Billy Goat Wants A Bath

Billy likes to watch the bath tub filling up. I don't think he would like being in the water, but he's curious about the process. He likes chewing on the clothes hanging on the back of the bathroom door. I'm taking him up to the hay mow to visit his goatie friends when I take care of them at night. Billy is very shy around other goats, but inside the apartment he's the life of the party. I have a little bowl of hay next to where he sleeps to encourage him to chew on that instead of my hair. It will be nice to get an uninterrupted night's sleep one of these days.

Super Bowl

Holly is wondering what all the screaming and yelling is about. The Saints are winning and Matt is out of his mind with joy. I'm trying to be supportive and interested. My Super Bowl was over when The Who left the stage. OH, they were great. I saw them at Madison Square Garden and Giants Stadium. Thank you, Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend for reminding everybody that you can be old and still be cool! My favorite commercial - the Denny's chicken spot.

Sheep at Play

I was standing by the fence on the north side of the barn yesterday when a group of sheep came out to play in the snow. They were jumping and romping around and sticking their noses in the white snow cone. Loki was watching the ladies and seemed surprised to see them act this way. Then he joined in the fun. The waves of undulating wool made visions of yarn dance in my head.

Tractor Widow

Matt went to Pompey to work on the 8N today. I'm a tractor widow. Matt says he doesn't have to worry about me finding another man. He says no man would want me as I'm a lousy housekeeper with too many animals. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!! Ah, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaa!

Fruity Loops and Apple Jacks

I finally gave Hannah and Luke's kiddie breakfast cereal to the chickens. The reaction was mixed. Last I checked they were pushing the colorful tidbits aside to get to the layer mash. I thought they might enjoy some variety, but no thanks. Maybe a bowl with some milk would help?

Naughty Girls

These does are hanging by the fence in hopes of finding some romance. You notice how one has her working end pointed in his direction. The other is saying, you don't want her, you want me!

Flying with Luke

Eight years old and he's flying his daddy's airplane. Why am I not surprised? Luke is a very smart, confident young man. I'm looking forward to him giving his Omi a ride next time I'm visiting the family in San Jose.

Horsing Around

Slipshod, Mary's Morgan horse, is very talented. He bows, he kisses, he shakes his head "no" and smiles. Mary and Slipshod entertained us with his tricks during our visit to her farm today.

Mary's Lambs

Mary, my shepherd neighbor friend, has been lambing big time at her farm across the valley. We stopped in to visit her today and check out the babies, including brand new black ewe twins. What fun she is having with her little angels. The weather today was beautiful - bright and cold. Mary has a nifty lamb operation with gated jugs and a maternity ward. She has a winter's load of haylage bales and a tractor to move them around with. Haylage is pickled grass inside of big white plastic bags. They weigh a ton, but when placed in a feeder make very little waste.

So Blessed

I was up in the hay mow with the baby goats when I heard Izzy and Holly screaming their heads off. Either they were being eaten by coyotes or Mia and AJ had just arrived. Izzy and Holly LOVE company. Well company it was, in the form of Kimmie Cornerstone and Crew. They decided to hop in the van and make a surprise visit to Maggie's Farm. Kim, in her infinite wisdom, thought I needed to "get by with a little help from my friends" and suddenly there they were in the flesh. They brought me a fabulous care package full of goodies like a handspun winter hat, three handspun goat sweaters (larger for the growing goat babies), Thor's Hammer coffee beans, beeswax candles, lamb nipples and a box of CANDY for me! They also brought cat, dog and bunny food. I mean it was like Haitian relief, NY State style! After many hugs and a peek at the babies we motored into the village of Brookfield to have Belgian waffles at the Beaver Den. The weather was sunny and beautiful. We crossed over the creek and travelled to Mary's farm to visit her newborn lambs. She's got a population explosion going on over there. What a thrill to see all those cuties bopping around her barnyard. They make my month old lambs look like big rowdy teenagers. After playing with the lambs and visiting with Mary's horse, Slipshod, we came back to the farm for an afternoon of lamb vaccinations and tail docking. Darryl is a first class lamb wrangler. It's not easy to catch those little boogers in a barn where you can't stand up straight - and they have four legs to our two. We also caught some more goats and put them up in the hay mow to fatten them up on the new goat feed called "Fitting" that Louis Gale sells. The goaties frequently get pushed away from the hay by the big, fat sheep. They also need copper which is deadly to sheep, and should be fed seperately. After our sheep work we came inside and rested while I got dinner ready and Jared and Lindsay made clay buttons for my bags. My friends left to travel the four hours home to Kingston, Ontario. I so wish they lived closer. I am so blessed to have such good friends and supporters. Kim, Darryl and the kids want to come back for shearing, which I haven't booked yet, but should be in a month or so I hope. It will be so helpful to have a skirting team so the wool can be sorted before it goes in the bag.

