Larry, about it and I told him I would be open to eating other animals, so long as I knew exactly how and where they were raised and what they had eaten. That maybe we would raise a few other meat animals. He told us he puts a calf in the freezer every year from his herd that is raised only on milk and grass. Now for reasons unknown, Larry REALLY wants me to be an omnivore, so when I said I thought that something like that would be OK, he promptly brought over a giant steak.

I ate it. Not the whole steak, but a few pieces. Another photo for your viewing pleasure.

Not bad. I wouldn't go out of my way for it, but it was pretty good.

Then last weekend I ate goat at D'Ann's house. And that was actually REALLY delicious. No photos available.

Crazy, huh? I guess I'm no longer a vegetarian, though I won't be eating a lot of meat and I won't eat any conventionally farmed meat. I think I'm going to be a friend-a-tarian. I want to know my meat and its owners.

12:51 Update: Nine and counting

2009-05-19T12:51:00.002-05:00

The peep peep tally is at nine and counting.

Both mamas are still under the bench, but I have seen nine keets hopping around in the grass beside them. Oh - and three colorings - it looks like we'll have lavenders, whites and pieds from this batch. :) Photos still to come. Yay, peep peeps!

They are ALL for sale.

Oh noez! Too much cutez!

2009-05-19T09:38:00.007-05:00

Uh-oh. I think we're a little out of control.

Saturday we went to a graduation party at Fairwoods Farm. (Congratulations, again, Amy!)and the plan was to bring home a kitten. I had been ready to try again for a while now and D'Ann's barn kitty was just weaning some little ones, so -- you know -- good times.

Well, we had just picked out my kitty to bring home later when some of the kids came running, trailed by a little yellow puppy that they said some people just dumped. D'Anne's grandkids said MeeMaw would "shoot that dog with her 22" if she saw it. (A rumor later dispelled. MeeMaw only shoots the strays that threaten her goats. Or dig in her beautiful garden. The rest she sends to a rescue.)

The kids' powerful argument coupled with the puppy's insane cuteness and sweet, submissive personality earned her an immediate car ride over to BHF. Christian crated her on our porch and then came back to the party.

By party's end we went home, new kitty in hand, to a vastly changed house dynamic. Meet the newest indoor animals.

Milhouse

and Little Chicken.

It was sometime after his return to the party, Little Chicken safely stowed at home, that Christian made a little cuteness confession. He had recently made a deal to get Trudy a co-worker. We are officially awaiting the weaning of a Great Pyrenees puppy from Swede Farm. She was going to be a surprise for me, but at the point we'd acquired two baby animals, it seemed just silly to keep any charade going. It was time to get used to cute overload.

So today, on a mission to get back to the real world, which is not always pretty, I decided it was time to break up the nest that Dawn and Mickie were sitting on. As I mentioned, I was sure the time for a healthy hatch had long passed, and I NEVER want to deal with putrid eggs again. (The thought of that duck egg still triggers my gag reflex.) So this morning I went out with a broom in hand, ready to get the girls a-movin'. I took a quick peek under the low bench where they had built their nest, to determine who I should try to move first, and found myself face to beak with a little lavender peep peep. The eggs are hatching!

We've only seen two, but there were at least 18 eggs in the nest, being brooded by two mamas. We'll give them a little longer to get them all out and then go scoop up the keets and move the whole family to the chicken coop. I'll get photos later, but seriously. Do you think you can take that much cute in one day? Good thing I don't have any Pyr photos yet. Oy!

Oh, Alice

2009-05-15T07:34:00.003-05:00

I guess Alice still really wants to be a mom. Despite flying off and pretty much rejecting her little ducklings, she seems to have a highly developed instinct for actually hatching out the babies.

A few days ago, I found a crazy nest of mixed eggs. There were three duck eggs, a green chicken egg and a brown chicken egg. It seemed that three birds were laying in the same little nest, burrowed into a hay bale in the barn. We didn't know how long the eggs had been there, but since there were not too many, I went ahead and brought them in the house to eat. It couldn't have been more than a few days since they were laid since we still have baby ducks about. Alice must have just started laying again.

A couple days later, I went to check the same spot to pick up any new eggs and Alice was there. I figured she was making her daily deposit, so I left. When she got up to eat breakfast, I found her latest egg, plus a serious clutch of eggs that had previously been hidden. They had to have been there when I pulled the other eggs, but I failed to notice them as they were already packed under feathers and hay. Alice had gotten them ready to brood. I was completely blown away and I definitely wanted to share the crazy nest with Christian, so I left all of the eggs there to show him.

