Eggistential Goodness

After longing for farm fresh eggs all winter I am now inundated with them.  The girls are working overtime.  I made spinach quiche yesterday and we're eating some splendid omelettes.  I should bring my industrial mixer home from school and cook up some pound cakes to freeze.  Anything to put these lovely packages of healthy deliciousness to work.  Luckily spouse likes eggs and doesn't mind "breakfast for dinner."

Maternity Ward

The corridor behind the stanchions is filling up with mom/baby pens.  It's important to let the moms and babies be together to "mother up" for a few days after birth.  Goat moms will steal each other's babies, or ignore them as I found out on Saturday.  I came home from the Hamilton market and walked in on a twin birth.  I think mom was thrown by the fact that there were two of them, then I walked in and interrupted the maternal bonding process.  I am cautiously hopeful.  Saturday she was stepping on them in the little pen I confined them too.  We've been nursing mom out to keep her milk flowing and I'm bottle feeding the tiny little fragile babies - one of each.  I can hardly stand to leave them to come to work.  They are like little tea cup French poodles, and root for teats on my leg.  Precious little sweeties...

Mad Art

I just can't get past Peter Max.  I adore his work and the kids/staff is enjoying it too.  Today I taught the little ones how to make a symmetrical drawing with things like hearts and butterfly wings by folding the paper and doing one side at a time.  They had so much fun and I love working with them.

  
Painting is very cost effective for us as I've inherited gallons and gallons from various teachers who are thrilled that I am full time art now.  Anyone can come in, sit down and paint.  It's very stress relieving and good for the soul.

Apple Orchard Walk

Looks like we've got some blossoms after all.  I've been told the apple orchard is too old and not worth pruning, etc.  It seems to me if it is still producing apples it is worth putting some time into it.  The boughs were heavy with apples two years ago and my sheep grew fat on what dropped onto the ground.  We took a leisurely walk up to the pond then down to the back pasture.  It was a cloudy and cool day - perfect for a stroll over the land.

First Market Day

We set up earlier than usual at the Hamilton town square.  I have new market neighbors and am one space away from a local shepherd and potter, Kylie Spooner.  The weather was glorious - cool and sunny - and the patrons started coming.  It was Colgate Univ. graduation day and the families were wandering through the market.  I said hi to some market friends I haven't seen since last October and bought some granola, home made butter, jalapeno cheddar dinner rolls and Gouda cheese.  There is a new lunch/dessert crepe vendor.  Three sisters make delicious crepes while you watch.   The mango/brie crepe is fabulous.  Couldn't help but go back for the Nutella/strawberry/whipped cream for dessert.  It takes an hour to set up, and another hour to take down, but it was a very worthwhile and enjoyable market day.  It should be good for another month after which the market will be slow, and the weather very hot, and I will sit in front of a fan and spin.  Rainy Saturdays will give me a day off once in a while so it's not so bad.  After stops at Tractor Supply and Price Chopper it was back to the farm to find big white pregnant mom - the one I found stuck upside down a couple of weeks ago - had given birth to twins.   I think she was thrown by the fact that two came out of her, and me walking in immediately after was not so lucky either.  Mom fled to the back of the pen without licking them off.  I left them alone, hoping she would come around, but when I went back a while later she had not bonded with them.   I built a pen around them, and got them all isolated together.  Got the cords dipped and Nutridrench into the babies, one of each.  Mom was still very nervous, stepping on the babies and was in no shape for me to nurse her out.  Fortunately I had some colostrum from another birth in the fridge and heated it up for the hungry newborns.   I went to bed fearful that I had a set of bottle babies on my hands.  Goats do not accept another goat's babies very easilly.  Goats are notoriously GOOD mothers.  I have only had one bad mother goat in all the year's I've had them, and that was after a horrible birth where I found her screaming in the back of the barn and had to assist with getting the baby out. This morning I found the little white boy in his sweater far from the pen, sound asleep.  Somehow he had crawled out, looking for food and succor no doubt, and given up.  The dark brown doe kid was asleep with her mother, who was not looking as nervous as the day before.  I bottle fed the babies and was relieved to see mom nuzzling the babies a little and checking the rear ends.  Good sign.  Mom's udder is swollen and the teats are low.  I'll nurse her out this morning and give some to the babies.  We'll see how it goes...

