Hello folks!! I haven't fallen off the face of the earth...blogging just hasn't been my thing lately. And with Christmas and everything we've all been pretty busy to say the least! I have been enjoying the snow we have...well somewhat at least. I'm just glad here in Oklahoma it doesn't stay around for more than a few days! :) We did have a blast sledding in it over at Dave and Kate's, they have some really cool hills out there, made for some great fun, unless you hit a rock or a tree! But then today when we were in town picking up some things...well it just looked plain ugly, all the snow and mud mixed together....plus doing chores in it isn't so fun either...so I decided that I was totally fine with it melting soon.
Kidding season with the goats is right around the corner, with the first one due the first week of February. 17 of them are bred, but all rather spread out for the most part so I don't think it's going to be too crazy...but you never know with goats. :D
Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!! And Melinda...the picture of Rancho is for you. :)
Duffy and Dooley just got back from the groomer today...so since they were all priss and prim and had cute little bows in their hair we decided to do Christmas pictures! They are the sweetest boys, and just a bit spoiled I will admit!!
Well seems like about this time of year I always have to get a new puppy of some sort....so yes I did it again...ANOTHER dog. :D Kinda weird how it happened, I wasn't looking for a puppy at all just came across this add and they were so cute. LOL Anyhow.....introducing my newest baby "Daisy." She's a Jack Russel/Corgi mix with possibly something else in there too, not totally sure, but she is adorable!!
Well I thought the relatives that weren't able to make it for Nana's 70th birthday party would like to see some pictures! Aunt Tami and Mom were really creative with coming up with a "Scrabble" themed party since Nana is quite the Scrabble queen! Hannah did a great job with the cake, it was wonderful!! We all had a great time, so much fun!
Uncle Jerry and his doggy nephews...lol aren't they the cutest dogs?? :P
This weekend we were back in Tulsa for the Boer goat show. It was pretty cold on Friday getting them all bathed and such...I didn't do any of the washing and I was still freezing. Saturday was a little better, the sun came out and it wasn't quite as windy. None of my does placed, it was pretty crazy with classes that were so huge, 79 goats in one of them to be exact!! My new buck was in a class of about 35, and ended up placing 10th which wasn't bad. And then the last one to show was my yearling buck '10B2B X111.' Elijah was showing him for me so I was sitting in the stands watching and kinda nervous as they kept placing and he was in the top 4, and then 3, and then just him and one other buck...and then...1st place!! I was so excited!! The judge really liked him, and made lots of nice comments. So a few minutes later he was back in for the grand drive, and imagine my surprise when he took Grand Champion!! We were all so excited!
Unfortunately the only picture I have is one a friend took on their cell phone that is really blurry and the buck isn't set up very well.... Sooo anyway that finished up the state fairs for us, now just one more Boer goat show the end of October and show season will be over until spring. It's been fun!!
Well this past week was the Tulsa Dairy goat show. We loaded up Thursday morning and arrived in Tulsa around noon. Most of the afternoon was spent getting the goats ready, and then Anna decided she wanted to walk through the fair and see if she could find a good ride to ride. After deciding which one we were going to do, well actually I wasn't planning on going, I'd just never really rode any rides before so I wasn't too sure about it. :D But Anna and my friend Brianne finally convinced me that I had to do it...so I did and it ended up being really fun. After we finished up with everything we headed to the Stinson's home where we spent the night. We had a great time visiting with them and hearing stories and seeing pictures from Sarah and Rebekah's trip to Indonesia, they had just got back early that morning.
The show was Friday morning and the Stinson girls Hannah, Sarah, and Rebekah came along with us to join in the fun. The first class for me was my one milker Shardae, she had uddered up so nice and took first place in her class with best udder, and then went Reserve Grand!! I was thrilled!!! Next was my four young kids who ended up in a really big class, we got 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 7th. Not bad at all to have 3 of them at the very top of a class that size. After that was my 2 dry yearlings, who were in a really big class. I was showing "Main Attraction" who is my favorite one to show usually because normally she sets up so nicely for me. However she decided that she didn't want any part of behaving and was acting totally ridiculous. I was kinda frustrated thinking that the judge wouldn't even be able to get a good look at her since she was moving around so much. Imagine my surprise when he put her in 1st place!! The other one was close behind her in 4th. So next was the line up for grand, and she won Grand Champion!! I was so excited!! She is such a beautiful girl, definitely one of my favorites.
Last was the group classes with Shardae's triplets and we got 2nd place Jr. Get of Sire, 1st place Jr. Produce of Dam, and 1st place Best three Jr. does. Praise the Lord for His blessing on my herd...it was an exciting show for sure!
