What Day is it Anyhow?

LOL! I'm a little froggy this am! HOT! and tired. Working and playing to the max!

Boss came to the decision to move the bucks out of Jenny Nash. We were already semi-established at Prescott, but not enough pasture for the boys. The job was moving the fencing out of Nash and establishing a new pasture at Prescott.

P, R, D and I spent a day winding electric rope and ribbon:D pulling the white step in stakes, and then D and I rocking and pulling out the green metal stakes. R told me his planned layout, drove in three green stakes, and then has been out of work since.

D drove the rest of the green stakes with me steadying them. We use a big rectangular metal driver which is more than I can handle on my own. I ran the top ribbon to mark the fenceline for clearing and was then told the loppers had disappeared, the weedwhacker was out of line, and I could use a pair of hoof shears for trimming.

Ha. I spent an hour crawling along the roadside ditch head high with wild roses and other shrubs, blistering my hand on the shears and was about ready to abandon the task.(um...the title of a song came to mind, "take this job and...." lol) Luckily, I found out that my sweets, Ten, had the next day off and convinced him to bring his landscaping tools and give me a hand. He cleared the whole fenceline and then pulled five runs of wire-embedded rope off the winder. Yeah! End in sight!

D and I ran the last ground line, put in all the white step in stakes, and wrapped an apple tree with wire to try and protect it. Saturday it was ready for the bucks.

Still more work ahead there with dividing it and pulling the rest of the Nash fence.

Last night we headed off to Bath for Bath Heritage Days. A terrific Reggae Band, Mystic Bowie, played on the main stage before and after the fireworks. Bath was jamming! Lots of food vendors, roadside carnival, live music...



We watched the fireworks go off on the other side of the river, nice but not as intense as our regular fourth of July spot where they go off right in front of you and ash frequently drifts into the crowd. This year luck was on our favor with the wind blowing it back into the cove. Here's a shot of last night's fireworks in Bath.




Back to last night, after the fireworks we went back to the band and Willow got her nerve up to join the rest of the kids invited on stage to jam with the band. I abandoned my flip flops and danced in the crowd cheering her on. The Firebird even loosened up at the end and started moving.




Lots more summer fun and work in the days ahead! Hope everyone else is having a dancing summer!

Bucks full of it

The bucks were full of it today. I went ahead to let them out, and they immediately took off towards the back garden. The owner was going to the Post Office, and met me there after a little while.

I went back and set up the grain, poured the fresh water, readied the collars and chains, raked the houses, and put fresh straw down. Then I went to collect the bucks.

The mature buck herd is up to 19, and that makes them tough to handle, especially with rut coming on. They had split into two groups-one with the owner up by the garden, the other group way in the woods. I was directed to head back with the first group and grain them, and Y would go searching for the rest.

Well, that first group did NOT want to go back! They had been out on their walk quite awhile, so I assume they knew that some of their friends were still off. I brrrr'd and clapped and shooshed and swished a frond of goldenrod to no avail. They kept splitting up and turning back.

Finally I decided to act like a border collie and barked and woofed and madly dashed from one side of the group to the other rounding up scragglers and got them on the woods road. Phew.

I collared and grained that group, and decided I better head back and help Boss with the rest. I got into the lower field, and there was the rest of the buck herd pushing right along the garden fence and no sign of Y.

I hooted and hollared and whistled to let her know I had the rest, and then drove them back. I was hoping she wasn't lost in the woods. I figured I would grain the rest and then go look for her, but she reappeared after a bit. What an adventure!

Here are BLF Monarch and Jacolby.




Here are Bibbles and Rue feeling their oats.




Here is a close up of BLF Hippolytus, who was stripping beech bark. Another use for those horns-to strip the bark from young trees.




Here is BLF Prince Edward enjoying some alder leaves. I love his blue eyes! He loves my raisin toast!

Busy

I just found a couple of comments and thought I would answer them here since they were a few posts ago.

