Far Above Rubies

Catching up on life :)

2011-11-28T13:49:00.003-06:00

Life has been kinda busy for me the past couple weeks!! I thought I'd do a quick update...and since I have an iphone now I have quite a few pics even though they aren't the best quality at least you can get an idea of what I've been up to.

A few weeks ago I flew up to IL to visit my best ever friend Danielle, we had a blast together and I loved getting to see her and my favorite little boy ever, Layton. He is just way too cute!!

Needless to say I loved my visit up there and can't wait to see them again!!

Oh and yes it SNOWED while I was up there, lol I wasn't quite prepared for that, but it was pretty cool since I didn't have to go out and do chores in it. :)

Once back home I had about a million things planned....getting caught up on work and mostly getting the goats bred, I had about 5 of them ready to breed just a few days after arriving home, and since I'm doing mostly artifical insemination (don't get grossed out, it's just goats!!) it was quite the job! I get to use a lot of new genetics that way, and have access to really high dollar animals that I wouldn't be able to breed to otherwise. So here's hoping I can get quite a few of them settled!!

And then it was time for the whole family to pack up and head to Dickinson Texas to visit family for Thanksgiving, we had quite the adventure, including car difficulties and some people getting sick...but we managed to have a blast anyway. I'm so blessed with such a wonderful family!

We also took my two inside dogs Duffy and Dooley, and then my Aunt Tami had her 3 dogs, so Nana and Pops house was quite full with 5 dogs and a whole bunch of people, it was awesome. :)

Lol having fun with my cousin Hannah. :)

It was great to see Caleb and Kristen, so glad they got to fly in from MD! I think Kristen passed the test with all of our family, they loved her. :)

Documenting all the desserts ;)

Stayed up late and played our all time favorite card game, Canasta.

Had fun with my adorable little cousin Ty, he's so cute!

We headed home on Saturday, driving back with Uncle Jerry, and Aunt Tami. It was raining solid for about the 1st two hours and Anna's car was having some major difficulties with the steering locking up. Not the best thing when you are driving on the highway through Houston with lots of traffic. However Elijah thought it would be "fine" and we kept going. That is until the battery light came on and said the charge system wasn't working correctly. So we decided to get off at that point and went to a Chevy dealership who thankfully after about an hour of waiting was able to get it fixed by putting a moisture/rain guard on because supposedly the rain was getting on the belt and causing the steering to slip.

Thankfully we made it back home without anymore troubles!!

And I guess that's it for now, I'll leave ya with a updated pic of Russell, he's growing up fast. :)

Hmm, maybe now that I have an iphone I'll have to join my Mom (www.weloveyoujoel.blogspot.com) with her Instafriday thingy. ;) We'll see!!

Hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

Russell :)

2011-08-25T16:44:00.002-05:00

Well I did it again...I got ANOTHER dog. I wasn't planning to, it sort of just happened...like this. Last Saturday morning I loaded up a few goats I was culling out to take to the sale barn. When I got there I had to wait in line for about an hour, apparently everybody is downsizing their herds or something because of hay shortages. Anyway while I was waiting there I noticed a really cute, fluffy, black and white puppy in a crate in the back of a pickup truck. An older man was standing close by so I complimented him on what a cute dog he had, and he informed me that it was a dual registered Australian shepherd and he was for sale. Oh boy, I immediately knew I wanted him...however once he named the price and I thought over the fact that I really didn't need another dog..I pretty much convinced myself not to get him. But like I said the line was really long so I sat there and kept thinking about it and couldn't stop looking at that cute puppy. I texted my sister Anna and told her that there was a really cute Aussie for sale...and her reply was "buy him!" Hmm...I then texted my Mom and just randomly said there was a really cute puppy for sale. Her reply wasn't too negative so I figured out a way to come up with the money and made a deal on him. :) Texted my Mom back and said "I bought it!" :D

I made a blog post! :)

2011-08-19T10:03:00.003-05:00

Hey Folks! Well as you probably can tell blogging has not been my thing lately! Or rather I've just been loving SUMMER as it's my favorite season of the year- maybe when winter comes around and I'm bored or something I'll get back into the blogging thing. ;)

However I thought I'd at least take the fall leaves off of my background...even though it's almost fall already...goodness time flies! So here's a happy summer color theme for as long as I can enjoy it. :)

Life has been busy, blessed and wonderful these days. My summer has consisted of, lots of volleyball, friends, swimming, visiting my bestest friend Danielle in IL, working on the farm, hanging out with my family, playing on the lake, going back to IL to be with Danielle and her husband for the birth of their baby boy Layton (definitely a highlight of the year!), going to a Texas Rangers baseball game, realizing everybody in our family is growing up, going to Six Flags for the first time, and well soooo many other things but hey I can't remember everything. :)

Farm life has been great, I've downsized my herd a little, trying to focus on quality not quantity and also because of the extreme dryness this year which makes hay really expensive. I'm excited to fly out my first goat ever to Ohio in a week...hopefully everything goes smoothly with that. :) I also had a lady buy one in New Mexico which was pretty cool. Today I have the AG teacher from Stillwater coming to buy a Boer wether and another lady coming to look at a Nubian doe kid so hopefully I'll make some sales.

Time to get to work now, blessings to everybody!

Besh

Lots of babies!

2011-03-25T11:51:00.006-05:00

Kidding season is about 2/3 of the way finished! So far 11 does have kidded with a total of 20 babies bouncing around. :) Still 6 more to go, Shardae is due any day now, these will be my first AI babies so I'm pretty excited! Show season is right around the corner, gotta love spring!!

Babies!

2011-03-02T22:28:00.002-06:00

The first kids of the year were born on Saturday, Boer twins!

it's fall!!

2010-11-13T11:48:00.002-06:00

Yep fall is really here!! Feels more like winter to me though! lol I definitely don't like cold weather, but something about the weather getting cooler and Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up does make me excited! :)

I "checked" my own blog just now and saw that rather nasty picture of myself still at the top...and umm yeah, time for something different!

Farm life is good, most of the goats are bred for March/April kids, still have a couple I'm waiting on, and the new thing for me this fall is doing artificial insemination, sorry if that's a little weird for some of you, but hey it's livestock we're talking about here. :) It really opens up a lot of opportunities for what I can do with my breeding program, being able to use lots of different bucks and bring in some new stuff! So I'm pretty excited! Just hoping that I'm successful with it, does take some major timing and practice.

I couldn't even begin to try to tell everything that happens in my life these days, let's just say it's an adventure!! Mom pretty much keeps up with day to day stuff on her blog, so check it out for everyday happenings.

Until my next post...whenever that may be. :) (And thanks to my sis Anna for the pics!)

hello!!!

2010-08-20T16:21:00.004-05:00

**Sorry my template got all messed up, so just put this up for now, don't have time to mess with it!**

Wow the last time I wrote was May?? Goodness, I AM still alive, just in case anybody missed me. :P

So a brief recap of my life since then..

June..I turned 21...does that scare anybody? Went to my first out of state show (Sedalia Missouri) actually maybe that was the end of May, and won Jr. Grand with a homebred doe kid "Shekinah's Sweet Sensation." My Rocketeer boy also won Grand and Best of Breed.

July...played music in a friend's wedding with my bro's, took a jet ski out on Lake Murray, played lots of volleyball.

August..drove to Missouri with my amazing bro Daniel for my dearest friend Danielle's bridal shower, and got to meet her handsome guy Aaron, he's pretty cool. I approved. :)

And now... got the dairy girls entered in the OKC State Fair, need to do Tulsa entries next week, and unfortunately I won't be showing any Boer's this fall, with having such a rough kidding season I really only have a few that I could take so it wasn't really going to be worth it. :( Oh well Lord willing we'll hit the Boer shows hard in the spring!!

And the end of this month (next week actually) we'll be taking a family trip up to Illinois for Danielle's wedding!! So exciting!! Will be my first wedding to be in, well second sort of I guess, first time to be a bridesmaid. :) Kinda interesting having a lot of my friends become "old married women" (as I like to tease them!) now!! It's cool though, maybe I'll join the club one of these days. :)

Alright Hannah, there you go!!

Later, peeps!!

Back from the Show!

2010-05-10T14:19:00.005-05:00

Blissberry Touch Of Elegance

Blissberry FM Main Attraction

Well we got back from the I.N. D. G. A. Dairy goat show at about 3:00 a.m. on Sunday! Wow it was a loooonng day with the show starting at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday and ending around 11:00 p.m. Had a blast though! My yearling well almost 2 year old milker 'Blissberry FM Main Attraction' was 1st in her class in the first ring, and 2nd in the other. Shardae managed to pull off 3rd in a huge class in the second ring, she totally hates the show ring so doesn't show herself off very well.

'Shekinah's Sweet Sensation' (Jr. Kid) was 3rd in the first ring and 2nd in the other, and one of my yearlings was 3rd in her class. There was a lot of beautiful Nubians there, lots of competition!

We finally started the buck show at around 10:00 p.m. maybe? It was late! My Jr. buckling 'Shekinah's Drama Boy was first in his class and Jr. Champion in the first ring, and 1st and Res. Jr. Champion in the second ring. And my yearling buck *B Blissberry MW Rocketeer took Grand in the first ring over all the older bucks! Really cool! He was 1st in his class in the second ring.

It was a really fun day, had a blast with all of our friends, and a rather violent game of spoons! :D Thank the Lord for his blessing on my goat endeavors!

My big Boer boy 10B2B X111 went to his new home today, I'm going to miss him, but he went to a really great family.

Micah taking a nap on the job...

Anna was doing the photography of all the winners...umm and people?? :D

*B Blissberry MW Rocketeer

some baby pictures!

2010-05-05T18:44:00.005-05:00

Well I don't have time for a real long post, but thought I'd at least post some pictures!! I know I'm loooonnngggg over due, things have been busy around here. These two little girls were born this afternoon, out of my doe I got flown in from CA last year, Lakeshore Hot To Trot. I have a show coming up this weekend, Lord willing. It will be a lot of fun, I'm so excited about it! I'll be taking 9 of my Nubians to show, and probably Hot To Trot's babies will have to come along so I can take care of them...and maybe her too because I'm not sure she will have the milking routine down well enough for Hosanna to be able to handle her.