We came home Friday night, as the fair wouldn't give us a release for our goats until Saturday morning, so we had to drive all the way back Saturday morning and pick them up, and then we went straight to Yale OK, to the Cowboy Classic Boer Goat Sale. I spent about an hour looking over all the bucks they had there, and finally decided that my first choice would be a younger one sired by 'AK 47 *Ennobled*' a buck that sold last year for $41,000. However I had no idea how high he would sell for and was a bit worried that he would go out of our price range. Finally it came time for him to sell, Dad was bidding and it just kept going higher and higher, it was between us and one other guy and I didn't know how high he was going to go!! Finally he stopped though just as we had got to the max we could pay...and he was ours!! I'm really excited about this little guy! He was bred by Harry Linam of 10 Buck 2 Boer's who passed away early this year....so probably one of the last young bucks you can buy carrying his herd name.
Introducing...."10B2B Mugsy's BAP AK Macho Man" quite the name huh? :D
I also had Anna take some pictures of my Nubian babies, as they are all clipped right now and I needed pictures for my website. Ignore the backgrounds as I just needed the goats themselves because I cut them out for the website. You can see them here. Hasn't Shardae's triplets gotten big?
Wow, this has been a busy fun week so far!! We took the Nubian girls up Monday evening, and then the show started Tuesday morning. It ended up starting way later than it was supposed to because we were waiting on our judge. So I think we didn't start until about 11:30 instead of 9:00.
Here's how we did on the first day.
1st place yearling milker- Lakeshore PS Shardae
1st place Jr. kid (5-8 mo. class) Shekinah's EH Sonata 2nd place Jr. kid (5-8 mo. class) Shekinah's EH Shalom
2nd place Jr. Get of Sire- Shardae's triplets (for those of you that aren't familiar with dairy goat terms, this is a group class showing 3 kids all from the same sire)
2nd place Jr. Produce of Dam- 2 of Shardae's triplets
3rd place Best three Jr. Does- Shardae's triplets
1st place Dam and Daughter- Shardae and Sonata
Wednesday turned out great too...
2nd place yearling milker- Shardae (She didn't udder up as nicely as she did the first day)
1st place Jr. kid- Shekinah's EH Sonata
4th place dry yearling- Blissberry FM Main Attraction
1st place Jr. Get of Sire- Shardae's triplets
1st place Jr. Produce of Dam- 2 of Shardae's triplets
2nd place Best three Jr. Does- Shardae's triplets
2nd place Dam and Daughter- Shardae and Sonata
I was so happy to get first place again with Sonata!! The second judge really placed things up differently than the first judge, so I was really excited she placed 1st under both. Thanks so much to my friend Emily for showing her to both her first place wins. :)
It was definitely a fun show!! Had a lot of fun spending time with all my "dairy goat" friends too. :)
Now I'm getting geared up for the Boer goat show on Saturday...hopefully it will go well!
Unfortunately pretty much all of our pictures turned out really grainy and blurry....but I picked out a few to post anyway.
Wow, this has been a busy week for sure!! Breeding season is in full swing with the goats, and also State fair preparation! Wednesday, Dad and I hauled two loads of goats up to the vet to get health papers, Thursday I had to get pictures of one of my buck kids for a potential buyer which means washing and clipping especially since it's so muddy right now, and then that evening I had to get all the Boer kids that I'm showing tattooed...that's one of my least favorite jobs...so I put it off as long as I can. :D So now I have nice green fingernails from the tattoo ink that takes forever to wear off. :) Thanks to Andrew for being my assistant! :)
And then today I clipped one of the Nubian girls Shardae...goodness that goat is such a priss!!! I was glad to get her done with, well all except a udder shave but I'll probably do that on Monday. And for tomorrow....I have someone coming out to look at the buck in the morning, and then I need to go to Stillwater to pick up feed and get a few things I need for the shows...and then come home and clip more of the girls. Busy busy!! AND we have to get things to build my Nubian buck "Escape" a pen WAY away from the girls...I knew I should never have named that dude "Escape!" :D
And then Monday we haul the Nubians up to the fair! I'm sure I'll have lots to blog about once the week is over, it should be quite the adventure. :)
I'm not sure what I'm doing to myself with breeding the goats for February babies...I'll be frozen for sure!! But at least I won't have to wait ALL the way until March!! :D And it won't be all of them kidding then, just a few and most of them will be March/April. I have one last sale to go to to try to get a new Boer buck (I didn't buy one at the San Angelo sale), I just looked at the sales catalog for it last night, and it looks like they are going to be selling some really nice ones, so I'm praying that I'll be able to get one!
Anyway... I'm so ready for all this rain to leave for a while...I mean I'm grateful for it, but sloshing around in muddy soggy goat pens (in flip flops) is not exactly fun. :P
Here's the pics of the buck kid I mentioned, "Shekinah's Be Prepared." :) The top picture is one of Shardae's triplets saying "hi"
Life has been rather busy lately, we had a quick trip to my grandparents in Texas last weekend for my Uncle Todd's surprise 50th birthday. Had a great time down there, and I think he was quite surprised that we were all there! We got back late Sunday evening after a long and rather uncomfortable drive. :) Poor Dad was on the back seat and it's rather bouncy back there, so he wasn't having the best time.
