Feb 12 2009

Ceasar and Julius: sold

Hooves

Just a quick note recordkeeping.

Caesar, Sir Nick, and Daphne had their hooves done today. NO major problems, except Nick was a jerk. Nice and clean with the snow on the ground. Now it's all gone after 50'sF today-back to muddy soup.

Wednesday.

used up two kinds of wormer on a few of the goats.

Caesar got the last of the SafeGuard.

Moonshadow, Cricket, and Derek got the last of the Morantel Tartrate pellets. I drizzled some molasses over it. Cricket ate it right up, Moonie and Derek needed to be convinced with a little grain thrown in. Will buy more and dose everyone in a couple weeks.

Tuesday

Busy couple of days. Put a big push on to get the rest of the wood order stacked. That early dusting of snow, now pretty much gone, worried me. Hard to stack wood that has an ice glaze, and I hate to dig it out of the snow cave that happens if I leave it in a pile under a tarp.

I was sure that I was shorted on the order, but I was wrong. Looks like it was about right. 2.7 cords on that last order, about 2/3 cord left of S's order, 1/3 cord left of last year's, plus a small pile of goat wood. Hopefully it will be enough.

Oh, yeah, it's all stacked. I was shooting for four days of stacking and did it in three-2 days worth of stacking today just to get it finished.

Jenny (Genevieve) had her hooves trimmed today. She has major pockets between both front clews. I tried to flatten them out as much as possible, but one was quite bad and it would have required taking an awful lot off. Boss would have gone further, I am sure. I hoof and heeled it and will try and keep a good eye on them. Maybe go in for another touch up in a week or so.

Caesar, Jenny, Moonshadow all are showing loss of pink in the inner eyelid. Everyone is due for a worming, but I think I will use up the last of the wormer on those three and then hit them all again as soon as I get some more wormer.

Peko had a bath.

Missed a phone call tonight, no message, so I hit *69 to get the number. Was an out of state area code, sounded familiar, so I reverse directoried it. Was given a name an address, right down to the street address. Well, that didn't sound familiar, so I googled a bit tonight.

No kidding, within 15 minutes I was on a family blog with pictures of a young couple and their kids. Plus I had their phone number and home address. Isn't that scary? That just creeped me out!!!! Don't they ever watch those crime shows? Ack.

Wednesday

Stayed up late last night, and paid for it when the house woke up early this am. Dang!

The storm was over, thank goodness! I decided to take advantage of the wet and work on hooves.

I re-touched all three big wethers:

Caesar:front and back. He needed evening up and looked much better. He was a total ass and I had to yell at him. He kept rocking and pulling and he is a big goat! He is such a nice goat otherwise.

Sir Nicholas: front and back, looked much improved over last time.

Julius: front and back. Had what looked like an old puncture in one front sole and I stabbed my hand with the shears trying to level it off. His soles are like cement!

Cricket: front and back. She had some high heels going on there! She tried to struggle but after wrestling with Caesar, she didn't get very far. Her legs are so delicate like bone china.

Then I worked on ditching out the driveway with the help of the saplings. We got the water flowing pretty well. The water was bubbling right up through the drive in some places. Yup, the ground is saturated. We also picked up misc stuff all over the yard and tidied up a bit. Yesterday I walked up the road and realized with the leaves down, anyone driving by can see the entire front yard which looked a terrible mess! So, I think it looks a little better now.

The pond is nearly over the top of the dam, and all the way up to the logs. I should have taken the camera over-I need to charge the batteries up and take some more pix.

So far just the three of us for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. The turkey is nearly defrosted. We will have turkey and stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, baked potatoes, sweet potato, carrots, and two pies. Pumpkin and chocolate cream. Yum.

I pried the door open on the old woodcookstove out back and left it open to dry out. I just hope I have enough short firewood to cook the turkey! I don't want to be fighting with the chainsaw tomorrow! The firebox is very tiny and it will take a 14" stick at the largest.

Well, that's today's update. Wishing any and all readers a blessed Thanksgiving if you celebrate it. If not, drop on in -we'll have plenty of food! :D

Anaken

Tree1108

Another grey 50F day, with the sun struggling to come through the overcast, and intermittent drizzle.

The animal day started off with cat puke. Oh, that is always a bad sign. The bright cheery Willow (the only morning person in the family) pointed out that at least it was just at the edge of the step, not catapulted (excuse the pun) off the edge onto my robe and half-filled box of Hallowe'en decorations. Yes, sure, a bright side to puke. :P

The Firebird slept in and said he wasn't feeling up to chores, so Willow and I tackled them late. I opted to do some hooves while I was out.

Caesar front and back.

Obiwan finished him off with his back feet.

Anaken front feet done, with back still on the to-do list. Above is a pic of Ani (his nickname). He was the runt out of twenty alpine bucklings at an auction last year. He was very wild. He was the last goat auctioned, and I succumbed to the saplings pleas, but then tried to trade him before I even paid for him. I had tried to handle him in the pen and knew he was very shy. Well, no one wanted to trade for the runt, so we ended up with him. It took me a couple weeks of goat whispering to tame him, and now he is the sweetest thing. He still startles easily, though. He did not produce much cashmere last year-not suprising for the breed-maybe a sandwich bag of very short short fine fiber, with mostly guard hair.

We grained the wethers first. Willow insisted on feeding Caesar and he knocked the dish out of her hand causing half of it to hit the ground. She headed back for more grain to replace it while I did his feet.

Then we moved on to the little goats. I opted to hop the electric wire with the grain bucket, instead of battling the whole herd. Usually the saplings have most of the goats tied by the time I am through with the wethers, and I use the gate. I caught my shoelace on some goatwood just as I stepped over, and was sent sprawling. The lid burst off the grain bucket, and the can of chicken goodies went flying into the woods.

I left it to one of the roosters who was following me, and set the bucket down outside the gate. I told Willow to get more grain while I started tying little goats. I opened the gate and had a massive crush of goats. I was holding the gate with one hand, and grabbing horns and shoving goats with the other.

Anna, with her short horns, ducked by and made it through the gate, but not before I could grab one of her back legs. I dragged her back through while two or three more were making the push. Finally Derek burst by me and I let him go and secured the gate. No way could I get him back in with all the other ones there trying to escape. Willow secured the lid on the grain bucket and went for more chicken grain.

I started tying goats, and then Willow was mobbed by Derek when she came back with the grain, so I told her to stash it on the rabbit hutch. Phew!

After all that, the rest of it went pretty well, except I realized I was needing hay for tomorrow. After goat chores we jumped in the car to go on a quick PO-meat for dinner-hay run. That turned into a three hour long trip, as I had a check arrive early and decided to take it down to the bank, since tomorrow is a holiday. The bank is about a forty minute round trip.

The sun is going down as I type-the day surely went by fast.