For some reason Dooley had escaped outside and he was finding the baby goats quite interesting! Oh and please note the pictures were taken by "GoatGirl" photography...and I don't totally know how to use Anna's camera so some of the pics are kinda blurry. lol :)

All my stories finally :)

2010-03-10T14:06:00.004-06:00

Well I'm finally taking the time to sit down and recap all the stories I mentioned in the post below...might be old news to some people but if you haven't heard it before hopefully you'll find it interesting! So lets rewind back to mid February about a week after Main Attraction kidded. My two girls that I didn't have the due dates for both decided to kid when I wasn't around, which is kind of nice sometimes as long as they don't have any problems, Reba had a single doe kid, Anna told me it was a buck and I totally believed her until I went up there and checked for myself! :D Nope a doe! Hosanna's doe Wenneveria kidded with a single buckling, he's a really cute little guy! Both of those were "accidentally" sired by my Nubian buck. :(

My friend Danielle and her brother Jordan drove down from IL on the weekend of the 12th to spend a few days with us, which happened to be the weekend that I had several does due. :) So sure enough Sunday night one of my Boer does (Sapphire) went into labor, this doe has had a really weird time with kidding, the first year having a stillborn, then didn't get bred the second year and this was her last chance before she went to live somewhere else. So with her track record of nothing but problems I was definitely keeping a close eye on her, her labor was pretty slow, she just wasn't getting down to business very quick, so after a couple hours I decided to give her a shot of calcium to help with muscle tone and maybe speed things up a bit. Did that and finally she started doing some hard pushing, I checked to make sure the kid was presented correctly (can avoid a lot of problems with just a quick check) and ugh 3 hooves instead of two, after feeling around a bit I realized we had two front hooves coming out correctly and then a second kid's hind leg trying to come out at the same time. So I went ahead and pushed the second kid back out of the birth canal and pulled the correctly presented one forward, a few more pushes and it was out, a beautiful little girl! Number two came out breech as expected and was a buckling, both were nice sized very strong little kiddo's. I'm so glad I gave Sapphire another chance!! :)

Monday comes around and doing chores I check on two Nubians that were due anytime and went and told Danielle, "looks like we're gonna have more babies today!" Maggie kidded a couple hours later with twins, a buck and a doe, the doe is sooo cute!! Later on that afternoon the other doe started labor, she's one of my girls I got from MN almost two years ago, this was her first time to have kids. Once she started pushing hard with no progress I was getting concerned, so I had Andrew hold her while I went in and checked, it was hard to figure out what I was feeling in there, but finally I was able to bring one leg and a head forward and the first little buckling was born. Deep breath, I was sure she would be fine now as usually once the first one is born the other ones just slide right on out. Well it didn't happen, she started pushing again and once again...nothing. Okay another check and wow...was I ever confused, I was feeling front legs, back legs, spine, but couldn't find a head anywhere, I fished for a while but then getting really concerned about my doe and the fact that I couldn't get the tangle straightened out I figured I'd better go ahead and take her in to my vet. So Andrew and I loaded her up in the van...yikes not the best thing but gotta do what you gotta do! Once we got there one of the vet assistants came out and shocked me by picking her up (she was a pretty good sized girl!) and carrying her right in through the front door. It just so happened to be a very busy time at the vet so just imagine this, a guy comes through the door carrying a huge doe who is kinda messy on the rear end and dripping birth fluid all the way down the hallway to the operating table! :D Everybody was stepping back like wow this is a little different!! He barely made it to the table with her, lol with out dropping her that is and the vet came in and got started, I must say we drew quite the crowd! I was helping hold her as well as about 3 other vet assistants and we had a whole group of people in the doorway watching, was pretty interesting! The vet went in, and after feeling around for a bit made the comment "wow I'm not surprised you couldn't get this figured out" it took him a while but finally he pulled out another one breech...ahh now I know why I couldn't find a head! It was ANOTHER buckling, he went in again to check and sure enough there was a third one in there, also breech which both breech and tangled together was why I couldn't get things sorted out on my own, and this time it was a doe! We got home just barely in time to get the kids fed and for me to jump in the shower before Mom's big valentines party she had. Quite the day. I was a bit concerned about the second buckling as he was having some issues with his rear legs from the hard pull and couldn't stand. But he seemed to be doing okay at their last feeding that evening. The next morning when I go out there he was definitely not okay, laying on his side with his head curled over and he was so cold, I was just about sure he wasn't going to make it. :( I hurried inside with him and Andrew and I got to work trying to get him warmed up, we filled up the sink with very warm water, put the kid in a trash bag with just his head sticking out to keep him dry and into the water he went. It wasn't looking too good for a while, he was so cold his temperature wouldn't even register on my thermometer, and once I finally did get him warm enough for it to read it was still way low like 95 *F when normal goat temp should be 101*F-103*F. We worked on him for about an hour and a half and before you knew it the little guy was standing up on his own! Wow! His temperature went right back up to 102, and he took a bottle. I couldn't believe it! We kept him inside for a couple of days and splinted his back legs so he could walk. Once he was stronger a couple days later we took him back outside and took the splints off and that little guy was walking around just fine! He's such a cute little thing you would never know that he went through all of that now.

Sooo that's all the goat adventures, and now for my injuries from Elijah's mad momma cows. :D Usually whenever they have their calves he'll put the mom and her baby in an area of the barn for a few days so they can bond and especially if it's really cold outside. Problem is it greatly complicates my goat chores because I'm like climbing all around temporary fences he puts up and it blocks the stall where my alfalfa hay is. When the first cow calved he had her in the barn and one day I was up there and noticed the big heavy duty panel he had across the "barn aisle" keeping her from coming into my milking area was about to fall down, so not wanting that to happen I decided to pick up one end of the panel from the other side and try to move it to where it was more secure, so I pick it up and start pushing it when suddenly the cow jumps and butts the panel from the other side smashing it into my head, OUCH! Very painful...so I decided it was probably not a good idea to mess with that anymore. :)

Adventure number 2, second cow calves and we're in the same scenario, but this time I was crawling over about 5 fences to get to my alfalfa hay and them climbing back over all of them with an arm load of hay, doing my best to stay totally on the other side of the fence from the cow. Well right at the very end I had one place that I put one leg over on the cows side of the fence right before I get to safety. So I put my leg over and *smash* the cow starts ramming my leg with her head, I lost my balance and my body fell back over the fence (not on the cows side thankfully!) but my leg stayed hooked up on the fence with the cow still smashing it. Not a good situation to be in. Finally she backed off and I extracted myself from the dangling position I was in, and just stood there for a while with a lot of pain shooting through my leg. Wow..I can't believe I did that! Once the pain subsided a bit I limped through the rest of my chores and headed back to the house. But wow did I ever have some major bruises that are only just now about gone. I was just thankful nothing was broken, definitely could have been worse!

Sooo is farm life interesting or what?? :D Now I'm waiting on my pretty Shardae to kid, she is totally huge, so I'm guessing triplets again, sure would be nice if she has some girls in there! :)

I don't have really many new pictures...need to get Anna to take some, but the one at the top is Maggie's lil kid, she's so cute!

Cuteness

2010-02-23T22:49:00.002-06:00

Isn't this little guy just adorable?? :) Wow I've been super busy lately, the kid count is up to 11, and yes I've got some stories about birthing adventures. :) Plus narrow escapes from mad mama cows...and normal farm life I guess. :D But for now I'll just leave you all hanging and hopefully get more pictures of the kiddo's soon and maybe have some time to sit down and do a long post. :)

First Baby Goats!!

2010-02-05T16:13:00.004-06:00

Well Main Attraction finally decided to have those babies!! She started having contractions around supper time last night and kidded at about midnight, so pretty much right on her due date. :) Everything went pretty well, I was getting a bit concerned as she kept pushing and I wasn't seeing anything so I had Caleb come up (because everybody else was in bed except for my faithful little helper Hosie) to help hold her as I was beginning to wonder if the kid was presented correctly. But by the time he came up she was really getting down to business and finally out came a big ole buck kid. Number 2 followed shortly after and was also a buckling. Bummer! I was so hoping to have a doeling out of her and also had somebody that deposited on one...but oh well not much I can do about it I guess. They sure are cute little guys though, even though they are boys. :D LOL and Main Attractions udder is looking very nice. Praise the Lord for healthy babies!

First Baby Born!!

2010-02-02T14:27:00.004-06:00

But not a goat yet... :) One of Elijah's cows had a little heifer yesterday, she is sooo adorable!! We had just been making guesses the day before on which would go first, my goat or Elijah's cow...and most everybody thought it would be baby goats first, but we were wrong! :D Only 3 more days until Main Attraction is due though, so it should be soon.

Meanwhile we were able to get the new "baby barn" all framed up, now just to put the metal on and then build a pen around it, will be very nice!

Wow with all the snow melting it is quite the mud mess outside, it was pretty interesting driving the 4 wheeler through it taking hay out to the goats this morning...fun though and reminded me of just how much I love farm life...despite the mud. :)

Only 10 more days!

2010-01-26T14:24:00.004-06:00

It's been a great day so far, algebra with Micah this morning, goat chores, lunch, more goat chores, then started some bread, got a cup of coffee and....decided to do a blog post. :) We had a really fun busy weekend, Saturday was a friends wedding, Hosanna's birthday, and also remembering Joel throughout the busy day. Sunday was little Lilian's baby shower, she is so cute we just love having a little baby around to love on! And then we finished up Sunday evening with Anna and I going up and spending the night with the Burnett girls for one last time in OKC as they moved out of the rooms they had in the training center there on Monday morning. Needless to say we had a lot of fun!!

Only 10 more days until my first doe is due, Main Attraction, she's one of the baby's I had flown in from MN almost 2 years ago and also my Grand Champion girl this fall at the Tulsa State Fair. So I'm super excited about seeing her kids and hopefully she'll have a nice udder too. I'm trying to get everything prepared, have been picking up a few items I keep on hand during kidding season, and trying to remember if I'm forgetting anything. :) And we're also planning on building a new baby pen (for the Nubian babies) down here close to the house to make feeding them much easier and quicker. I'm excited about that, will definitely cut down on my trips up to the barn. Hopefully we will be able to get that up by the end of this week.

So here's what the kidding schedule is looking like this year, on paper that is because you just never know whats really going to happen! :D I've sold off a few of my girls, as I'm really trying hard to be able to come out better this year and actually make a profit, so I only have 14 bred this year, which is a few less than last year if I remember correctly.

February-

Main Attraction (Nubian) Feb. 5th
Sapphire (Boer) Feb. 13th
Maggie (Nubian) Feb. 14th
Elegance (Nubian) Feb. 15th

March-

Shardae (Nubian) March 10th
Fat Doe (Boer) March 25th

April-

Alyssa (Boer) April 4th
Destiny (Boer) April 11th
Gauger (Boer) April 17th
Christiana (Boer) April 18th

May-

Hot To Trot (Nubian) May 8th
Sonata (Nubian) May 22nd

And then 2 Boer girls Reba, and Wenneveria that I'm afraid the Nubian buck got in with are due probably sometime in February. I was disappointed about Reba because she usually has some of my nicest Boer kids....but oh well. :( I also have 5 younger Boer does but I decided not to breed them to kid as yearlings this time, I thought about breeding them to kid in the fall but I may just wait and have them kid early next year, we shall see.

Anna took some pictures of Rancho and Daisy this afternoon, I'm not sure what Rancho was digging for but it looks like he was having fun!! Him and Daisy are big buddies now, Daisy is such a sweet little dog, my little buddy when I'm out doing chores. :) And remember the cute little white eared baby? That's her getting so big! And the one on the right in the top pic is my little preemie kid, she's huge now!

Well I need to get my bread finished up, have to get 10 loaves made for a wedding reception this weekend...hope everybody has a great week!

Still here :)

2009-12-26T15:27:00.003-06:00

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's Christmas pictures!

2009-12-10T16:51:00.002-06:00

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!!

Daisy :)

2009-11-07T16:51:00.003-06:00

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!!

Nana's Birthday party

2009-10-26T13:57:00.005-05:00

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

Tulsa State Fair Winner!!

2009-10-12T17:33:00.002-05:00

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!!

The latest Dairy show....and a new buck! :)

2009-10-05T20:10:00.004-05:00

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?

Sonata

Shamara

Shalom

Hot To Trot

Back from the show!!

2009-09-24T12:34:00.005-05:00

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.

Getting ready for the Fair!

2009-09-18T16:48:00.006-05:00

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"

Gotta run...