Later we both went out to see the nest and Alice was firmly in place. I told C that we were going to have to take her off of it and remove all of the eggs to break her broody spell. We knew her eggs weren't fertile, as we lost our male a while ago. (I was going to post about it, but C said I wrote entirely too many entries about dead animals. But he actually died two weeks before all of those sweet ducklings were born. A nice legacy for old Karl.)

Anyway, we got a bag to put the eggs in, removed a very unhappy Alice from the nest and pulled out her treasure: about six duck eggs, maybe eight brown chicken eggs, two green chicken eggs and a guinea egg.

Poor Alice. She won't be hatching out that bizarre clan.

And in other failed motherhood news, we are not sure Dinner Duck's nest has any viable eggs in it, either. We believe the time has pretty much come and gone for a successful hatch and we have not seen babies. We candled three of her eggs and found them empty and tossed them. The fourth seemed like it may have had a duckling in it, but now I'm not so sure. I wish I had marked the calendar when she started to set.

Then it seems the two guineas who have been brooding might have dud eggs as well. We pulled one to candle and it was definitely not fertile, either. I can't remember when they began to brood, but I think the three weeks it takes to hatch have come and gone for them as well.

To think I was just bragging about our fertility.

Oh well, at least the guineas can try again. I guess we'll go steal their eggs today. Poor non-mamas.

Edited at 10:30am: Dinner Duck's eggs were not just empty, they were rotten. That's why the light wouldn't penetrate them when we candled. And when I say rotten, I mean stinking, green, I-almost-threw-up-twice-when-we-opened-one rotten. We think she may have started a nest on OLD eggs left over from the days of our Pekins, Maverick and Iceman. ...that would make those eggs about two years old. ...hurl.

Dinner Duck is out and about commiserating with Alice. Things will be fine.

Pig butts!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-05-12T10:29:00.003-05:00

Ok, seriously. Little piglet butts may be the cutest thing ever.

We picked up four new piglets yesterday, though only two are staying here. The other are going to be fattened up at Fairwoods Farm along with one of our two semi-wild guys.

It turned out that our friend D'Ann had actually been looking for the wild kind, but couldn't find them. On top of that, we were only able to place one of our two with a restaurant, so she got Spotty Pig and we are growing the brindle one out to about 180 pounds for Feast.

Even with just the two Bacon brothers, we were overflowing with whey, so hopefully these new guys will be good eaters. So far, it looks promising.

Even though one of the new kids is spotty, too, the snouts look nothing at all like those of the wild pigs. Here is the one we kept for comparison. ...growing nicely. :)

Anyone know the average yield for crookneck squash?

2009-05-08T10:59:00.005-05:00

I don't know if it's normal or it's the goat poop, but the crookneck squash is monster. I stopped counting at about 30 little squashes. ..on one plant.

I am going to harvest the male blossoms to stuff with goat cheese, and I may pick some baby squashes just to try them.

Seriously - is this normal? Good thing we like squash. And good thing I didn't plant a nine-pack like I did with the stupid Chinese cabbage. Look at all the little buds still starting!

What a week!

2009-05-04T13:13:00.003-05:00

Ok- so I went out to take more garden photos today. I can't believe the difference we are seeing in just one week. Here is the photo from last Monday:

And here is the same shot today. Go veg!!! Look at the tomato plant in the far corner! And the peppers in front of it. The beans are at least 2x as tall, too.

The crookneck squash are going bonkers and the broccoli-- don't get me started. Two heads have gone to flowers because we can't keep up the pace eating it. There are jalapenos ready to be picked and we have put in okra where we harvested Chinese cabbage.

Oh - and we may yet get Brussels sprouts -- look!

I am so digging the garden. No pun intended.

Sweet, bad girls

2009-05-04T13:02:00.002-05:00

The other night I was coming in from milking and noticed it was VERY quiet as I approached our yard. Too quiet.

The little girls had busted out of their pen and were quietly working on the little flower bed underneath the crape myrtles. They got their fill of roses, crape myrtle, dewberry vines and other deliciousness as the sun set.

Sweet, bad girls. At least it wasn't my veggie garden.

Wow. Weird.

2009-04-28T07:27:00.004-05:00

Yesterday we had a huge storm come through. At about 8pm, it cleared up to the west just in time for the sunset, but was still dark, dark, dark to the east where the storm was headed. The light was bizarre and eerie and it took me quite a few tries to set the camera to capture it accurately, but I think I finally got it. ...creepy, huh?