It's back

Yes, after all the trials and tribulations with Dell company, I finally broke down and ordered the power supply from 911forpcs. For a third of the price, it was delivered two days after I sent in a money order. (being too paranoid to share a card number with a little known company.)

Friday it arrived: A box with a bundle of wires segregated into smaller bundles with connectors..just take out four screws, oops, now take out the fan below it, (not in directions,) and disconnect all the bundles from it, ooops that wasn't one of them, jeez this one does not want to come out of the motherboard and my hand is up the computer's insides...hook it all back up and wait twenty four hours to have the nerve to actually hook the monitor up and plug it in and press the button....POWER!!! yeah!

Now just six hours of updates later....

trouble is, I had too long on the mactop. I miss the fast keyboard instead of these gaumy keys, but I don't miss the two fingered to scroll mouse pad that was a pain. I do think the speed might have been faster on the mactop, too,- after complaining how slow it was...and sitting upright instead of kicking back in bed is not as nice, but at least I am not worried about irradiating my lap anymore, although the warmth was nice for midwinter...lol

At least I can leave this one on without being worried about a pet knocking it off the bed... so good and bad in both! Just never order a part from Dell computer, ever, never.

ON the farm front, Lars died. :((

Duke and Clyde have gone to their new home in Canada. Zeus is off for breeding and Monarch came back from breeding. The lady who had him is just spectacular and he looked buff when he came back.

Sandja and Galli went to slaughter.

Was below zero in the barn this am. My hands had a few bad moments for the first hour and then things were fine. Nice sun, temps topped out at about 26 at home this afternoon.

Someone came to pick out a couple little wethers and the first one they wanted was Badger! lol. Instead they picked Feisty and his brother Troll Boy, Sugreca's two. Willow and I were very happy Feisty was saved. Willow called him that because he is Feisty! I would have picked him to go with Badger but I didn't know how he might turn out with his over zealous affection-not bucky, but he loves have his neck scratched.

well, no big climatic ending for this blog..Just wanted to get on with the PC back up!

and as soon as I download the cam full of 80 photos and delete the card I can take some more pics! So I have been slacking just a camera full since the week before Thanksgiving!

Friday

Well I am tired!

Here is a pic of some of the bucklings on the hill this week. There are 13 but not that many in the pic!



I have been going up ahead by myself to grain them and they keep a close eye on me- for when I try to sneak off to put the feeders down.

Only a few of them have names or nicknames from when my daughter, Willow, was helping out. The rest are known by their lineage, generally through the mother. The black in the front is Mary's Boy, who after an intense bout of nursing through a bad patch after weaning was named by P as "Joseph".

I can't tell which grey is in the front in the pic, we have "Alpaca head" (Nive's grey), "Tack Room baby" (Lilymore's grey) "Chubs" (Lois's grey) and lastly, "Sugreca's", who has no nickname yet.

Bonnie's boy, fluffy grey coat, blue eyes and white points, has been named, "Beau", by P.

My favorite is "Badger Boy" the black and white next to the building, out of Ursula.

The two browns, the far one, is Carmella's, the youngest of the bunch, not born until June. The one in the middle of the group is "Uureka's Boy" (I aggravate Boss when I call his Mom "Eureka" like the vaccuum-it is pronounced with the Scandinavian "UU". Well, maybe not Scandinavian, but we used to have a slew of "hj's..." pronounced "Yuh". Back to the buckling, I call him "Monarch Baby", after his sire, not after the dam so I don't have to sweat the "UU". :)

Besides, his father has always been the handsomest buck to me. I remember when I first met him, I thought he was so handsome, but he does not like to be touched. I have been working on him for four years now, soft and slow. We get along pretty well. I don't pet him and he doesn't horn me.

Boss is away right now, and I have taken the job of walking the bucks. Yesterday they hit the third field and the snowmobile trail and kept going and going and going. I couldn't cut them off and had no idea where we would end up. I have heard stories of them ending up the next town over once....and I thought it was to be repeated yesterday.

Desperate, I pulled my Pb&j out of my bag and started waving it. No stopping them. I did have a couple of apples in there, I should have tossed one into the group but didn't think of it.

Finally they stopped and I stopped so not to spook them and rolled a smoke. Then I discovered I didn't have a light and that did it-I snuck by them and chased them back up the trail.

When we finally reached the third field, R was there and I was surprised he had followed us that far, since he had never been back that far. Most of the bucks followed him, but poor old Monarch couldn't keep up so I stayed with him. I had heard coyotes yipping on the way in-and Monarch has a pathetic little cry when he gets left behind so I didn't want to leave him for coyote fodder.

Crossing the first field just the two of us, I imagined him as a little buckling racing and leaping along, now a senior hobbling along way behind. It nearly brought tears to my eyes. I reached into my bag and hauled out one of the wild apples and gave it to him.

Then I discovered he can't walk and eat an apple. So I took a couple of pics.

BLF Rayvon's Monarch

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.