Catching Up

2009-09-03T13:12:00.005-05:00

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? :)

Our Trip to IL!

2009-08-17T18:38:00.013-05:00

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!

Update...I'm so bad at titles! :D

2009-07-30T15:20:00.005-05:00

Seriously I'm still alive, not sure if anybody was wondering, but just in case you were, I'm doing great. Seems like life has just been pretty normal lately, (well as normal as it gets) and not a lot to post about. I mean things happen, like Anna driving up to a stoplight and seeing a lady get hit by a car, or the more normal things like me chasing goats all over the pasture. However blogging just hasn't been my priority lately.

Today I spent a lot of time working on getting goat registrations filled out, and trying to come up with cool names for all my "kids." Quite the brain exercise! I finally got everything together and ready to send off. The deadline for the Oklahoma State Fair is coming up fast, so I have to have everything back by then so I can get them entered. I'm so excited about the fairs, they are some of my favorite shows of the year! We always have a lot of fun.

Elijah is working on building me another milking stand, I have two of them that we bought, but I'm milking three goats and I like to be able to bring them all in to the milking area at once, and then next year Lord willing I'll be milking quite a few more than that so it'll be nice to have another stand. He's gotten really good at welding and is doing a fantastic job on it, I'll have to post some pictures when he gets it finished.

Oh and then Elijah caught this really cool snake the other day, usually I'm not all that fond of snakes but this one was really neat looking and non poisonous so we had fun playing around with it (although Mom was freaking out!) for awhile until we let it go in a tree.

Kind of weird when I wrapped it around my arm

Anyway...lots of rain lately which we are so thankful for! I thought the top picture that Anna took was really neat.

Hope everybody has a great rest of the week!

Garden Workshop Baby

2009-07-07T16:57:00.007-05:00

Remember the "Garden Workshop Baby goat?" Well I've been wanting to get her prettied up for some pictures because she sure is looking nice. So today Andrew and I were out working with the goats separating out the young bucks and wethers and decided to catch her and give her a bath. Once we were done bathing and clipping I had to get Anna outside with the camera. The goat wasn't cooperating the greatest as she was ready to go back to her mom, that's the reason for the sorry backgrounds...lol main thing is to get her to setup correctly! :D I'm really happy with this little girl, can't wait for the state fairs so I can show her! Oh..and she needs a name too, I don't think "Garden Workshop Baby" is very fitting, as pretty as she is she needs something better!

My Birthday, and Danielle's visit!!

2009-07-03T13:23:00.007-05:00

My cute friend!! :)

Well, this post might be just a little late...but I was having so much fun with my dearest friend Danielle last week that I didn't want to take time to do a blog post!! :) So better late than never right? I had such a wonderful birthday, thanks for all the emails and blog comments! I'm sure most of you saw the birthday pictures on my Mom's blog, but I'm going to post a few myself too. Mom really went all out on the decorating, it was something else!! Between five tons of sand, building a tiki hut, and all the other stuff she had out there it was pretty major!! Definitely a birthday I will always remember. The games were so much fun too, we all were laughing so hard on the "Beach Bum Relay" quite hilarious!

Getting our team ready for the Beach Bum Relay

Hurry up Dannie!!

And the winner....Dave!!

We played tons of volleyball most every night, it was so much fun! Dannie was looking pretty cool in the sunglasses!

And since it was so hot...and we don't have a swimming pool we decided to take a swim in the cows water tank. Its the perfect size to cool off in, and the cows weren't around so in we went!! Okay Dannie, I will admit you are quite the country girl now, I'm proud of you. :D All was good until the cows got thirsty...and here they came!! Dannie was terrified, I guess she thought they were gonna drink her up along with the water or something, I'm not sure, but they were so shocked to find people in their water tank that they wouldn't even drink out of it. :D

Here come the cows!!

Saturday morning we went to the Farmer's Market, and then went to an Estate auction afterwards...it was pretty fun but so hot outside we were wishing we had just slept late and stayed home. LOL And then that evening Caleb, Daniel, Elijah, Anna, Micah, Andrew, Danielle and I all went to Bricktown.

It was so much fun!! First we went to Bass Pro and walked around a bit, we had fun trying on all the huge sunglasses in there!

After that we walked down the canal, it was neat, reminded us of being in San Antonio where we met each other. We finished up by going to Marble Slab and getting icecream, it was such a blast!! I was teasing Danielle that she still has just a bit of city girl in her for enjoying being in the city so much. :D

Monday morning we went shopping and then to the Tea Room in Edmond. It's kinda a traditon whenever Dannie comes and we always have so much fun there! They were all giving me such a hard time about the hat that I picked to wear...lol for some reason they thought I looked like a German soldier!! Goodness...what a compliment!! :D :D

My German Hat... :D

And this was just totally a joke picture...

That evening we went over to David and Katelyn's for supper. They live up on a hill and it's so beautiful up there, we had to get some pictures sitting up on their rock formation, and then...well yeah we tried jumping off of it too.

1,2,3, JUMP!!

Thankfully the pictures of me didn't turn out! After dinner we played more volleyball, and then went inside to do some more crazy things which included racing through their kitchen on a rolling chair!!

Relaxing on the front porch...

Tuesday we spent a lot of time working on a song that Danielle had written, I enjoyed it though, and we got her parts recorded before she left, so now we just have to put in my violin part..and maybe some orchestra behind it.

And of course we stayed up late every night talking and having fun, we made so many fun memories, it was a wonderful week!! Thanks for coming Dannie-Girl, I loved it!! :) Miss you so much!

Random

2009-06-19T11:55:00.007-05:00

Things have been busy around here, we're in full swing with the farmers market, picking and canning green beans, and just everything else that goes on around here. I got a batch of soap made yesterday as well, it's a new recipe that is scented with "White Amber & Ginger" and smells lovely!! It will be available here in a few weeks after it cures out.

All my baby goats are growing up so fast!! The older ones are so big now, the Boer bucklings probably being close to 90 pounds. I'm very pleased with this kid crop, looks like my Boer buck threw just what I wanted, they are so thick and muscular!

Reba and her two babies

The "Garden Workshop" kid

Me and some of my herd :)

Duffy and Dooley got hair cuts this week, poor Duffy had to get shaved, his hair was so long that he was getting very hot, so I figured he'd be more comfortable this way. :) I still think he's cute, but there's several in our family that don't care for his new "do!" He kept closing his eyes everytime I'd take a picture, because of the flash I guess while Dooley just had the perfect pose.

Dooley had to try riding Mercy's trike, Josh had him out there pushing him around on it and I had to get a picture!! :D

Anna took this cool picture of the sunset with a goat silhouetted against it, I thought it was pretty neat!!! She was wishing it was a cow instead of a goat though. :D

And then my 20th birthday is coming up on me fast, yikes!! My dear friend Danielle is flying in on Tuesday so she can help celebrate, we're all so excited to see her again!!

Back from Hot Springs!

2009-06-13T13:49:00.005-05:00

And boy did we ever have a great time!! I know you all have seen pictures on my Mom's blog already...but hey, how about some more plus my version of the trip? :)

We left really early Tuesday morning, I was thinking we were leaving at 4:00 a.m. but then Elijah comes in and wakes me up at 2:30!! Earlier than I thought!! And you all know that I'm NOT a morning person!! :D However I did get up and we left at about 3:20. We ended up having two carsick little ones... :( never ceases to happen on all those curves through the mountains. Soon as we got there at about 9:30 a.m. though they were perfectly fine. :) Tuesday was definitely the hottest prettiest day, and we got right out onto the lake. I was determined to try knee boarding...was a bit nervous about it, but finally did and I really enjoyed it!! It was so fun trying to cut in and out and jump the waves. It's pretty hard on you though, lots of stress on your arms and back so I couldn't do it for very long. And that was the day that I got sunburned really bad on my knees....no fun at all. I don't burn easily at all so I'd never got it that bad and didn't realize how bad it hurt!

And then of course we did lots of tubing, the neighbor "Mr. Johnny" let us borrow a bunch of flotation devices (don't worry Dara, they were all pretty safe!) which were a lot of fun! I think everyone's favorite was "Mabel" which was a big chair type thing that you could sit up on and did it ever jump the waves!! Wow, you would fly up so high on that thing!! And when you went on the curves you had to hold on for dear life, or else...lol we did have plenty of wipe outs!! Poor Anna wiped out the most I think, it was pretty funny watching her wipe out, not to be mean, but you'd just have to be there to see what I'm talking about. :) Actually she liked to be pulled so fast and crazy on it, so that's why she'd wipe out so much. :D I got her to try knee boarding too, and I took the camera out on the boat to get pictures of her, she did really good!! Had a few crashes..but it happens.

Taking off!

This picture was blurry, but it was so funny!!

Yikes!! Just about to go!

WIPED OUT!!

This is "Mabel"

Getting Mom to go on "Mabel" was something else!! You all should have heard her screaming!! I think every picture we took her mouth was wide open!! Daniel drove nicely though, and she managed to get back to the dock all in one piece. Funnier though was when we took her on the boat while we were pulling Daniel and Anna on the tube, I think that scared her worse than being pulled!! She was majorly ready to be back on the dock by the time we were through, Caleb was almost in big time trouble for how fast he was driving.

Isn't she cute??

Thursday night we had a fish fry, and invited Mr. Johnny over as a thanks for letting us borrow all of his stuff. And then afterwards he took us for a ride on his pontoon boat, it was really neat especially after dark when everything was lighted up around the lake, so beautiful!

Caleb, Daniel, and Elijah all got really good at wakeboarding, they were jumping waves big time!! Really fun to watch them, I wasn't brave enough to try it though, I saw how many times they crashed...and yeah didn't look too fun. :D

By Friday I was pretty much worn out, and ended up with a bad headache all day so wasn't able to do a whole lot, oh well I think I made up for it with everything I did on the other days we were there. :)

The whole trip was a blast, we all had so much fun!! Thanks Paps and Shirley for having us!!

Kidding season is over

2009-05-26T12:59:00.004-05:00

Hope everybody had a great Memorial day! We sure had a lot of fun, David and Kate and the Wilson family came over and we had a blast, played TONS of volleyball, shot potato cannons, drank lots of coke, and of course hotdogs and hamburgers, and homemade ice cream. It was great, and David even went out on our "raft" on the pond, he did better than me though and managed NOT to fall off. :D

And Saturday my new buckling came in!! I'm so excited about him, his sire is *B Kastdemur's Most Wanted, who is sired by the 2008 ADGA National Show Premier Nubian Sire. His dam is a beautiful stylish doe SGCH Blissberry R Rockin' Robin 2*M. I'm pretty excited about this little guy, I think he's going to do some great things for my herd. Oh and the best part!! It only cost $10.95 to get him flown in all the way from MN!! Reason being is that the airline forgot to put him on the flight and the plane left without him...so since they messed up and it was a guaranteed booking, they put him on a bit later flight for only $10.95. :) Made my day for sure!! It usually costs at least $200.

My kidding season finally came to a close, with the last doe kidding with twins a buck and a doe. (Boer). I was very grateful that it was a pretty uneventful birth for the most part, the buck did have one of his front legs back a bit, but once I got that fixed he popped right out. So lets see if I can do a rundown of all the kids that were born this spring.

