Moon Boy

A few tidbits of what is happening here...

The calf has discovered the delightful joys of dashing full speed at the flock of grazing sheep and making them scatter.  They have become wary of him, and he must think that POWER is quite something.  

Bessie was milked a few days ago.  It's been too long that we've been drinking store-bought milk!  Mmmmm....  I'm going to milk her on a slightly different schedule than before, so that I don't take too much (which encourages mastitis if I DON'T take that much each time), but so that the calf can easily slurp down the excess if I don't milk one day.  We don't go through even a gallon of milk a day, so I think this will work for the time being.

Bessie is listed for sale.  I don't really expect anyone to buy a 12 year old cow, but it's worth a try.  If the calf doesn't sell along with mama, then we will raise him until this time next year, then our friend will raise him on her 20 acres for another year for beef that we'll share between both families.  

Jeff has been shoveling the cow poo...making a space for me to open and close the stall door to eventually confine the little calf each night.  He's been making friends with the cutie, calling him "Moon Boy".  It will be a sad day when there is no Dutch Belted left on the farm...

But for now, images like this evoke restful, peaceful feelings.  

And watching Moon Boy dash around our small pasture with his tail kinked high in the air is reason for a sudden peal of laughter and delight at his antics.  

 

Laura

"Super Moon" Calf

Under the promise of the "super moon", during the few hours we were gone for Bible study, Bessie gave birth to this beauty.  

Born less than an hour before we found mama and baby....Bessie doing the "concerned foghorn" sound of a mama cow, baby curled on the pine needles in a rather breezy but somewhat private spot by the back fence.

He (or she) was already standing on wobbly legs when Jeff went out to peek.  

Finally!  Bessie was 9 days past her due date.  Every night for the past 2 weeks I checked on her by the light of a small flashlight, every day Taffy and I checked multiple times, only to see her calmly chewing her cud.  Tomorrow, 10 days past her due date,  I would have called the vet.  

Time to traipse out one more time with flashlight in hand, but everything seems to be just as it should be.  The Super Moon will shine brightly on the experienced mama and her brand new calf tonight.

 

Laura

Husky drama

This dog, frustrating as he can be, makes me laugh.  

When he's not perched regally on the picnic table, he is lying like this...

"Here I am.  Woe is me.  Nothing but a rock for me to lay my widdle head..."  

 

Laura

Piglet escapees

Friend Merry's recent facebook comment (about some piglets who just cannot be contained) had me thinkng of this:

One day last week, Taffy and I headed out the back door to do the usual check on all the critters.  Out of nowhere, the 5 American Buff geese explode out of the barn and into the yard, loud screeching and squawking and a mighty flapping of wings.  This sends Taffy into a frenzy, because the geese are BREAKING the RULES!!!  She dashes towards them without a second's thought.

Right behind the geese is the flock of Cayuga ducks, toddling on their webby feet but still moving QUICKLY out into the yard, causing Taffy to wheel around in confusion.  Geese, she loves to keep those geese in line.  Ducks....I've called her off of the ducks a few times to often to just send them scattering.

A few roosters are squawking after the geese, and join the riot.  One rooster thinks that his future mate is a not-so-interested young duck, and he's pursuing her.  Stupid poultry with their tiny brains...

And into the middle of this mass of milling, confused feathered birds, dashes a small black....PIGLET!  Bursting out from inside the barn, when all the other pigs are in their pens on the opposite side of the property.  Tail kinked in the air, nose to the ground like a bulldozer.

Taffy nearly sit back in the dirt as feathers flew while the little pig high-tailed it back into the pasture.  And I burst out laughing.

Bea has four June babies who are still here.  Three are males, and although they confidently trotted all around the barn and barnyard when they were supposed to be contained, they have met their match in the form of combination panels, rather than the cattle panels.  They stay where they are supposed to be now, with the young boar and the other barrows.  I kind of miss seeing them out and about, just strolling or jogging wherever they pleased.

But this one....this little daughter.  She is something else.  We named her after her mama, and added the word "Sassy" to it.

Lately, SassyBea has escaped daily, gorged on chicken feed, and had to lie down forlornly OUTSIDE of the pig pen until her full belly reduced in size just enough to allow her back in.  Her escapee days are numbered.  And then she will have no choice but to allow me to scratch behind her ears...  

For now, though, I see her little hoofprints in the mud outside of the barn door every morning, and know that she's been letting her sassy self go wherever she pleases before anyone else wakes up for the day.

Some days the funny things far outweigh the messes that are part of the job.  :)

 

Laura

Goat updates

Photos:  Ariel the July doeling, and Burl with Yeti from this spring

Here on the little homestead, goats are already together in their breeding group, with the hopeful promise of cuteness next March.

This year's babies are all gone, except little Ivey, Zaney's daughter, who I decided to keep.

The update on those babies....

In July, three babies were born.  Twin bucklings to Samoa and a little doeling to Savvy.

One buckling went to a farm in Illinois where the renovated barn is also a wedding venue.  He is treated like a king.

