Buckling love…

Meriadoc (aka ‘Merry’) kidded one single large buckling yesterday afternoon. Please meet ‘Ragnar’. He’s a mighty Viking lover-boy!!!

…and our 2016 kidding is complete!! Two does freshened! YAY! Let the cheesemaking begin!

wooly wednesday: overwhelmed

Feeling a bit overwhelmed! Three of our Ober kids left home this past Sunday for green pastures down in Kentucky!! Bittersweet for sure… miss those sweet kids!! We have two bucklings (Merry’s triplets) still looking for a good ‘pet’ home… since I will be castrating them soon!

So, I’ve been adjusting my bottle-feeding schedule and cheesemaking schedule… to adapt to SO MUCH MORE MILK!!! I suppose it’s a good thing at the moment, since Dairy Days (an event at Metropark Wolcott Farm) is ‘happening’ on Saturday. I’ll be working/talking about cheesemaking.

The gardens seem to require constant attention, staking the tomatoes, picking snow peas and weeding!!

My Shetland lambs are growing well… looking for homes also (also bittersweet!)!!

Totes my goats!

I do apologize for my absence… but, I’ve been a bit preoccupied! Merry, our second doe (another first freshener), kidded in the wee early morning hours on Friday. Triplets: two bucklings and one doe!!!

Also, Friday morning, one of our Shetland ewes, Serendipity, lambed: twin rams. But wait… there’s more!! This Sunday morning, Reece, lambed!! Triplets!!! Two ewe lambs and one ram lamb! Ditto last year!! Everyone is doing well!! More photos coming!!

Oh happy day!!

wooly wednesday: fuzzy babies

Perhaps not wooly, but, warm and fuzzy!! My daughter’s Oberhasli doe, Eowyn (aka ‘Fuzzy’) a first freshener, kidded first thing this morning. Twin bucklings (boys)!

The first buckling was breech (back legs presented first) and needed a little assistance. Once ‘cleared’, his brother almost ‘popped’ out (normal presentation).

Mama and boyz are doing fine! Oh happy day!

Baby goat tails: Evergreen Lane Creamery, Fennville, MI

Arya and Zeak: friends

 

Arya, Oberhasli doeling and…

Zeak, Katie’s German Shepherd puppy. Playmates!

A busy week.

The past week has been both busy and productive! Memorial Day weekend is ~ traditionally ~ the big push to get the garden planted… safe to presume there’s no longer a threat of frost here in Michigan!? I’ve been weeding, purchasing seeds/starter plants [tomato and green peppers] and amending the soil with more compost… to make-ready for the actual planting. Most of the planting was performed by my husband, Katie (who’s home for the summer) and Matt and his girlfriend, Sam. Many hands make light work!!

We have a small [but productive] vegetable garden consisting of raised beds.

The Hubs prefers to grow tomato plants on a ‘trellis’, keeping the fruit off the ground. Bush beans are planted opposite the tomatoes. I have yet to plant a few more veggies (winter squash I think) in the remaining open space. Next up, replace the split rail fence [that currently encompasses the veggie garden] with a picket fence – a more goat kid-proof alternative now that the garden is ‘occupied‘!

It was a beautiful weekend for bonfires and camping in the backyard!

Also in the works… my herb garden make-over. The raised beds, after many years of service,  require re-building too. I thought I’d take advantage of this opportunity to also re-design/simplify the herb garden. Fewer beds and less congestion in the existing footprint. More on that as we make progress.

The lambs [all eleven of them] and goat kids are growing well! Can you believe the Oberhasli kids are 8-weeks-old today!?

This is Gendry, the buckling, who will probably be castrated/wethered soon [since I’ve had no ‘nibbles’ in potential sale as a herd sire].

Here is a photo of the doeling, Arya, with Katie’s horse, Neo.

NOM NOM NOM… Mama said we can have a little grain now that we’re old enough! They’ll still get a bottle as long as they’re here… at least for now. Looking for good homes for both Arya and Gendry!!