Most of the goats in the photos belong to Black Locust Farm, a large cashmere goat farm in Liberty, Maine. I help out there doing various farm chores, and comb cashmere during the season. They have a web site at http://blacklocust.com . I have some goats of my own, as well; a few fiber goats and some dairy types.

Horns vs no horns. Most folks like to disbud. One blog I follow, allnaturalsimplelife.blogspot.com disbuds. I am sure she would discuss the pros of disbudding. All of the black locust goats, and all but one of my goats, are horned. At first I was a bit frightened of the horns. There is certainly a risk of injury with a horned goat.

Once I was combing a goat on his neck, and he turned his head quickly and I got a horn in the eye. I thought I was in big trouble, but it was fine after I rolled in agony on the snow for a minute. Sometimes if you go in with grain or hay they will push you in the back of the legs. So we tie them up and then grain them. Or toss the hay over the fence and then go in and spread it.

I have read that goats can't sweat and their horns help keep them from overheating. And obviously they are a defense against predators. We also use horns as handles, but they can be broken so care must be taken. Goats really don't like their horns grabbed, so I only do it as a last resort to hold them.

I feel sorry for my one goat that was disbudded. He does try to butt heads with the other goats, but not for long. Also he has to run from them since he can't fight back.

The biggest risk of injury to other goats is sometimes they play a goat version of "mercy". One goat will wedge the front leg of another goat in between their horns and twist. The owner of BLF and I were talking about it the other day, and she said she has heard of goats getting their legs broken that way, but it has yet to happen to one of her goats.

Bucks and wethers get big horns, does have much smaller, more fragile horns. Different breeds have different styles of horns. Even among the fiber goats, you can have swept back horns (curled by the head) or horns that stick out sideways and curl out. I have had alpine goats, and their horns grow straight up and then curl back.

I hope that helps!

Now to my blog posting today:

It's that time of year, running around like a squirrel gathering nuts.

Busy working at the farm, doing all kinds of stuff. My favorite task is playing goat herder, or is that herdress?

The nineteen big bucks go for a walk everyday. They are kept on a big old farm (we call it Jenny Nash Farm)that a woman is leasing to grow organic vegetables. So when the bucks go out of site into the lower field, someone has to go keep an eye on them, or they might get into the garden.

You can see how they like to eat right up to the edge. This is two of the yearling boys, Jacolby on the left, and Yul. And no, that fence is not hot, it is just for looks, I guess.





This is not a particularly nice pic of the bucks, but it shows autumn coming on, and a nice view of the waning moon.



Here is one of the old guys, Monarch.

goat talk

We wormed all our goats yesterday morning. I was not sure what they weighed, so I took the scale out and pre-weighed the Firebird and myself, expecting that we would pick up the goat and then subtract our weights. We started with skittish little Anna, the youngest, who had never been wormed. Of course her eyelids were bright red, indicating that she was not anemic, but I was going to worm them all anyhow.

Anna's response to people is to play passive. She curled up on the ground and glued herself there. The Firebird couldn't budge her. Talk about dead weight! I managed to get her in my arms, and then couldn't get to standing, so I had the Firebird help me lift her. She weighed 65 pounds!

Then Derek was on the small house roof, so I scooped him up, he being the next smallest, and he weighed nearly a hundred. Combined with my weight of currently 137,
(my Doc would be dancing with glee), we nearly topped the scale, so I stopped weighing goats and started guesstimating. Phew, got that job done!

Today we worked at the farm. The day did not start well at home, beginning with cat vomit on my favorite rug (I refer to these as omens of a "cat puke day") and sure enough, things were helter skelter at the farm. We ended up on the buckling hill for two hours combing the little guys. The first ones were easy enough-then I had saved Jacolby for last.

The other time I combed him, he yelled so hard I had to release him. So of course today he started in yelling. I started singing to him..."Mr. Pitiful". This caused him to increase the tempo of his screaming. Maybe he was just trying to drown me out. Finally he settled down enough to comb quietly. Phew, my arms arm aching, and I already agreed to comb the big bucks tomorrow. Ha. I think I am ready for a nap.... :P