The Wheel of Life

The wheel of life goes round and round. I spin and meditate on what I need to accomplish, and it helps me get into a better head and put everything in perspective. I had a nice treat this morning. Mia called from her apartment in the historic Victorian where she lives in Morristown. They are getting the fringe of the big blizzard that's hitting Washington D.C., right now. I had just sat down to drink some coffee, check out the Weather Channel, and spin some of the fabulous chestnut angora fiber Kimmie Cornerstone gave me. I love to listen to her steady stream of news about the hospital and vast number of girlfriends. When she tells me what she has to deal with on the stroke ward I feel guilty about my job being so comparatively easy. She and Andrew are driving up next weekend for a short birthday visit. I'm hoping to get AJ here if he can get away from the seminary. With Easter coming early they are making all kinds of preparations. Every biblical episode seems to generate a holiday or feast day in the Orthodox Church. Mia is flying to California to visit Eric and family and celebrate her best friend, Lisa's, birthday. I will spin a few more minutes before morning chores and a trip to Louis Gale, the feed mill, in Sangerfield. I buy chicken, goat and sheep feed there in 100 pound sacks at half the price of the local feed stores, including Tractor Supply. A ewe I gave to Mary last year gave birth to a pair of black ewe twins yesterday. I'm afraid to go and visit them for fear I will steal them in the middle of the night. Good thing they are guarded by five very dedicated big white Maremmas. My own lambs are getting so big I can hardly pick them up. That's what alfafa hay will do. I miss my little Tank so much. All those hours of holding him and nudging him to take his bottle. I should have secured Denzel in the other pen with the boys out back but I can't catch him myself. Bad management, but let's not get started. I'm determined to be happy and busy today. Maggie's Farm is, after all, a state of mind.

Mars Overhead

Every night I go outside to check the sky. Mars has been visible a lot lately. I see planets glowing in colors here, the Milky Way, satellites in orbit, and constellations I could never enjoy in New Jersey with the pollution and glare. The sky gives me inspiration and reminds me of how short and insignificant this life is, and how I should strive to do something meaningful with the time I have. I'm thrilled my kids all have busy, successful lives and bright futures, and I'm so proud of them, but I do like the idea of one of them keeping the farm in the family. I think a glass of sherry will help me end this week and ease into the weekend.

One More Crop

Today Matt graduated another crop of weatherization workers from his "Boot Camp." He's loving it, and I'm kind of envious. He gets all kinds of accolades from all over the place. Next month he's "presenting" at "Affordable Comfort," a major national weatherization conference in Austin, Texas. All the years, money and energy I put into my college education and he rolls into this dream job of a lifetime. Not a lot of money involved, as he works for a non-profit group, but lots of education, fun and "giving back." I have to remind him once in a while that it was my idea to move to upstate New York where he found this fabulous new career. He says if he wins the Big Lotto he will keep his job and buy a farm for me closer to work, maybe Cazenovia. Yes, I could do Cazenovia with no problem. Maybe he could hire me a few Mexicans to help out and he could stay late at the office. Matt would be sooooo happy if he didn't have to work on the farm. He's going away next week to teach weatherization in NYC. I'm happy for him - teaching what he loves all day with a lavish lunch break, then relaxing at night in a sparkling clean hotel room where the only thing he has to lift is a remote control and the phone to call room service. I hope he gets a jacuzzi hot tub to soak his weary bones.

Deep Breaths

When I get home from work the first thing I do is give Billy his bottle. He's prancing and dancing all over the apartment floor. The doggies are crossing their legs, trying to hold it until I get them outside. It's good to get some fresh air after being locked inside all day. We climb the hill in the snow, not all the way, but just enough to look down on our beautiful barn and I can meditate on why I'm working so hard. My land is not good for hay, as it is hilly and full of dips, holes and rocks, but it is full of character and very interesting. I'm still finding spots that surprise and intrigue me. It's perfect for grazing as the sheep have lots of places to explore and hide in, and water holes to drink from. The light stays late enough that I can see around the land. The last couple of nights I've had a real thrill when I heard an owl hooting on the piney ridge that rises over my farm. There were lots of owls in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and I missed their calls in the night. I think there is only one owl here, as I don't hear any "answers" to this hooting. I hope she hatches more owls. They are just so cool. Hawks can take away baby lambs, but owls usually take chickens and rabbits. I would mind an owl taking some of my roosters. I have dozens of them. I hear they are not so good for eating, just good for flavoring soup. If times get really hard, I could have a lot of chicken soup.