Boers
Reba- 1 buck 1 doe
Fat Doe- 2 bucks 1 doe
Poco- 2 bucks
Alyssa- 1 buck
Paint- 1 buck 1 doe
Christiana- 1 doe
Destiny- 1 doe
Wenneveria- 1 buck 1 doe
Moonlight- 1 buck 1 doe

Nubians
Maggie- 1 buck 1 doe
Sassy- 2 does
Madeline- 1 buck (Boer cross)
Shardae- 3 does

So that's a total of 24 kids, 11 bucks and 13 does...wow I guess I actually ended up with more does!! I must say it was a really tough kidding season this year...starting off with losing Gauger's preemie trips, and then having several stillborns, and I lost one older kid to dogs...and then Fat Doe's tangled triplets...and Destiny's preemie, (she's doing great now though) and then a few other minor problems. But I'm very thankful for the 24 healthy ones that the Lord blessed me with!

I finally got a picture of my beautiful "Hot To Trot." I'm SOOOO happy with her, she's so long, level, and just so pretty! I can't wait to get her in the show ring.

There's few random pictures of some of the new babies as well, isn't the one so cute with the all white ear? :)

My Pond Story :)

2009-05-13T16:20:00.005-05:00

Okay, since you all wanted to hear it, I guess I shall tell it. :) Sorry, no pictures from it actually happening, although I do have a picture of Micah and Josh transporting the "Raft" on the four wheeler so you can get an idea of what it looks like.

So it was a kinda cool day last week when Anna suggested that her and I take Micah's "Raft" out on the pond. Sounded fun, so we grabbed a couple of life jackets and took off. Now the "Raft" is 3 pieces of foam block, (used to make Insulated Concrete Form Homes) with several 2 X 4's nailed across it to hold them together, and then a little seat in the middle. I was a bit nervous at first because it's kind of tippy if you don't get it balanced right, but as long as you stay still in your places there's really no danger of it flipping over. So I was on the back side with our paddle, (which was a piece of wood with the plastic lid to a 5 gallon bucket nailed to it) trying to get the thing out to the middle, I was actually standing at this point, and suddenly my foot slipped and went down right through the gaps in between the 2 X 4's! Goodness, so now my skirt was wet, and my boot full of water, great. We made it out to the middle, and had fun paddling around, until Anna almost started choking on something so I had to take her back to shore. :D She was fine though.

So a bit later Andrew decided to get on with me, so we went out to the middle. By this time I was getting pretty used to the "Raft," so we started getting just a bit crazy out there. I'm heavier than him so I pretty much had control of which way we would tip. :) So we started doing these "cool acts" where we would see how high up we could tip the boat without it totally flipping over or us falling off. Anna, Josh, Jeremiah and Micah were laughing at us from the bank enjoying the show. So after doing that numorous times without falling off we headed back.

Well then Micah decided to go out with me. Now Micah (for whatever reason, it was cool that day) had been swimming in the other pond out in the pasture....so that mean't he was already wet, and didn't mind getting wet again. NOT good. AND he's heavier than me...so I wasn't really going to have control of the "Raft." Off we went, the "cool acts" were a bit scarier with Micah, and we were falling all over the boat, but still managing to stay on. And I still only had both boots full of water and about half my skirt wet, not too bad. So we tipped it and when it was at the highest point Micah jumped off into the water hoping to make the "Raft" flip!! However I managed to quickly get it balanced back out and stayed on. :) Nice try Micah! :D

We were having a lot of fun, but then suddenly on one of our "cool acts" I was on the side that was going up high off the water and I totally lost my balance, and the part of the boat that I was standing on broke off!! I did like a big back flip straight back into the water, so deep that even with the life jacket on I had to swim up to the top!! :D :D I was SOO not expecting that!! It was cold too, and of course I got a ton of pond water in me. So I'm coughing and sputtering, but managed to swim back to the "Raft." I was NOT wanting to get wet, and here I am totally drenched from head to toe...oh boy. We got back on the boat, and being both totally soaked (Micah fell off too) we decided just to try tipping it all the way over, so we did. By this time I'm REALLY cold and wanted to go back to shore. So we headed back, on the poor upside down broken "Raft." About halfway back I got really sick to my stomach, (maybe it was seasickness, I'm not sure) and so I'm like "Micah hurry! I'm about to throw up in the water!!" He realized I wasn't joking either so he's paddling as fast as he can, and I'm laying on the raft moaning because I was feeling so bad. LOL We finally made it back without me throwing up, although I almost did, and got out. Boy it was hard to walk back to the house with water logged boots. But I made it and then had to take a shower to get all that slimy pond water off of me. :)

So...that's the pond story! It was a lot of fun actually, I guess it wouldn't have been quite so interesting if I hadn't fallen in. :)

More new babies!

2009-05-11T12:28:00.003-05:00

Wow, it's been quite the weekend with goat birthing around here. :) On Thursday I noticed that one of my Boer girls, who I didn't expect to kid until the 17th, having a lot of weird discharge. It really looked like she was going into labor, however no contractions or anything. So on Thursday night I decided to go in and check to see if her cervix was open, and just make sure there wasn't a incorrectly presented kid in there. Cervix was totally closed, no evidence of labor other than the discharge. I was really thinking that something was probably going to be wrong, a dead kid or something. Finally on Friday afternoon she started contracting. I checked again and her cervix was opened about the size of a half dollar and I could feel two hooves just past that. About 30 minutes later she started pushing hard and presented the two feet. She wasn't progressing beyond that though, so I pulled gently....still nothing. That kid was just STUCK, poor goat she was pushing as hard as she could and I was at the other end pulling as hard as I could, by this time I figured that the kid was probably for sure dead, but I had to get it out of there. Finally it popped out, and it was alive!! However it was thrashing around unable to breath, as she had aspirated a ton of fluid into her lungs. So I picked her up by the back legs and started swinging her around and patting on her back and ribcage to get the fluid out. Mom was like "Besh are you SURE that's what you should be doing??" I guess it did look a bit drastic but that's what it takes sometimes to get that fluid out. It took a good five minutes of working on her before she was able to breath easily. Whew...that was scary. Her poor little head was quite swollen, probably from being in there so long and the hard pull. She was really tiny, but seemed to be doing okay trying to stand up. However because of the swelling I couldn't get her to nurse or take a bottle, so I tube fed her a couple ounces of colostrum. Later that evening I got her to nurse off the bottle, and the the next morning she was nursing off of her mom.

So for now she seems to be making it okay, walking around fine on her own and nursing. However I am watching her closely for aspiration puemonia. Hopefully she's going to be fine though, such a cute little thing!

The doe did have second kid, which was dead. I really expected that though, because of her going into labor early, and everything just wasn't normal. I was a bit concerned about her passing the placenta, and she ended up having to have several shots of oxytocin, to get her to finish cleaning out.

And then on Saturday, another Boer doe kidded, she did just fine, and had them all by herself. A boy and a girl, I need to get Anna to take some pictures of them, they are so cute, and the little girl has one white and one brown ear.

Oh and my CA doe kid flew in on Tuesday!! She's just gorgeous!! I still need to get pictures of her sometime soon too. Her name is "Hot To Trot." And....the other news is it looks like Lord willing I'm going to be getting a new Nubian buckling as well. Kind of a last minute decision but I really want to be able to breed my kids from this year in the fall, and the only Nubian buck I have right now is the sire to them all. I'm really excited, his dam and sire are VERY nice. He'll be coming from Minnesota, the same breeder that I got Main Attraction, and Elegance from last spring.

Sooo, anybody tired of hearing about goats?? :D My first dairy show is coming up soon too....can't wait to see how Shardae does as a milker now!

Anyway, that's pretty much what's been going on lately, besides some other adventures involving me falling in the pond....maybe I'll post about that sometime.

Names!

2009-04-30T16:51:00.005-05:00

Well I finally came up with some names for Shardae's kids. :) Took me a while but I had to get their registrations sent in, and of course they had to have names on them so I finally made up my mind.

Introducing..."Shamara"

"Shalom"

And "Sonata!"

They are doing wonderful, growing up quickly! Shouldn't be too much longer til I get little CA girl flown in as well. :)

Ada Goat Show

2009-04-22T16:07:00.004-05:00

Well I'm a bit late, but I wanted to post a few pictures from the goat show on Saturday. Elijah and I headed to Ada Friday afternoon to get the goats all prepped. We picked up a few of the Burnett's on the way for some extra help. I was just showing 4, so it didn't take that long to get them washed and clipped. After we finished up we headed back to the B's house for supper, Hannah had a really great meal ready and waiting for us. :) After supper was cleaned up we played a game called "Settlers of Catan." I really liked it a lot, (after I finally figured it out, kind of complicated!) I was trying SO hard to win...but sadly I didn't, John-Clay won both times. Oh well. :D After that we ended up staying up until 3:00 in the morning talking. Needless to say I felt kinda wiped out when I woke up Saturday morning. The show started at nine and the rest of my family and Paps and Shirley joined us there. My two little kids didn't place, but they're just a lot younger than most of the others in the class, so I'm hoping they'll do a lot better as they get bigger.

My two bucks did pretty good, the younger one took 4th in the first show, and my "10 Buck 2" guy took 3rd in both shows. I was pretty happy, I've been placing a lot higher this year than last, so I'm really glad about that! :) Poor Micah, his goat was NOT cooperating well at all.

This week has been pretty busy, I've been really enjoying this warm weather so have been spending quite a bit of time outside. Yesterday was violin lesson day, it was the first time for 3 of the students, but it went really well, it's neat to be able to share what I know with others.

This is the little girl that was born on the Garden Workshop day, isn't she cute? :)

Have a great week!

Shardae Kidded!!

2009-04-16T12:34:00.005-05:00

Yesterday morning her ligaments were pretty much gone and her udder was getting fuller every time I checked on her throughout the day. Finally at around 5:00 I noticed some contractions, I came in for a bit and then went back out to check right before we ate supper. Her water had broke and she was pushing!! It took her a little while to finally push out a beautiful, very tiny girl! I took her into the barn, jumped on the four wheeler and sped down to the house to get some towels and some help. :D Anna and Hosie came back up with me and helped out with drying the little girl while I waited on number 2. She was taking her time for sure, I checked to make sure the kid was presented right, straightened the front legs out a bit, and number 2 was born!! Another girl!! Wow, I was so excited!! We were working on getting the kids bottles, when somebody hollered she's pushing again! A little bit later a 3rd kid was born.....and it was ANOTHER GIRL!!! Wow I was majorly surprised, but SO happy!! Shardae did wonderful, and her little kids are just way to cute. Praise the Lord for a healthy kidding, and beautiful babies!

Here's some pictures of the little sweeties...please note I took the pictures, just so you aren't wondering what happened to Anna's photography. :D

And this afternoon I got pictures of my doeling I'm getting from CA, Lord willing she will be shipped in the first of May. She looks just gorgeous in the pictures, I'm very happy. :) Her mom's name is "Hot Tropic" and her sire is "Playboy." Any name suggestions for the little girl?

Just a quick update...