Monday morning Uncle Jerry and Aunt Tami, and their two children Garrett and Hannah stopped by on their way back to KS. They were just going to drop in real quick, but then we had Dave and Kate over to meet them and Jerry and Dave really got into some interesting conversations about different ideas, and ended up Uncle Jerry decided to go on home and leave the rest to visit for a few more days and then come back and pick them up. We were excited, as we always love having the cousins around! :)
We had a lot of fun, went and played volleyball one night, celebrated Micah's birthday, stayed up late every night telling funny stories and stuff, had a wiener roast, and one day someone dared Hannah to swim across our pond, and she did...really fast because she didn't know what was in the water! :D
They stayed until this morning, Jerry came back late last night. Oh and he brought the "doggy cousins" Annie and Zoe along too! :) Duffy wasn't so sure about them at all, but Dooley had a blast and Duffy finally warmed up some and had fun too. It was pretty funny seeing all 4 dogs running crazy around the house! :D
I've been busy getting all the goats prepped up for breeding season, I'm planning on February babies this year...might regret that later, but it works out better for all the shows that way. Plus I don't have to wait as long. :P Hopefully everything will go smoothly and there won't be any escaping bucks like last year. :)
One of my younger bucks went to his new home on Tuesday, and then I have somebody picking up a yearling buck and taking him to Arizona here in about a week. So only a couple more to go and I'll have everything sold that needed to go. I'm also looking for a new Boer buck to purchase, and might possibly be heading to a sale in Texas this weekend to see if I can find something, they have some really nice bucks for sale...hopefully they'll be in my price range. And then with the State fair coming up in 3 weeks...and a Artificial Insemination workshop to go to next Saturday....the goats are keeping me busy!
And rather random, just a picture of my Boer buck, got him all cleaned up yesterday...isn't he handsome? :)
Wow, we had such a fun weekend visiting my dear friend Danielle, and her family in Illinois. Caleb, Daniel, Elijah, Anna, Micah and I headed up early Thursday morning, and made the 12 hour drive, with only one stop!! :) We all visited the restrooms pretty soon after we got there. :D It was so neat getting to meet everybody, although we'd heard so much about them it seemed like we knew them already. :) It was really pretty up there, SOOO many corn fields!! The farms were beautiful though, just looked picture perfect.
Gabrielle, Dannie and I
First off they showed us around their place, they have about 5 different barns, but this one was just SO cool to me, I loved it!! It was absolutely huge, on the first floor were horse stalls and stuff, and then upstairs it was pretty much just open space, with a swing, and a trap door going down to the first floor. I had to try out that after Dannie didn't think I could climb down it...lol had to show her I could! :P
We played some volleyball as well, and then after a wonderful dinner, we saddled up the horses and rode until dark in the paddock, and then we came inside and sat around and talked and played games.
Lots of four wheeler rides too, Jordan has two of them, so it made for a lot of fun. Although Anna and I had to KEEP reminding the guys to be careful!! :D I had a lot fun four wheeling with Dannie, it was pretty cool riding around through the lanes in between the fields, and seeing all the farms.
Friday morning we played more volleyball, and then took the horses out and rode them up and down the ditches next to the highway. It was a long stretch so you could get going pretty fast, it was so fun!! I love riding, although since I don't do it much I ended up being pretty sore. :D And then a couple people got thrown into the pool, first Micah, (that was quite interesting to watch!) and then Daniel.
That afternoon we went to a park that had this really neat creek, the water was FREEZING right next to where it came out, but once you waded out a bit it wasn't quite as cold. We went way down the creek, and got pretty wet, the water came up almost waist high sometimes. On the way back we ended up climbing up the bank and going back down the trail, it was pretty slow walking down the creek because there were so many rocks and you were always tripping. It was a lot of fun, all of us really enjoyed it. We stayed up REALLY late Friday night talking and playing games, until almost 5:00 I think! It was great!
Saturday, we picked blueberries at the neighbors house, they tasted so good, we ate tons of them just while we were picking, but we still got several cartons full to take home. And then right after lunch we loaded up and headed to the Belvedere county fair. Dannie and I decided to wear denim skirts and boots...problem is the skirts were shorter and didn't come down to the top of the boots, so it looked rather interesting! :D
Since it was a county fair I was expecting it to be rather small, but it ended up being really big. We walked through the animal barns, and of course the goat barn :P and the guys looked at all the tractors and stuff. They were having the draft horse judging going on while we were there, it was so cool to watch, you could stand right next to the fence and it was so neat seeing them come flying by.
Isaac looking at the goats
And then at 4:00 it was time for the rodeo! There were a lot of riders from Oklahoma, and one bull rider actually from Guthrie, we thought that was so cool!! It was a great rodeo, we had so much fun! We sat pretty close to the bucking chutes, so Anna was able to get some pretty neat bull riding pictures.
After the rodeo we walked around the fair a little more, and then headed back home. Dannie and I had to stop and take a picture sitting in this John Deere tractor tire. :)
We stayed up late again Saturday night, mostly just talking and the some of them were playing a computer game, everybody was just laughing at them trying to play it! :D We headed back home at about 9:00 Sunday morning.
It was such a great trip, we all had a wonderful time, thanks so much for having us Lee family!