New Baby

Finally home after stops at four places.  It is unavoidable some days. Out of checks - stop at bank to order more.  Post office to mail bills and Colorscape contract.  Stewarts to pick up NY Times (Thursday is my favorite issue) and Dollar General because it has the cheapest Friskies salmon cat food.  Home to check the barn first thing for new babies - nothing going on.  Little ones look fine.  Mommies want food but will have to wait.  Doggies waiting to go out.  Took them up the big hill to drink out of the pond/take a swim, then back down to find a new buck kid just born.  Gorgeous dark brown boy born to my beautiful badger doe Sheila, an older doe who hasn't kidded in years.  She is aged and I was concerned, but he is feisty and healthy, and was looking for the teat straight off.  Mom's udder is working fine and producing plenty of milk for him.  After chores, which are much more lengthy with all the various pens for lambs and kids, we built more pens to keep moms with their babies separate from the rest.  The black boy born yesterday is very  beautiful, and his skinny little black mom adores him.  Always a better situation when mom is on board.  In from chores at nine thirty with the sunset sky still pink on the horizon.  Lovely, breezy cool night.  I have not yet caught up from Maryland Sheep and Wool and confess this birthing business has taken a toll.  Ready for night-night right now.  Might have to give in.  If only I was as obsessive about my housekeeping as I am about my animals.

So Far Away

The glorious weather today is reminding me of the lovely weekend we spent at Maryland Sheep and Wool.  I was walking on air watching my faithful patrons in the Maggie's Farm booth.  I am anxious to get my sewing machine going again, as soon as the birthing business is over on the farm.  Who knows what I will find when I get home today, that is, after I divert to the feed mill in Waterville.   The weather looks good for the Hamilton market this weekend.  Wish I had more bags left to bring.  Will have to remedy that situation.  In the meantime I'm thinking about my bag ladies.  I got a sweet note from one of them thanking me for bringing so many beautiful knitting totes to Howard County.  How cool is that? 

In at Ten

Inspected apple blossoms on our daily walk up to the pond.  Incredibly, they look okay.  Still cold tonight, it's 25 F. now, am hoping they make it through another freeze.  Came home from work to find a skinny little black doe with a new black buck kid.  Adorable boy, very healthy.  Got them situated with molasses water and some of Stan's gorgeous green second cut hay.  Mom hardly had two squirts of milk, which I gave to the boy.  I used the reserve I had in the fridge from another mother to fill his belly.  Found a thick wool sweater for him as he is under a window I covered with a fleece blanket.   Three more mom's to go in the maternity pen.   Will make another larger communal kindergarten pen for the one's who graduate from the baby jugs.  Flighty Mom's baby is fantastic.  Caught him and made sure his belly is full.  Not to worry he is doing fine, jumping and playing alongside mom.   Still worry about him roaming at large, but with all these dogs the varmints tend to stay away.  The ewe twin lamb, Maya, born the night I came home from Maryland, is not coming along the way I would like.  She is very lethargic and doesn't like to stand up.  Like a Raggedy Ann. I'm giving her Nutri Drench, milk replacer, B complex, Bo-Se (selenium/vitamin E).  She's growing, but is not strong.  Her brother jumps and plays but she doesn't join in.  She was a little perkier today, but not the way I like.  I won't give up on her.   Mom would love to get out of the pen.    Came in from chores at ten, now it's time for Maya's night-night bottle, then night-night for me.  Wood stove is going, night sky is clear and lovely with a pretty orange crescent moon.  Love the sky here and my big hill is the perfect venue to enjoy it.

Cold Snap

I fear my apple orchard is doomed for yet another year.  Two years ago conditions were perfect for a booming crop of apples.  I've been told my old orchard, which date back many decades, is too old and not worth saving.  The bountiful crop of two years ago proved them wrong.  The sheep grew fat on the apples as I left almost all of them on the ground for the flock.  Frost zapped the blossoms last year, and, sadly, it's happened again. It was 20 F. this morning on the farm, today, May 14.  The weather here in the North Land is fickle and harsh.  Just when we thought winter was behind us we are lighting the wood stove again.  My newborns are all in sweaters.  I am expecting four or five more births and I was sure they would come last night in the wee hours when I am the least prepared to keep them from freezing.  I went out between three and four and found nothing but big round moms.  One girl is so heavy with babies she can hardly lift herself up.  I found her one morning last week, on her back, unable to roll over and right herself.  The babies on either side weight them down.  That position is deadly for sheep and goats as they can suffocate.  Luckily I looked to that side of the barn and saw her before I left for work.  When I got her turned over she staggered dizzily away.  Warm weather is coming tomorrow and we should be out of the woods, but with no apples to look forward to in the fall.  Whatever will I tell Lilly?