2009-04-13T13:38:00.006-05:00

Well lets see, I guess I've had 3 more baby goats (Boer) since I last posted, 2 were born on Wednesday, and then one was born yesterday right at the end of our Garden Workshop. :D I knew she was close and was watching her closely Saturday morning, but she wasn't showing me any signs of labor, so I didn't expect her to kid right away. Goats like to surprise you though, so Dad was giving a quick tour of the farm at the end of the workshop and she had just dropped out her kid right before we got to the pen where she was at. She just had a single, but I was really glad it was a doe, after all the buck kids I've been getting this year. So now it's a total of 16 babies, two of the Nubian doelings went to their new home on Saturday. They went to a very sweet family who I know will take fantastic care of them. I love it when I know my "kids" are going to such a great home. :)

Now I'm waiting on my Nubian girl "Shardae" (one of the kids I got flown in from CA last spring) to kid, she's due on Thursday, so I'm expecting kids anytime. I'm really excited, and hoping that she'll have at least one girl. :)

The show on the 4th went really good, we took two Boer bucks, and then two of my 3 week old kids. There were two shows, one right after the other and we got two 3rd placings and one fourth place, and then the judge just went on and on about my little 3 week old girl, he really liked her a lot!! She was the youngest in the class though so she just needs a bit of time to grow and mature, but I was really excited about all the nice comments he made about her. No pictures though because Anna didn't come with me. :(

Thanks so much for your comment Dani-Joy, I think baby goats are pretty cute too. :) To answer your question about what I do with my kids- I keep most of the girls (as I usually don't get too many it seems) and sell any that I don't keep. With the boys, only the ones that I feel are really good quality stay intact as breeding bucks, I show them, and the girls as well to see how they compete with the other goats out there. I may keep one, and then sell the rest. The rest of the boys are wethered (goat term for castrated) and we raise them for meat.

We've had lots of rain the past couple days, I'm really grateful for it, but it sure makes chores a bit of a mess. :) LOTS of mud out there right now, my little white Boer kids don't look so white anymore. :D

The Kids Play Day

2009-03-30T15:28:00.006-05:00

Today has been such a nice warm day (YAY!!) so Anna and I let the Mom's and babies outside for some fun. :) It's hilarious watching them go bouncing all over the place!! And thankfully this time Anna had her camera...so we got LOTS of pictures!! Here you go Melinda, enjoy!! :P We also got Reba's kids tattooed, and 2 of the Nubian kids disbudded while we were out there. Not so fun but necessary.

Run, Run, RUN!!!

Here's "Fat Doe" with her little family. :) She has a hard time keeping them all together.

Reba's buck kid, with one of the triplets

One of Poco's boys...

Another one of the triplets

Dirt is so good to eat!! :P

Reba's kiddos

And here's one of the little Nubians that was born on Thursday...that's a whole nother' story though!! :)

Staying busy...

2009-03-25T17:25:00.005-05:00

I'm sure staying busy lately!! :) One of my Nubian's "Madeline" kidded Monday afternoon with a single buckling. I had bred her to my Boer buck for meat kids, since I really don't like milking her as she has very small teats. So she's just raising her own kid for meat this year. I actually totally missed the birth, she wasn't due until Thursday so I wasn't expecting her to kid for a couple of days. Monday afternoon I noticed that she wasn't out in the pen with the other goats so I checked in the shed, and sure enough there she was with her big ole kid!! :) He was already up and nursing, probably had been born about 45 minutes prior to me finding him.

Everybody else is doing great!! Reba's kids are getting so big already, I need to get some updated pictures of them, they are looking so nice! It's so funny seeing all the kids run and play, I have a blast just watching them.

Oh and guess what?? Remember me telling ya'll back in the fall that I was reserving another Nubian doe kid from Lakeshore Farms in CA? Well she was born a few days ago!! Actually the mom had twin doelings, so I'll even get to pick!! I'm super excited!! Lord willing she should be flown in, in about 3 weeks or so.

I'm sorry I keep forgetting to answer Heather's question from a few posts back. Yes I bottle raise my dairy kids so I can milk the mom. And also to help prevent CAE which is a disease that is rather prevalent in dairy goats.

Show season is coming up as well!! My first show is coming up really soon...so guess what I did today? :) Filled out registrations and worked on tattooing a couple of bucks. Ya'll might remember me doing a tattooing post a really long time ago, but for my "new blog readers" I thought I'd share some pics. :) Tattooing is basically to identify the goat, his/her tattoo's have to match up with what is on their registration papers. In one ear you put the letter for the year that the goat was born, and it's birth number, then in the other ear I put my herd prefix.

First I clean up the ear real good with some rubbing alcohol.

Then I get the tattoo pliers set in the right place...the gloves are just to keep the ink off myself.

All set, Andrew helps hold the goat still..

Squeeze!! OUCH!

Next I apply the ink and work it into the holes really well.

Same procedure on the other ear...then we're done!!

Pictures! And another set of Twins.

2009-03-21T16:19:00.005-05:00

Got some pictures of the triplets today...and then this morning another one of the Boer does kidded with twin bucks. They are so HUGE!! I just can't believe how big they are, almost as big as Reba's week old kids! The mom did great though despite having such big boys. :)

Here's the first little boy

Next is little sister her head is so dark it's almost black

And then the last boy! He's so cute, and marked just like his Dad. :)

Next are the twins born today...

TRIPLETS!!

2009-03-20T21:18:00.002-05:00

Well yesterday was quite the day to say the least. :) Checked on the does in the morning and found my biggest Boer doe was bagged up tight and having some slight contractions, I checked her frequently and then a few hours later moved her into the kidding stall. She was having really regular contractions and then around 3:00 she started pushing, she pushed some and was kind of up and down for a while. Time was passing and I was beginning to get worried that she was doing some pretty hard pushing with out presenting anything. So I lubed up and went in...apparently the kid was trying to come out chest first, head was back as well as both front legs, I managed to get one front leg worked into position but could not for the life of me get the head around. After trying for quite some time with no success I got on the phone with my vet and decided to take her in. Only problem was....I had no way to get her there. Thankfully we have amazing neighbors and they were up for a goat emergency we managed to get her in the back of their trooper and we headed to the vet. Thanks so much David and Kate!! :)

~ Just born ~

My friend Crissa was on her way out to visit, so I called her and she met me at the vet. We unloaded my doe and the vet got to work, it took him probably a full 15 minutes to get things straighten out and deliver the first kid, and it was alive!! Number 2 came out pretty easily, and then he checked to see if there was anymore and sure enough little number 3 popped out. 2 boys and a girl. I was thrilled that everybody was alive and well!! Back at the house Crissa and I got the little ones to nurse and then had a lot of fun playing around with the other kids and talking goats. :) They are all doing well, although it took them a bit longer to get going being pretty wore out from the difficult birth, and having some leg issues, but today they've all been up and walking.

I'll try to get some fluffy pictures tomorrow of the little cuties!!

Twins!

2009-03-18T14:24:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was a busy day for me, I knew Sassy was getting close as she was 1 day over her due date and her udder was filling pretty steadily. However she wasn't having any contractions or anything that morning. I was busy out in the pasture picking up sticks and rocks from when we did a bunch of bull dozing. Elijah is disking up a pretty big area to seed with Bermuda grass so we were just cleaning the area up. Around 11:30 Mom called me back down to the house to fix lunch, on my way I stopped in to take a quick peek at Sassy and she was standing in the barn, making some soft noises and then when I looked closer I realized she had a small string of goo, and then she had a pretty hard contraction!! I dashed down to the house and grabbed some towels and did a few other preps and then back out to the barn and she was pushing! LOL she does this to me everytime I think, catches me pretty unprepared. :) About 5 minutes later we had a beautiful little girl, I handed her off to Hosie and then just minutes later another girl was born. I was happy! They're my Lakeshore bucks first kids, just out of one of my grade does, but they're sure looking nice!!

So now it's back to milking and bottle feeding for me. :) I've had a good long break and it's great to milk again. I got up at 3:00 last night to feed the girls, not so fun getting up at night but I just do night feedings for a couple of days so it's not too bad.

Aren't they cute?? :)

Babies are here!!

2009-03-15T16:23:00.003-05:00

Well Reba girl did it...1 day early! :) She started labor yesterday evening at about 6:00, I got her in the kidding pen in the barn around 7:30 and then about 9:00 she started pushing. The first kid started coming out breech, I grabbed the back legs but it slipped out super quick, it was extremely tiny and dead. :( I was pretty surprised, and was rather worried that they would all be dead, but a few minutes later she pushed out a big healthy boy! He was really active right from the start, and I had him nursing just a little while after he was born. And then kid number 3 came...a beautiful girl!! Yay!! I was so happy, they are all doing well and are SO cute! The pictures aren't the best, but they weren't cooperating too well. :)

Sassy is due tomorrow...she doesn't look very close though so I wouldn't be surprised if she went a day or two late. We'll see. :)

The New Bull

2009-03-09T17:01:00.004-05:00

The bull is here!! The sale was on Friday and we headed out early with our neighbors David and Katelyn. Once we got there we spent some time looking at the bulls, and then the sale started at 10:00. The first bull that sold went for $103,000!! And that was only half interest in the thing...kind of crazy! :D Most of them sold for around $3000-$4000 and we were able to get ours even a bit lower than that, which was great! Loading him into the trailer was pretty crazy, he jumped into there like a cannon ball and the whole truck and trailer was shaking! He was not happy with being shut up in such a small area, but once we got home and let him out into the pasture he calmed down. :) So far he's doing really good, no broken down fences yet! :P

It's only SIX days until Reba is due!! Poor girl she is SO huge and miserable. I can't wait!! I've been busy getting kidding stalls cleaned out, and of course checking and checking on the goats just in case she decides to go a few days early. :) Which probably won't happen, but you know, I just have to check. :)

Sooooo....hopefully the next post will be BABIES!! :)

Not sure what Duffy was doing here, but I found him sitting by the table on top of the wheat bucket...had to get a picture!!

Random...

2009-03-03T22:05:00.003-06:00

Well, I think it's about time for another blog post. :) I guess I just haven't had enough adventures lately to post about! Today was really busy for me, I went on a feed run to Stillwater and also picked up some supplies for our chicks that we'll be getting pretty soon. Got home around lunch and the I spent quite a while working on the construction page of the website as it's been quite neglected lately. After that was violin lessons with a little girl from church, and then Dad and I went to Edmond to get a new phone for Dad, and we were going to buy a coffee pot as ours is kind of worn out. It gets used like TONS. But the one we were going to get ended up being to tall to fit in our coffee station, (it was an industrial one) so we'll have to keep looking a different one.

Most likely I'll have some stories to tell here pretty soon, we're planning on buying a bull soon at the Express Ranches Bull sale. It should be a lot of fun, it's a pretty major sale, they are selling like 500 bulls! Hopefully we'll be able to keep the thing in our fences....I'm a bit worried that he's gonna be breaking in on my goats or something. :D Elijah just put up a new fence in the pasture the bull will be staying in though....so hopefully there won't be any problems.

So what is this stuff in my hand??

Well, we had a small pond out in the pasture that Elijah dug a while back, and he decided to make it bigger the other day when he had a bobcat rented. Well when he broke the dam letting the water into the new area it uncovered HUNDREDS of tadpoles! They were like everywhere! Hosie got a few of them and they lived in our room for a few days in a jar....you should have seen the look on Mom's face when she saw them sitting on our dresser!! :D

Here's a "grown" version, not quite as gross. :)

"Gauger" the mom to the two kids I lost is slowly recovering, I was really worried I was going to lose her too, but she seems to be coming around. She's still not 100% but she's improving every day so I'm very grateful for that! The next one "Reba" is due in just 12 days...I can't wait! Got all my kidding supplies in early this week, so I'm ready for babies now. :)

Well this is kind of random...maybe I'll have some "bull adventures" to post soon. Don't worry we won't be riding him though. :D

:(

2009-02-25T08:17:00.001-06:00

Thanks so much for all the prayers everyone....those two little guys didn't make it though. They lived for about 12 hours, but I guess they were just too premature. :(

They're here!

