Goats up to no good....




The Silly One...



The Prime Offender

I'm not nearly as sick of the goats as E is at the moment, but last night he was heard to scream to Lucretia that he was a. going to sell her and shortly thereafter, b. he was going to kill her. I guess the first option was at least better for her health... :) She is just so skittish - once we get close enough and grab her collar she's a joy to milk, and easy to lead, but grabbing her collar is an event in and of itself. We don't keep our goats in the barn, partly because there's no stall to put them in, but mostly because we don't want our milk to get contaminated with all the chicken manure and dust, since the barn mainly serves as our very large hen house.

After another long battle this am (which I'm glad I wasn't present for), E caught her and put a dog harness on her, then attached that to a lead rope, and the lead rope to one of the run-in sheds. Not a perfect solution - leaving a goat tied up for any length of time makes me nervous, but it'll do for now. I'm thinking about sinking four posts into the ground in an 8 foot square and nailing boards to that three or four high - it won't make the pasture look too junky, and we'll have a "stall" of sorts for Lucretia till she calms down and also for any bucks we rent so they're not with the girls 24/7. It might also make a nice creep feeder for the kids if we ever need that. It's even more frustrating since her sister Gibby is so well trained after less then a week that all we have to do is open the pasture gate and she runs out, down the driveway, into the garage, and jumps up onto the milking stand!

We've decided to sell Dharma and Esme, and maybe Faunus, though I may keep him till we get a buck kid to wether next year. I'll miss the minis, but the Toggs are so much more practical for what we use them for. We cultured some milk with yogurt and rennet and made some delish molded goat cheeses this weekend - they were a hit when L and A came over for dinner as well as at my mom's brunch the next day. When I came home today E had some goat-yogurt started, so we'll try that tomorrow.

I put the last of the chicks in with the flock last night - hooray!!! We are only brooding ONE BATCH next year - this year was ridiculous. I feel like we've had chicks non-stop since May. We've started to decorate and plan for our annual Halloween bash - this year we're planning even more "events" - some very competitive sack racing and maybe egg tossing with enter the mix. I'd like to make our usual scarecrow to sit out on our big tractor, but there's laundry to be done, bills to pay, and goats to list for sale... We'll see. :)

p.s. we're still harvesting tomatoes by the bushel - I'm going to have to can again - at least a few pints of yellow pear puree. I'm not sure what we'll use it for, but it's certainly pretty. Alsp, if anyone local is thinking about buying eggs, now's the time. The fridge is getting full!

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Posted: Mon - October 9, 2006 at 06:26 PM        

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