Last week we also welcomed a new member to the family: Katie’s German Shepherd puppy, Zeak.

Zeak, helping me ‘weed’ the garden! Almost 9-weeks old and a FULL-time babysitting job!

Whoa! He needs to grow into those ears!!! He’s a busy little farm dog and will be a great companion for our rescue dog, Thunder! At the present time, Zeak is enjoying limited house-life… until he’s a bit older [and bigger].

Katie and Nash enjoying a ride! Happy trails!!

 

 

Katie’s felfie

Twin Oberhasli kids!

kidding and therapy

We (my daughter and I) are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Coriander’s kids… any day now!! Last October, I arranged a rendezvous between ‘Corey’ and ‘David’, a handsome and very willing Oberhasli buck, who lives on a near-by friend’s farm. She will be our only doe ‘freshening’ this Spring. As an empty nester, one dairy goat fulfills all my needs for fresh milk, cheesemaking, soapmaking and the pure pleasure of hand-milking!

Corey’s ligaments are gone. Her actual due-date is Saturday, but that could go either way by a few days.  I hope (pray) that we’ll experience an unassisted – normal –  presentation during kidding – and not a repeat performance of last year’s triplets! The barnyard is flooded with recent snow melt, recent rainfall AND the hidden dangers of ice underlayment. It all makes for a treacherous walk back to the barn to check on Corey! Oh Spring, where are you???

My small flock of Shetlands have been sheared and I have yet to sort-out/skirt their wool fleece. I’m thinking I’d like to felt an entire fleece (like a sheepskin rug/pelt) this Spring/Summer. I also spent an hour or so yesterday afternoon hand-shearing Brutus, my Pygora, on the stanchion. He displayed great patience with me and my ‘primping’. Today, I have a bit of clean-up work to do on him as he was starting to get annoyed with me… snip snip snip.

Finally, the past few days I have been playing with the idea of an offering of classes/workshops. Wet felting is great therapy for me… requiring no special tools and perhaps a good place to begin a fiber ART experience?

And so, I’ve arranged layers of wool into ‘sheepy’ shapes, adding a variety of natural colored wool to the surface for texture/interest and felted away. What fiber artist doesn’t l-o-v-e one more sheep??

Then I begin to add a few details/shape personality. A needle felted ‘head/face’, attach wooly ears, seed beads for eyes, a nose, etc. This little ewe sports a string of beads for legs…. but, use your imagination for whatever is lying around the craft room!?

Another ‘idea’ was born with this wee little sheepie brooch/pin (for the sheep lover/fiber enthusiast).

She’s completely needle felted (onto a scrap of felted wool ‘base’) with a few curly/crimpy locks/wool staples. Similarly, I’ve needle felted a head, attached ears, legs, seed-bead eyes and nose. Class/workshop project???

There’s always room for one more sheep roaming the garden!

Happy fiber’n!

goat kids are introduced to lavender…

I’ve been working in the garden(s) the past couple of days [and have the blisters to prove it]. Lots and lots of ‘volunteer’ lavender seedlings/plants happily growing in the footpaths! I hate to pull-up and discard [compost] lavender. So, on a cool-ish, cloudy day, I tenderly removed and offered ‘free’ bare-root transplants for anyone willing to adopt and pick-up a few [three dozen] lavender plants. They’re mostly hidcote and munstead variety.

These are the freebies! I ‘offered’ them up to a good gardening home on fb and had a taker within minutes! 😀

I have RECLAIMED the footpath in my rose garden! HOORAY! …and not one lavender plant was ‘wasted’.

I moved on to another lavender garden [our lavender bloom is late this year] to weed, trim and transplant a few more lavender volunteers!

Here’s what I did with the lavender trimmings!

I tossed the ‘trimmings’ into the baby goat kids’ pen!

A crowd soon formed: ‘What is this stuff?’ they inquired.

They inspected it closely…

…and began to rub their heads into the heady-smelling plant!

It smells so good…they considered taking a nap in it!

YIPPI! Goats love lavender too!!! Have a great weekend!!!