2009-02-24T13:03:00.003-06:00

She had triplets at about 10:30 this morning, I just missed the birth but got there soon after, one was still born, and the other two (both boys) are still alive, pretty small and weak but I'm hoping they'll be able to pull through. Mom is doing great, and taking good care of the kids.

Keep praying for the little guys. :)

Oh, the pictures aren't great because they were taken with my cell phone. :P

Kids soon....

2009-02-23T18:45:00.004-06:00

Well, I've had a lot going on lately. My best Boer doe 'Gauger' due on March 12th came down with pregnancy toxemia early last week. I had noticed that she was just not "right" for a few days, and highly suspecting the toxemia, I picked up some meds from the vet and started some treatments at home. She wasn't responding well to it, so on Thursday I decided just to go ahead and take her into the vet, as she is a high dollar girl, and I really just didn't want to take any chances with her.

The vet confirmed the toxemia, and started her on more treatments, planning to induce labor if she started going down hill so we could at least save her. The next day she was still no better so we started an IV of glucose, by the next day she was doing better, but still not well enough to come home. She stayed at the vet through the weekend, and then this morning when I called to check in on her, I was told that she was going into labor. :( The guys had the van at work, so Katelyn was so kind to come over and go to the vet with me to see her. (Of course I have to be at all my goats births if possible) :) When we got there she was having some slight contractions, but her cervix was still closed...so after talking with the vet we decided to go ahead and induce so we could get the kids out, being concerned for the doe at this point. So...that's where we are at now, she was induced early today and it can take up to 36 hours before the kids come. So possibly tomorrow, at the latest Wednesday. They'll be 16 days early though so it's not too likely that they will make it, but I'm sure praying they will! I've had Gauger since she was 6 months old, have shown her at lots of shows, and I've been so excited to see kids from her....

So anyway...that's been my life for the last week. :) Goats sure like to keep you on your toes!

Oh a bright note, I sold one of my kids from last spring on Saturday, so now...I can order kidding supplies! :D

Due Dates :)

2009-02-09T09:39:00.003-06:00

Well I'm anxiously counting down the days until my goats start kidding. :) 31 days until the first one is due. Still a little ways away but I'm hoping the time goes by quick! :D Poor girls, they are SO majorly fat though, but they'll have to go on being miserable for a few more weeks. I actually took Anna's camera out the other day and took some pictures of most of them, but wow I just don't get the photography thing! :D I'd be embarrassed to post most of the pics I took, they didn't look so great. :) This one isn't good either, but I wanted to post one of the preggo girls. :) So let's see, here's all the due dates, they're actually spread out a lot more than last year, so maybe it won't be QUITE so crazy!!

Gauger- March 12
Reba- March 15
Sassy March- 16
Poco- March 22
Fat Doe- Somewhere right in here didn't get her exact due date :)
Christiana- March 23
Alyssa- March 25
Madeline- March 26
Maggie- March 26
Paint- April 6
Shardae- April 16
Wenneveria- May 10
Destiny- May 17
Moonlight- May 18

We had a really nice weekend, Friday night we had some friends over for dinner, and then afterwards played ping pong and Dutch Blitz, we had a blast! Saturday Anna and I made a trip to Stillwater for feed, and then when we got back we went skeet shooting with some friends. It was a lot of fun. I need some major practice, as I didn't hit any! :) I had fun "trying" to hit them though. :P

Sunday was great as well, church was here at our house, and we had most everybody show up so it was a bit of a challenge trying to fit everybody in here but we did it!! :) It was great!

Sledding Adventure

2009-01-29T10:35:00.003-06:00

Well I'm sure you all are tired of looking at that silly picture of myself. :D So guess that means it's time for a new blog post....although the thing is I really don't have a whole lot to post about. We were iced in for several days, so the guys were home from work and we were all just stuck here at the house. Pulling the sled with the 4 wheeler was the big thing, very fun!! ALTHOUGH warning, it CAN be dangerous. :P

Here's how it went. They had been doing it for at least one whole day and I never tried it, but yesterday morning I decided I wanted to try it out. They had just figured out something new, which was instead of your typical "sled" they used a round plastic feeder which worked rather like a tube behind a boat instead of just going straight behind the 4 wheeler it would swing out to the side and such. Pretty neat! Andrew tried it first and it went perfectly fine for him. Then it was my turn. I jumped in and off we went!! Elijah was driving and had me going really fast. It was great until.....we were heading back around and Elijah made one last turn so he'd be turned around for the next rider, so I go flying out to the side of course and was moving REALLY fast. I looked ahead and realized I was headed right for this metal mineral feeder for the cows. Oh boy!! I had like NO time at all and realized I was going to have to either jump out, or get smashed into that thing...so I jumped, and with the momentum that I had going I literally FLEW out of the sled and went rolling for a ways before I finally came to a stop. The good thing...I missed the mineral feeder! :) Which I was very thankful for because I probably would have had quite a few broken bones at the least if not worse injuries had I hit that thing. As it is, I'm just a bit sore.

It was kind of scary for my Dad and several other siblings that were watching the whole adventure, Dad was sure I was going to slam right into the feeder. We got a pretty good laugh thinking about it afterwards though...it had to have been funny seeing "Besh" go flying through the air!! :D If I only could have seen it. :P Unfortunately Anna wasn't out there...so no pictures of it!!

Other than that there hasn't been a whole lot going on...I'm still VERY ready for spring though! :)

Photo Dare

2009-01-21T16:23:00.001-06:00

So my dear Dannie-girl tagged me AGAIN. LOL I think she's just trying to see how bad of a picture she can get posted here. :D :P SO...I'm changing the rules, new game now, okay?

It's called "PHOTO DARE"

Rules:

1. Be brave and post the scariest picture you can find of yourself.
2. Tag one other person, more if you'd like but this is a dangerous game.
3. Go hide in your closet when your done.

Pretty scary huh? :D

Looking a little wild here!

Guess who I'm tagging.... :D

MISTINA!! (Yes Danielle has lots of different names). I'll be happy to do it for you if you need me too Dannie. :)

I'm also going to tag my friend Gem...we'll she what she can come up with. :)

Have fun! :D

Photo Tag

2009-01-21T09:46:00.000-06:00

Usually I'm not all into the "tag" things, but I thought this one was pretty good!! :D Thanks to Gem for getting me in on it. :)

Here's the rules

1. Choose the 4th folder where you store pictures on your computer.

2. Select the 4th picture in the folder, and post it on your blog.

3. Explain the picture.

4. Tag four people to do the same.

5. No cheating (cropping, editing, etc.)

Anyway....the picture I came up with was pretty interesting, and will need some explanation. My apology's to those that are in the photo. :D

So what is going on in this picture?? Well, we had a "Family Day" like a get together with a bunch of friends (this was in 2006) and this was one of the games we played. We divided up in teams, and each team had a camera. You had a list of several different pictures that you had to take with your team....so I guess this was one of them!! :)

I'm going to tag....

Becky
Jordan
Bethany
and of course Danielle, you'd really better do this because I want to see what your picture is! :D :D

Scientific Theory?

2009-01-18T22:57:00.000-06:00

Okay just so you all know, I don't go on trips all the time, as my last few posts seem to signify. :) Of course I do love traveling but it's nice just to be right at home most of the time. So I think it's about time for a blog post about something other than trips...now this one may be a bit interesting to those that don't know me very well, to my friends, it will seem totally normal. :D

Today being Sunday, we went to church as we normally do, it was just a few of us, Caleb, Daniel, Mom and I since we still have some sickness going around. It's been a while since I've been, with all we've had going on lately so it was so great to see everybody again. After the service us girls were all sitting around eating and talking when suddenly a certain friend of mine says, "Bethany, I want you to try breaking an egg." I was like what? Why? So she explained something about some sort of "science theory" that if you held the egg just right in the palm of your hand, and squeezed with equal pressure on all sides the egg would never break. Okay...well I wasn't SO sure of that at all, and was teasing that with hand milking goats for years my hands may be a bit stronger than most. But of course I was up to try it. For safety precautions I held my hand over the sink *just in case.* I was instructed on how to do it and then SQUEEZE!! Now of course it should have worked just normal right? Well if I know myself as well as I think I do I should have known that it would be otherwise. :D And well, the egg broke. But the thing is it didn't just "break" it EXPLODED several feet up in the air, all over the kitchen cabinets...AND right on on one of the guys shirt!! OH MY!! Talk about a bit surprised!! I'm just standing there at the sink with the remains of the egg in my hand, thinking WOW. That was NOT supposed to happen!! Of course all the girls were laughing at me SO hard, so I laughed too despite the embarrassment of it all...I felt so bad for Mr. Blevins because he had NO idea what we were doing, probably thinking I'm just cracking eggs on people!! :D Anyway...I guess either the "science theory" was incorrect or more likely I just didn't squeeze the egg properly, but whatever it was that egg broke big time. Now it was MISS BRITTNEY SOUTHERLAND that put me up to this...but of course she didn't think the egg would break so I'm not going to be too hard on her. :) Love ya Brittney! :)

So just another thing to add to my line of stories. :) And since I'm on the topic, if ya'll aren't bored yet how about one more? :P Sorry to all the friends that have heard this one numerous times. :D

Close to Christmas time we were invited to go to a Christmas play that a local school was putting on. The play was done really well and we had a lot of fun. Afterwards there were some refreshments, and punch. On accident I tipped over Josiah's cup, so I quickly cleaned it up with a program from the play and went searching for a trash can. At first I wasn't finding one, and then bingo, there it is right by the table. Went over and stuck the trash in when....OH MY!! This WASN'T a trash can at all, it was a large speaker, part of the sound system they were using for the play!! :D :D Yikes...that was NOT good at all, and as a onlooker commented, quite the expensive trash can. So yeah, just a bit embarrassing. :)

Weird blog post I know, but things like that seem to be happening quite frequently as I grow older. Wow, I do have to wonder if everything is right in my head at times, especially when Mom sends me to Walmart to get some cheese in the deli, and I go right to the "Jelly" isle, wondering why in the world they would put cheese over there. :D

Until later,

Besh

Back from San Antonio!

2009-01-13T15:49:00.000-06:00

Well, before everybody thinks I've quite forsaken my blog...I think it's time for a major update! :) We just got back from San Antonio TX on Sunday, where we were attending a Christian Film Festival. But...lets back up a bit. :) Danielle flew in on December 29th, so we had a week with her before we headed to TX. It went by so quick I can hardly remember what all we did, but it was fun that's for sure! Oh, one evening we went to a banquet with Mr. Gothard, and played some background music...well it was "background music" until Danielle started playing her guitar with Caleb and Daniel...and then it turned into a performance! :D Everybody loved it! It was great...other than that evening we were just mostly playing around here at the house. Then on Sunday the 4th we picked up Caleb and Daniel's friend John-Clay, and headed to San Antonio for the Film Academy, (the rest of the family came up on Thursday for the festival). We were able to stay with a friend of John-Clay's while attending the academy which worked out really great, and he was SO nice and hospitable to us as well.