One buckling went to my friend, Vikki, where he has a few goat ladies to meet when he is old enough...

Ariel the doeling went to a woman farmer in Indiana who would tell Ariel how beautiful she was and how much she loved her.  Ariel was a favorite in a very nice herd of goats.

Spring babies were farther back in my memory, but here is the update on them:

Two went to my neighbor.  She was in love with one, and the other was simply the buddy for the first one.  She had wanted to raise them for her freezer and couldn't go through with it, and sold them a month ago.  I think they were going to be kept as pets at their new home.  (My neighbor has since collected a small breeding flock of fainting goats, but the little twins could not have contributed to that necessary genetic package....)

The triplet brother of those two and also the brother of Ivey went to a farm where they are spoiled and definitely pets.  Ashley sent me photos of them just today.  I'm in the middle of a killer sinus infection, so the news and photos of Burl and Yeti made my day.  

It was even sweeter to get that e-mail about Burl and Yeti and the great update, since last week was a sad week as far as news of July babies...

Victor and S'mores (Samoa's bucklings) are doing quite well.  I got a message from Victor's new owner that he is now following them into the house as if he's a little dog, if the door happens to be left open.

S'mores has the company of other goats and Vikki's family is happy to have him.

Little Ariel died suddenly last week without any obvious cause.  

We got the news last Friday.  The family had seen her out in the pasture with the other goats.  When they came back from a football game, she was dead.  There was no obvious cause.  Their vet was not available during the weekend to do any sort of after-the-fact check.  

Ariel had only been gone from here for 4 weeks, but had gotten a health check from our vet before she left...  The family is devastated, but there is nothing we or they can do to change things. 

I suppose I should expect some to not make it after they leave here.  This was our first wave of fainting goat babies.  I was quite happy that all had seemingly been placed in good homes.  Some didn't stay at their original home but all seemed to be enjoyed by their new owners.  Ariel's family adored her and drove quite a few hours to get her.  

It's just sad that some don't live very long, but then, also a part of having animals.  

So, I will think of Burl and Yeti, two of the spring babies who are loved to the point of being spoiled.  

I heard from Ariel's family today.  They weren't expecting this, but one of their other favorite (and slightly older) goats had twin boys.  Babies to take the place of the beautiful baby they lost, in some way.

That's kind of how it happens here, too, I guess.

 

Laura

Cameo's litter!

Well, our first and only fall litter of piglets made their arrival.  I thought she was due a week ago, but the boar must have had a different agenda 4 months ago...

Unknown to us, Cameo was popping piglets out while my sister and her kids were RIGHT HERE visiting us!  I strolled out to the barn as they left and discovered that labor was under way.  Karen and kids were already too far down the road to turn around when they got the message.  Sigh...

But Cameo went on to have 8 beautiful babies.  Some have white noses, some have white front feet.  Cameo's first delivery was reason to watch this one closely, but everything went beautifully.  She is an excellent mama, talking to her babies in motherly grunts and snorts, lowering her large self carefully with the utmost care not to lay down on one of her little ones.

And my phone camera is not sharing with my computer accounts, so there are no photos to attach...  Technology.  Sometimes great....sometimes.....  Yeah.

So here is a picture of one of Bea's cuties, almost identical to Cameo's white-footed babes.  

And credit where credit is due.....  mama Cameo is from Wandering Peacock Farm (formerly in Wisconsin) and daddy Lawnmower is from Ham Sweet Farm in Michigan.  

 

Laura

Goodbye to a sweetheart

We received some sad news.  

Remember Summer, the adorable blonde pup in Taffy's large litter?  

She was joyful, playful, a real sweetheart.  Pick of the litter.

Everyone loved her, and we knew that she would brighten up anyone's life.

She had blended well with her new "pack" of English Shepherds, doing well in meeting her grandmother (Taffy's mother Blondie), and getting along with the resident dogs where she lived.  The updates were positive, from an owner who cherished her.

Her new owner called me to give me the news.  On returning from church, they came upon the heartbreaking find of Summer, in the road.  Apparently she had tried to cross to the pasture on the other side, and had been hit by a car.

I don't think it's really sunk in.  Shadow was put to sleep just a couple of weeks ago.  We are in this whirlwind of autumn, getting ready for breeding season and getting the barn ready for winter quarters....  New grandbaby is here....  Kids are moving to Chicago and making trips back and forth from the farm to their new place....

My brain gets a little fuzzy when I think of Summer, and that's probably a good thing right about now.

Here is the last photo that her owner took of her.  She was shaping up to be just as pretty as her mother Taffy, with the beautiful personality of her father.  There were big plans for breeding her when she was old enough, to bring her valuable genetics to the area where her owner lives...  

Her name was going to be "Cimarron Evening Song Summer".  (Even though her owner is one of the best-known English Shepherd breeders in the country, they chose to honor us by using "Evening Song" in the name, our English Shepherd "kennel" name...)

Loved by everyone who met her.  Gone too soon.

 

Laura