That Mommy Thing

I'm homesick for my lambs and kids back on the farm.  I spent a good bit of Mother's Day in the barn with new babies, checking and rechecking them,  helping them stand up, making sure they are nursing, putting sweaters on, etc.  Flighty mom, who sailed over the fence to her jug on Saturday morning, spent the night next to her baby in the barn.  She apparently stashed him in the barn then went out to graze, and either forgot where he was or he moved.    She ran around the barn screaming, frantic over her lost baby.  I was sick about it and berating myself terribly over not doing a better job securing her and the infant in a pen.  I looked and looked in every nook and cranny I could think of.  No buck kid curled up anyway.  I got the dogs and crisscrossed the hillside, checking every ground hog hole and under every bush.  No baby.  Mom continued to run around screaming.  I was working in the barn with the twins and single kid born Sunday morning, still frustrated about the loss of a baby.  Certainly there are losses, but this one was stupid.  Suddenly I noticed no screaming and turned around to see mom and baby reunited.  Where the heck was he?  I knew that no one could do a better job of finding him than she, but she was so hysterical.  Maybe he just walked out of hiding and appeared.  All's well that ends well.  I put out cracked corn and water for her, hoping she would stay in the barn with her baby, and slipped a sweater on him.  Figured if he was going to get himself lost at least he would be warm.  I was busy making jugs for the new newborns, putting on sweaters, etc., and was annoyed with him for making us worry after he came out of hiding.  Later on when we went on the afternoon hill walk mom came running up to us screaming.  You lost him AGAIN?????  I ignored her and went about my walk.  Sure enough they came frolicking down the hillside into the barn around dusk.  I'm constantly inspired by my goat, sheep and chicken mommies.  Their mothering drive is very strong.  I often think if all human mothers were as good as my farm mommies the world would be a better place.

Delicious

While I was at MD. Sheep and Wool last weekend, Matt found some lovely second cut hay right across the creek.  He only has a few bales to spare, but it's enough to keep my mommies in the pens happy.  I have grass growing on the hillside, but I still need bales for the nursery.  This grass is the prettiest I've seen in Brookfield.  At only $4 a bale it's a steal.  We were paying $3 a bale for sticks in North Brookfield.  I'm dishing it out like watercress.  I bought round  laundry baskets at the dollar store to nail up for hay feeders in the pens.  This lovely grass has got to last until the babies are outside.

Happy Mother's Day

He says I'm not his mother but he'll make me an omelette anyway.  Nobody makes an omelette like Matt Redmond.  It was years before he would admit to knowing how to cook anything.  Now the secret is out.  After a night on maternity duty and a long morning in the barn this luscious breakfast really hit the spot.  With my bio kids spread out all over the country it's good that I have all these little four footed babies to take care of.  I'm too busy to be sad.  More babies are on the way.  I get excited just thinking about it.

Twins at Dawn

Was waiting on two nannies in labor last night.  Finally went inside figuring my staring at them might not be the best way to make them relax and let go of their bundles.  Went back out at 2 am and found the tiniest, spindliest little buck kid at the far end of the pen.  Good thing I had put a fleece blanket over the window as the temps were diving and a cold wind was coming through the window.  We had put Lola in her own jug (sheep lingo for lamb pen) too, as she is a very bossy old doe and I feared she would rough the others' babies off them and take over.  No baby for her yet.  Put a coat on the new baby and gave him some Nutri Drench.  Colostrum would have to wait until morning when Matt could hold her horns while I nurse her out.   All sheep and goats need the clip-dip-strip routine when they give birth.  Cords must be clipped and dipped in iodine, and teat need the waxy plus stripped out.  I go the extra length to nurse out some of the life saving fluid that holds all the antibodies the flock has developed against a variety of diseases and squirt it into the babies' mouths with a syringe barrel.  Cheap insurance.  The babies become woozy and drunk on it and frequently flop down and nap.  I went back to bed and woke with a start at dawn.  Took the doggies out to pee and heard new little voices from the barn.  Another doe had the teeniest little twins - one of each.  Finally a female.  They were soaking wet and shivering in the cold.    I knew better than to interfere too soon.  It's important for the mommies to lick the babies off, shivering or not.  It gave me time to make coffee, fix bottles for Cinco and Maya, and wash buckets.  Popped warm, fuzzy, angora/wool sweaters on the babies and squirted Nutri Drench with all the electrolytes and minerals into their firmly fixed and closed mouths.  I always have to wait until they scream for momma to get in those mouths.  Matt got up, built new pens and helped me get the new moms away from the cold outside wall into a warmer place.   That leaves more room in the maternity pen for the several moms to come.  What a blessing on Mother's Day to have all these little bundles of joy to love and care for.  I'm so grateful for this life of wonder and enchantment.  I'm also grateful the mommies waited until I got home from Maryland Sheep and Wool last weekend, then waited for Mother's Day weekend to start the population explosion.  Who knows what the day will bring.  Finger's crossed I will get a BLACK DOE KID out of this production, my favorite fiber, next to black angora.    With mohair going at $40 a pound, I am going to keep all the baby bucks and wether them in a couple of days.  All I have to do is put a band around the tiny sack and it won't grow.  No blood, minimal discomfort.  They won't grow horns but I can deal with that.  All they will grow is beautiful, glossy, sturdy mohair.  I'll spend the day doting over my babies and getting some work done in between.  Life is good.