Fabulous Friday

Woke up with Billy Goat gently poking his little nose on my cheek, the signal to get up and feed me. He waits for me to move a little, or say something, before he asks me for food. What a good little Billy Goat! Tomorrow I'll put him up in the hay mow with the other goats for a while. He needs to eat hay and learn how to play with the other baby goats. It won't be pretty at first. Billy will be terrified. His world consists of humans, cats and dogs right now, in a heated apartment. I'll put his sweater on and make sure his belly is full. I know the other goat moms will butt him around because they don't recognize him, and because they are big bullies, but that's the way things are. I'm sure when Billy is a grown-up billy goat he will be a big bully himself, probably worse. The other babies are getting so fat I had to pull off their sweaters last night. Alfafa hay is very rich and makes them grow big and healthy. Movie day in school today. I only pick movies that teach them some kind of history lesson. I have a terrific movie from 1958, The Vikings, with Tony Curtis, Kirk Douglas and Janet Leigh. I can bet money they haven't seen it before, and I can be sure there are no F words, no private parts exposed, and no rated R sex scenes. It still has sex, drama, blood and guts, but in a Fifties format I can live with. Big snow storm headed for Washington. It's funny to see all the snow hit south of us. We've had a relatively light snow year. No real blizzards. Sssssshhhh! It can still happen big time...

RIP Little Tank

I had finished my evening chores and was headed inside. I caught sight of my tiny blind cat, Freddie, in the little igloo on top of some wool and went back to get him some cat food. Denzel, Lilly's wether from two years ago, saw me walking through the barn with a scoop and decided to jump the fence and see if he could rough some food off me, or the cats. I have a table blocking the opening of the igloo just for this reason. I leaned back the broken table top to sprinkle some food in Freddie's dish and here comes Denzel. I was tired and not in the mood for this nonsense and chased Denzel away with a broom. I didn't even see little Tank who had followed me in the dark, looking for yet another bottle. Denzel ran over him in his frenzy to get away from the broom. Tank rolled over and I knew something was wrong. I picked him up and brought him inside and sat a while with him, but he was too quiet. It was late so I put a fuzzy blanket in a basket and put it next to the sofa where I've been sleeping lately. I woke up several times during the night to find Tank stretched out on the floor. I put him back in the basket each time, thinking it would keep him warm. In the morning he was back on the floor, stretched out, stiff. I loved that little lamb. It's awful to lose a lamb, especially when you've spent hours bottle feeding him, making eye contact, watching the little mouth sucking and the tail wagging. Whenever there are dramatic circumstance to a birth, like Tank's, it makes the bonding stronger and the pain of the loss keener. I had been so frantic to find him and so happy when I pulled him out from behind the old water tank, a frozen length of lamb, and so relieved when he survived. I had made up my mind to keep him as a pet, as he was so much smaller than the others and so adorable. Just when you think you are out of the woods and everything is going to be alright, something happens to rip your guts out. That's the life of a shepherd.

Groundhog Day

Poor little beast, all those men with top hats hovering around him, it's a wonder he didn't faint much less see a shadow. Six more weeks of winter? That's a fait accompli here in NY. Billy Goat is dancing and prancing around the apartment. He relishes his bottle, smacking the nipple around, spraying milk all over my jeans before he finally latches on and drinks. I have to figure out how I'm going to begin moving him out to the barn. I'll miss his little kisses in the morning, but he has to learn how to be a goat...and a Billy Goat at that. Off to the salt mines...

Be Brave

I wake up with little Billy Goat under the quilt between me and the back of the sofa. He's about the size of a cat now, with tiny little horn buds on his head and little hoofs that clip-clop on the pine floor. Billy is a sound sleeper and I'm able to get up and make coffee, French toast for the kitties and fix his bottle before he wakes up. I have to get his belly as full as I can before I leave for work. Conference day today, not quite like a day off, but it's nice to sit and listen to the program and have lunch provided. I got some Bundaflicka Bags on the Etsy site yesterday - www.bundaflicka.etsy.com. It was a bright, cold day and I was able to take some good shots outside. Have to show that unique Bundaflicka inside pocket scheme. I even figured out how to resize the pictures for Etsy (big deal for me). Matt took my mini-van to work today. Oh, what shame to drive your wife's old battle scarred mini-van instead of the big white power truck. He was spending $30 a day on gas and my van gets much better mileage. We'll see how long this lasts. I like having the 4 wheel drive F150 when I go over those snow covered, hilly roads to Norwich with blasts of wind pushing me all over the place. My commute is half of his. When I drew back the living room curtain this morning and saw that dark, snowy sky I was relieved to have the truck today. Better get to it.