The academy was a lot of fun....and a lot of sitting through lectures, but I still greatly enjoyed it even though I'm not into film making at all. :P Danielle and I had to slip out on a few occasions because it would get REALLY long sometimes. :) I have to tell one story though...I think it was the first evening, there was going to be a 3 hour long lecture after we'd already been sitting all day so Dannie and I just decided to slip out on this one and take a nap. So we went out and found us a place to sit, and amused ourselves for a while by taking pictures of each other. Danielle would much rather be behind the camera though. :P

And then....we decided to try something. There was this little balcony like thing that we could see from where we were sitting so we wanted to see if we could go upstairs and try to figure out how to get up there. Well, the escalators were stopped...which probably means you shouldn't go upstairs...but we just ran up them instead. Once we got up there we forgot about looking for the balcony thing and just walked through some of the rooms that they showed films in last year. One of them had lots of chairs set up in rows, so I said "hey lets run across these chairs!" So I did and to my surprise Danielle did too! :D After that she walked into this little back room type thing like where they had lots of chairs stacked up and of course I followed. :P Well soon as I get in there I hear some keys jingling...uh oh! It's the security guard! So I hid as quick as I could, and Dannie saw the person and started running! Not good! We needed to get out of the room that we were in because I didn't want to have to explain why we were snooping around back there, so we tried opening one door but it was locked, so finally we ran to another door, and then dashed into the women's bathroom hoping we would be safe in there. :) Which we were, and after a few minutes we came out and walked back down the escalators as normally as we could. :) Whew!! I must say that scared me pretty throughly, but it was a lot of fun!! Caleb, Daniel, and JC just couldn't believe us though when we told them about it later. :D Anyway...that's just one of MANY things that happened on the trip...it was great.

Thursday the rest of the family came up and we stayed at a nice hotel in down town San Antonio, which worked out really good because we could walk to the convention center from it. We all enjoyed seeing many of the films there, and just had a great time being together. One of the highlights for me was getting to meet Kirk Cameron, the actor in the movie FIREPROOF. Since we had registered early for the academy we were able to attend this special banquet thing, that he was at, and surprisingly there were probably only like 50 people there, so we got to talk to him a lot and get a picture! Pretty neat!

Friday evening was the big night, and we were really excited that John Moore's film "The Widow's Might" won Best of Festival and the $101,000 cash prize. It was quite an exciting evening! We finished it up by spending the evening with all the people that made the movie "Pendragon."

A few other things we got to do while there was visit the Alamo, and hear the Von Trapps sing, they were great!

Anyway....that's just a brief run down of everything that went on! The trip back home went smoothly, and thankfully nobody got carsick. :) Yesterday was sad though saying goodbye to Dannie-girl at the airport....always really hard, and especially so since this time we aren't sure when we'll get to see each other again..but hopefully it will be soon.

Oh, by the way, has anybody ever tried running up and escalator that is going down? Quite the work out I must say, just have to be careful getting on and off, you have to jump! :P :D

Back from KS

2008-12-29T12:55:00.000-06:00

Well I figured I'd do a blog post real quick, since I'm going to have a lot going on the next few weeks, and not sure when I'll get a chance to do one for a little while. :) We got back from KS on Saturday, we were up there visiting my Dad's sister and her family. It was a lot of fun!! My cousin Hannah has two little inside dogs, Annie Buggers (Yorkie/Corgi mix) and then the newest one Zoe (Maltese/Yorkie mix) they are both so cute!! Duffy and Dooley had a blast playing with Zoe, Annie was not so happy about so many dogs invading her home though so she pouted pretty much the whole time. :( We managed to get a picture of the four cousins...although they were NOT cooperating at all, I was holding Duffy's tail down so he would stay sitting. :P

Micah got to go deer hunting...and we went for a walk out on some of Uncle Jerry's property...the bad thing was it was SO muddy there from all the snow melting, and I only brought my really nice boots I just bought, and flip flops. So not wanting to mess my boots up I just wore the flip flops...and boy did my feet ever get muddy!! It was fun though! And then Jerry found a dead deer out there, it was one he had been watching grow for like 5 years...too bad he was hoping to be able to hunt it one of these days.

Nerf guns were also the big thing there...LOL those darts were like EVERYWHERE!! :D They little ones...and big ones too had fun shooting each other. :P Okay so I do like Nerf guns. :D They come in real handy sometimes...better watch out Dannie! :D

The Burnett family is supposed to be coming here in just a few minutes...always fun when we get together with them! And then later this evening I'll be going to pick up Danielle at the airport! Can't wait! She will be going with us to the San Antonio Film Festival, Lord willing.

Anyway, guess that's all for now!!

Merry Christmas!!

2008-12-20T11:01:00.000-06:00

It's getting close to Christmas....and it seems like it's around this time of the year that we get "Christmas letters" from friends giving us updates about their families. I always enjoy reading them. So well, since it's that time of year I figured I'd do my own, just here on the blog of course. Now this may be quite lengthy, I'm not sure but I wanted to update you all on "Besh's Kids."

I'll start out with the most precious one, and that would be my little white ball of joy. :)

Duffy- has had an adventuresome year to say the least. He turned 1 in April, celebrated his 1st year with me in June, and then had his wild 3 nights in the woods in November. His mom still can't believe how all that worked out. And the newest thing is the sudden arrival of his little brother Dooley, they do love each other though.

Dooley- is the newest "kid on the block" here, and is certainly fitting in well! Weighing in at exactly 3 pounds he can sure hold his own against big brother Duffy! Now if we can only get him potty trained I would be really happy. :)

Rancho- came to live with me in July, he's a ball of energy and excitement that's for sure! Rancho had his adventures as well with his intestinal blockage and just barely made it through that. He has big plans to possibly attend a "herding school" this next year, learning all there is to know about working livestock.

Symphony- she seems like the "old lady" now, still struggles with some hip difficulties, but certainly rules the roost in dogdom! She's just a big baby and is nicknamed "Lobby."

Buster- he's the watch dog of the farm, and so sweet and sensitive. Well....he's got some attitudes too at times, but we love him despite that. :)

Jack- is Anna's dog...and well that's about it, you'd just have to ask her about him. :)

Okay....now for the goats! Nubian's first...

Maggie- is my first Nubian, and so far has been the best producer on the farm. She still enjoys her role as "herd queen" but that has been challenged by a few of the other girls around here.

Sassy- well her name says it all, she's Miss Sassy, doesn't like being messed with at all, but she does her thing on the milk stand. She had one big baby boy this year that she was extremely proud of.

Madeline- she almost went to a new home this fall, but after a turn of events she gets to stay here for the time being, she's the only black goat on the farm.

Shardae- flew in from CA this spring to start of my registered herd of Nubian's. She's just gorgeous and did great in the show ring this fall. She's looking forward to her first babies in April, and also to more shows!

Elegance- is one of my Minnesota girls, she's been a bit slow maturing but is looking prettier and prettier the older she gets! We can't wait to see how she shows in the spring.

Attraction- she's the "baby" of the Nubian's but is growing up fast! She also did great in the show ring, she's definitely one of Mom's favorites. :P

Escape- well let's just say he's living up to his name!! He's caused more than a few issues this breeding season with his jumping skills, but he's so handsome I can't be too upset with him. He's the one and only Nubian buck on the farm right now.

Buddy- actually he doesn't have a name...he's just that, a buddy to my Nubian buck Escape. He does his job well, and they are both best friends.

And now for the Boers.... :D

Poco- first things first she's my first Boer....wait actually she's Andrew's! :) She's such a sweet girl, and had two handsome little boys this spring....unfortunately they went in the freezer. :(

Reba- she battles it out with Maggie for the herd queen status, such a pretty girl that I really love. She had two beautiful kids this year, a boy and a girl, her buck Powerhouse did well at the Tulsa State Fair placing 5th out of 39.

Sapphire- okay...she's had a tough year. She gave birth to a stillborn kid in March and barely pulled through that, but once she did she was doing great!! Although now we're running into some more issues....she had an ultrasound last Saturday showing just fluid in the uterus and no baby...so keep her in your thoughts.

Alyssa- she had two of the cutest little girls! I love both of them...although this year she had a little accident with the Nubian buck...so we'll be having Nubian/Boer cross kids in March.

Christiana- she has the pleasure of saying that her buck kid went all the way to MEXICO to do some big jobs down there! Unfortunately she's at the bottom of the totem pole in goat world, but she's a sweet little girl!

Paint- gets the reward for having the most difficult kidding this year...one that really put me to the test!! I got to have my arm in her all the way up to my elbow, but thankfully she had two beautiful BIG little boys!! Sad to say they had to attend freezer camp as well...

Gauger- okay this is definitely a well fed individual!! WOW we need to get on a diet, she's a hunk! Being the most expensive doe on the farm though, we are anxiously awaiting her first kids in March, she's the first one due.

Wenneveria- hmmmm, I wonder where she got her name? :D She's a sweet little girl, and looks forward to being a first time Mommy in June.

Fat Doe- She definitely got the award for having the most famous son this year! PENDRAGON is the man!! He did well in the show ring, and then got to go to a great home in Colorado to do bigger and better things. As to where her name came from...well you'd have to see a picture...she's the biggest doe on the farm!

Moonlight- this is Wenneveria's sweet little sister, she's such a feminine little girl, and looks forward to her first kids in June as well.

Destiny- you have to wonder what this girl is destined to do!! She's Reba's girl, and is certainly following in her Mom's footsteps as far as quirkiness goes, she does NOT like being messed with at all unless you act super sweet with her, then she gets the idea and loves to be petted.

C Doe Kid- okay weird name I know, but she actually isn't named, I didn't plan on keeping her but things didn't work out to get her sold, so she's here for now.

Redneck and Rustler- they were the last and most hoped for kids born this year, we took one of our very special does and bred her to the IBGA National Junior Champion buck..and got twin bucks out of the deal! They had a rough start, but are looking nicer and nicer as they mature.

10B2B X111- last but certainly not least!! This is our boy that came to us from 10 Buck 2 Boers...they're the ones that win most of the shows around here. He's had fun this fall, and is looking forward to lots of little babies in the spring. Talk about a whopper boy though, he's huge!

Well boring or not....that's the report of Besh's Kids!! Lots of babies this spring went on to do other things, but that's the keepers for now, looking forward to at least doubling that number in the spring with all the babies!! :) Unfortunately it would be a bit difficult to get everybody together for a family picture...so we had to pass on that. :D

*Edit* Mom (real Mom Cindy) wanted to make sure everybody knew that all Mom's on here refer either to goat Mom's or me. :D

Hope everybody has a very blessed and wonderful Christmas!!

~Besh

2008-12-15T16:23:00.000-06:00

Well this freezing cold weather has NOT been so fun. I didn't get up the courage to go out in it until about 2:30 this afternoon....I jumped up the four wheeler and sped up to the barn as quickly as I could. :) The goats water buckets were already frozen over from Micah and Andrew doing them this morning. Hauling water in 20 degree weather is not the funnest chore in the world either. :P By the time I fed, watered, and gave the goats hay I was quite throughly frozen! But after talking to a friend of mine who lives in Wisconsin and hearing about their wind chill being way below zero I figured I don't have it too bad....but it's still way too cold for me. :)

I'm sure most of you read about our Friday night adventure on my Mom's blog, it was so much fun! :) Although I figured out real quick that I need major ice skating practice. :D It certainly wasn't a good sign when I couldn't even walk on the GROUND, much less getting on the ice with those things on my feet! It was pretty bad, I couldn't get anywhere, and there were lots of other people skating so I kept grabbing onto other people I didn't know, which was kind of embarrassing.... :D It was fun, even though I never was able to get away from the wall. :P Micah, Caleb, and Daniel were doing good...but I just couldn't get it. :) This picture was taken at the Myriad Gardens in OKC.

