Monday

Water's back in the well, yay, and more rain coming.

We've had our hard frost, so all the tender annuals are gone. The foliage is still blazing. The Beech and Red Oak have come on strong with the cold- bright orange and red and gold.

I have been having some nagging health issues; racing pulse, short of breath, weight (and strength) loss, trembling. I bottomed out at 112 pounds, and eventually called in for a checkup. They took me in that afternoon.

After telling me that my size was the envy of all in the clinic and quickly changing it to I looked like a concentration camp victim, (shows where today's fashion leads us)
and noting that I am off the bottom of the BMI chart, hyperactive thyroid was diagnosed as the likely culprit. Basically the result is that your metabolism speeds up.

I go for loads of bloodwork tomorrow and a yet to be scheduled thyroid ultrasound in the near future.

Please say a prayer for me, I could use a little strength right now!

Another playoff soccer game tomorrow. We play an, as yet, undefeated team on their home field. Our star forward is out on academic suspension. The coach told the Firebird at practice today he is going to play him as forward and told him to shoot as much as he can.

I took my goats out for a walk on the property today for a little back to nature. The didn't act too ravished-obviously they've been topping off with all the falling leaves. We had a great walk down to the stream. I enjoyed watching their reaction when they saw the water moving.

Cricket has turned out to be the leader, and Badger the lagger. We went up and around the electric fence. I could tell they were happy to get to some of that stuff on the other side! I found a couple beautiful pieces of quartz. One of them was pretty big. I could barely lift it, but I insisted on carrying it to the fenceline.

Then I had one of those nasty short of breath spells where I felt like I was hyperventilating and tried to meditate to calm myself. The same thing happened loading at Home Depot a couple weeks ago and both times I thought "Ok, I going to black out and they are going to find me here."

*draws a little image of a toppled tree*

Wednesday

Yesterday I arrived home and thought, "where are my little goats?" Then I thought, "where are the big goats?"

I had a moment of panic thinking they were gone. The guy who bought my other goats had stopped in a couple of weeks ago out of the blue asking if I had more goats for sale. He had also knocked down my mailbox and not said anything until I walked him down the drive (after telling him I had no goats for sale) and found the mailbox standing in a snowbank.

"I wasn't going to leave without telling you."

Hmmm...

Well, I let him off the hook, even though I should have made a claim on his insurance. Now my mailbox is sitting in an ugly 5 gallon bucket filled with rock and braced with two by fours. Winter in Maine...

Anyhow, my goats were all down back and came running and leaping in a herd. The little ones decided it was time to join the big goats, I guess. Of course they went right through the electric fence several times, so I locked them back in their pen and they cried so loudly I put them back with the rest.

Badger was butted through the electric today by Jenny, but it was off. I didn't want to leave it on while I was gone and I had just stopped home briefly and saw it happen. Badger is a bit of a clutz and gets tangled in it (Piper leaps between the strands) so I didn't want to leave it on and have him get electrocuted if he got stuck in it.

I guess it's not putting off much of a zap. I tried to walk part of it and Badger got through it since they follow me everywhere. I walked the lower half today while they were getting their grain and removed a few small sticks. I'll try to get the upper half tomorrow.

The big goats have apparently all been zapped in the past, since they respect it even when off. I have been unplugging it in the mornings so I can hop it with their hay and leaving it off until evening. There's no snow to short it out, but there may be a problem in the upper section.

In the meantime, the little goats mostly follow the big goats and stay in. I swear Jenny was trying to shock Badger this afternoon when she pushed him through it, but it was off. He stretched the line and pulled it off an insulator, which I fixed this afternoon.

Oh, I just don't get enough of goats at my day job! LOL. Worked again today, combed a bunch of does and bucklings and wethers. Still working with my oldest, and a new lady came in today to help. She was good with the goats and at combing and seemed to have a bit of joie de vivre; so welcome to the farm, J!

Newcomers

Well, I worked hard at the farm this am. A visitor is coming to stay over and claim back two of her bucklings, now wethers. So just Boss and I, and we wanted things to look nice so we did some extra cleaning. Plus the Hill and Prescott were a mess and I took out two big wheelbarrows out of both. After all the carpentry work yesterday, I am feeling a bit sore!

But....the two boys came home! I am a little worried since Piper, for all his scrawniness, has turned into the dominant one, and claimed the house! Everytime Badger goes in, Piper kicks him out! That is why I have so many shelters for the big goats! I am hoping once night falls (and it is a red afterglow as I type this) Piper will lie down and not object to Badger joining him.

The rest of the herd was pretty funny-they share a fence, and the "big" goats were all stalking around with their hair sticking up. But the newcomers were relieved to see other goats! Hopefully their banded parts will fall off soon and they can join the rest...although Badger is a wimp so I hope he makes out ok.

Ok, the good part-PIX! Here are Badger and Willow. The light color on his back is his cashmere fiber-he has a lot, but it's not good quality, which is why he most likely would have gone for meat-but he is so sweet-tempered! Maybe Boss would have kept him...but I couldn't chance it! The long dark hair is his guard hair-both his mother and grandmother have very long guard hair ( his grandmother went to slaughter last year-Uud)



Here is a close up of Piper-I took like ten picks he kept sticking his face at the cam it was so funny!



And here are the two-Piper standing guard in the house and sweet Badger.

another Monday

Another week already!

We have decided to keep Badgers name Badger. We tossed around a few ideas and then I remembered a character called Badger from a children's book Wind in the Willows, so I thought that was appropriate. Then when I was looking it up I found out that Wales is going to kill a bunch of Badgers in the theory that it will reduce the incidence of Bovine TB. There was an article on it the UK Guardian online, and almost all the comments were anti Badger killing and of course I agree with them.

Back to the new goats;the other we have named Piper which is related to the book as well-Pan the Piper, but I didn't want to call him Pan. Pan is of course half man and half goat.

They were banded Thursday and we will bring them home soon.

Now there are 18 bucklings are on the Hill. Five went to slaughter and nine arrived from another farm. I met some of them today-well all of them, but didn't linger too long with them. One of the new grey ones tried to follow us back down the hill and started bawling....maaaa, maaa, ma-aaaaaaa!

Boss heard him all the way to the house and said," was that the little grey one?"

and I said, "yes."

She said, "he was babied at his last home, his name is "guapo" "

and P looked perplexed and I laughed and said that is "handsome" in Spanish, LOL.

The weather was warmer over the weekend-it was supposed to be teens yesterday and yet it broke freezing again. The weatherman is really not doing very well with his predictions. Friday they said we were going to miss a storm Sunday night and would get a dusting. We are now under a winter weather advisory and have about six inches of snow out there. I worked the farm this am and the roads were pretty crummy going and coming.

We are supposed to see the sun again on Thursday. :(