Mom and Anna have been cooking tons of Christmas goodies today, I've managed to get a few samples and everything sure is good! I made bread, helped Anna roll up some peanut butter balls, and made a salad for supper. Cooking is not my favorite thing to do in the world, but it's certainly necessary. :) I'm planning on making some cinnamon rolls to sell this week, I used to do it pretty regularly, but haven't in quite some time. I've had people asking me for them though, so I might as well take the opportunity to make some extra money! :)

This is just a random picture but I thought it was cute! Guess Anna's heifer was ready for breakfast!

This is probably rather boring, but I wanted to update so I could be a good example to my friends. :P (That would be Danielle and Hannah) :) And Hannah, I think you'd better be working on that blog!

Longing for spring.... :)

Besh

2008-12-11T20:06:00.000-06:00

I shipped some orders out today...get yours in and you can still get it in time for Christmas!

2008-12-08T17:26:00.000-06:00

Please vote on the sidebar, and leave a comment telling Hannah how much you'd love it if she made herself a blog!! :) *Note you can select multiple answers.* :P

Duffy's little brother!

2008-12-03T11:37:00.000-06:00

*Pictures added at the bottom of Duffy and Dooley together* :)

Okay, I know I might be a little crazy....but yesterday I drove 2 hours away and brought home a little brother for Duffy! :) A 4 month old Yorkie puppy. He is just adorable, and Duffy is having a blast with him, they are so cute playing together! He's quite tiny even at 4 months and weighs 2.6 pounds. He sure can hold his own against big 12 pound Duffy though! The drive was quite the adventure...I got stopped by a police on the way home. :( Scared me quite throughly but thankfully I didn't get a ticket. :)

So may I introduce to you, "Dooley!"

Mom and I went to town earlier and picked up some matching sweaters. :) So we got pictures of the two of them together...Duffy wasn't too thrilled about wearing his as you can tell from the pictures. :D

Our Thanksgiving!!

2008-11-30T23:46:00.000-06:00

We had a great trip to Dickinson TX for our Thanksgiving get together at Nana and Pop's house. We left early Wednesday morning and arrived at about 1:00, actually made the trip in 8 hours, with only 1 stop, quite the record! :) And OF COURSE Duffy came along with us, he's a good traveler and just slept the whole way pretty much in my lap. :)

Nana and Pop, and Uncle Jerry, Aunt Tami, and cousins Hannah and Garret were there at the house. After getting settled in we headed over to Uncle Todd's house (Dad's brother) to see some amazing landscaping he has done in his back yard. It was really neat, and SO pretty! And then that evening we went to some indoor batting cages that Todd owns, it was a lot of fun hitting soft balls. Except for the fact that I KEPT hitting the things on the handle....and man did it ever hurt. My hands were like swollen afterwards, but it was worth it. :)

Thursday was cooking and eating lots of food! As well as some more of the cousins arriving. AND the traditional Football game...which HAD to be played despite having to almost drag some people off the couch. I just watched of course (I do know better than to play tackle football with my brothers) but it a lot of fun just seeing them play, it was a pretty serious game to say the least! We stayed up until 2:00 or so that evening playing Canasta, it's the big game at our family get togethers. :)

Friday was our beach day...it was SO much fun! We were planning on taking family pictures so we all wore white tops and jean bottoms..actually everybody that came with us wore white too so they could fit in. :) Duffy had an absolute BLAST! As soon as I set him down on that sand he just took off running and playing and played the whole time we were there. :) He wouldn't come in the water though, much as I tried...as soon as the tide came up he'd dash to higher ground. :)

Friday night being the last night we stayed up til 3:30 in the morning! Needless to say, everybody was rather tired....so things were a bit crazy! :P :D OH I forgot to say that evening we order 21 pizza's to feed everybody there!! WOW! That's a record!

Hannah loves Duffy just about as much as I do...and he quickly figured that out. :) She has a dog too, a Yorkie mix named "Annie Boogers." :D Duffy still has yet to meet his Doggy cousin though...hopefully sometime soon. :)

It was such a fun trip and we all greatly enjoyed it, we are so blessed to have such wonderful extended family!

A bit Random....

2008-11-17T16:48:00.001-06:00

Well little Duffy is doing much better! He had another vet visit this morning, and the fever is gone now, so he just has a few more days on the antibiotic and then hopefully he'll be good to go. I'm just so thankful he's still here with me, and back to acting pretty much like his normal self. :) We've been staying pretty close...he couldn't even let me play Daniel's guitar by myself.... :P

And even Dad is glad he's back...as you can see by them taking a Sunday afternoon nap together. :)

Saturday afternoon Dad and I made a batch of Goat's Milk Soap. I've got quite a few orders for Christmas, so I need to make sure I'm stocked up! :) We're planning on making some more tonight too, Dad mixes the Lye solution for me, and then I do the rest, as I don't like that part and he's glad to help me out. I'm planning on having it where you can order it directly off our farm website soon, hopefully that will make it more convenient for everybody.

I'm also really excited about reserving a Nubian doe kid from Lakeshore Farms in CA again! :) I'm just getting one this time but hopefully I'll be having some nice kids of my own too. :) Shardae is bred for April kids, I can't wait! :) She's the doe that I got from CA this past spring. I'm going to hold off on breeding the two I got from MN until next fall, as one is still young, and the other from slower maturing lines.

I SO can't wait for spring....LOL I know, we've not even got to winter yet.... :( :D Baby goats are just so much fun despite all the work that comes with them....and despite the fact that I got trampled by hungry Mama's the other day leaving a nice bruise and knot on my shin. :D

Besh

2008-11-14T11:02:00.000-06:00

He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. Eccl. 3:11

Duffy...the Miracle Dog

2008-11-11T10:05:00.000-06:00

For those of you that don't know a whole lot about my dog Duffy, let me introduce him to you. :) My parents got him for my 18th birthday, after dreaming for years about having a little inside dog of my own. So of course he quickly became very special to me, he sleeps with me every night in my bed, follows me around everywhere, and whenever I sit down anywhere whether at the computer or in a chair he's sure to be in my lap. :) And even recently he's started sitting with me AT the table...which Mom doesn't appreciate too much... :D So he's pretty much just TOTALLY like my child, we even have jokes that he's going to be the ring bearer in my wedding whenever I get married. :P

So on Saturday morning on the way to the Duggar's home we dropped him off at our neighbors house so they could watch him for the weekend. I'd never actually left him anywhere without me, but I thought he would be fine. Well, about 1 1/2 hours later we got a call that he had slipped out of his collar and escaped into the woods. I was shocked hearing that, but really thought they would probably find him pretty quick. We arrived at the Duggar's at about 10:30, and Duffy was still not found. I was pretty worried at this point and decided to go ahead and drive back to search for him, two of the Duggar girls Jana and Jessa, graciously drove back with me, we actually ended up talking the whole way here, it was a lot of fun and kept my mind off things. It was about 2:30 when we arrived at the house and we started searching right away...but to no avail. So after about an hour we headed back, I drove all the way back and actually made it in about 2 hours and 50 minutes instead of the 3 and a half hours that it took us going. :)

All of us girls stayed up pretty late Saturday night talking and playing some games...so much fun!!

Sunday after church we headed home and arrived just a little before dark and we went on another search until it got dark but still couldn't find him. Needless to say I was totally devastated that evening...it was so hard doing all the normal things with out my little guy following close at my heels. Mercy just couldn't understand that Duffy was gone, and kept asking to go "see" him. :( Probably the hardest though, was going to bed without Duffy, the first time I've slept in my bed without him in a LONG time. Took me hours to finally go to sleep and I ended up sleeping until 11:00 Monday morning. Anna, Micah, Andrew, and Joshua and already been out looking before I got up. And then Mom and I went to town to get stuff to make more signs. We got home at around 3:00 in the afternoon after getting them all put up, and decided to just try to walk kind of through the square mile in the woods instead of staying on the roads. So off we went, through fences, woods, and past "No Trespassing" signs. :) We did try to stay away from the houses because I didn't want to have to explain to anybody why we were walking through their property. :) It took us close to an hour to walk all the way across, because it was so hard to get through, there were lots of thorns and underbrush. After making it across, I decided we would go back up a bit and then make another strip the opposite direction. So we did, and were probably about halfway back and still no signs of Duffy. I had been praying all along that we would find him, but at that point I really just started asking the Lord to direct our steps and lead us right to Duffy. Well just about 10 minutes later after tons of zig zagging and trying to avoid houses I looked off to the left and there under a cedar tree all hunkered down was DUFFY!!! There was a barb wire fence in between but I was over that in an instant and had him in my arms, crying like a baby. :) It was just amazing!! We started back as fast as we could, but it took us at least 30 minutes to get back to where we had parked the van.

Soon as we came in the house and Duffy saw everybody he started barking, and of course all the little ones were SO excited that he was home. :) He has some pretty bad cuts on both his front legs, so Elijah and I ran him by the vet to get them looked at. We got some antibiotics as he was running a bit of a fever, and he's just been taking it easy. :) He's laying in my lap right now as I'm typing this, if he was spoiled before, he's going to be doubly spoiled now getting carried everywhere, as he is supposed to stay off his feet until he gets healed up. :) I'm SO incredibly thankful to the Lord for leading us right to Duffy!!

Thinking Back....

2008-11-03T11:58:00.000-06:00

November brings back a lot of memories for me, I've been thinking about things a lot, and then singing the song "Like a River Glorious" in church yesterday really brought back memories about Joel. That song was very close to my heart during all we went through 2 years ago.

I know this isn't really a "normal" blog post for me to write, I generally don't talk about Joel a whole lot, not necessarily because I don't like to...I guess I'm just the type of person that keeps things like that to myself unless I'm specifically asked. But not talking about him, certainly doesn't mean I'm not thinking about and missing him often. So why am I writing this? Well, a year ago I wrote out something in my journal entitled "Thinking Back." I wrote it with the intent that I might possibly share it somewhere, sometime on my blog. :) Well, seeing as it's sat in my journal for almost a year I thought I'd post it today. Perhaps it may be an encouragement to someone, or if nothing else it's just to remember Joel.

"Thinking Back" Nov. 28, 2007

As I think back over the last year and a half or so of my life, it's hard to believe all the things that have happened. So much has changed. It is truly the mercy of God that we do not know what a day may bring forth.

November...it was a very difficult month for me. It was a month of questions but we didn't have answers. It was a month of much heartache, just seeing little Joel so sick, but not know what was wrong. There would be days that he would feel better, and our hopes would rise, only to be cast down the next day. Why these fevers? What was going on in his little body? But God's grace was always there, carrying us through the valley.

December came, finally the answers we were seeking but not answers we wanted to hear. Cancer was such a foreign word to me. Something that old people got, it never had a lot of meaning to me, I guess I just never thought about it much. It was always something that happened to others, never something that would happen to us. But yet that was the answer we received, Joel had cancer, a very aggressive kind of cancer, at stage 4. When Dad came home and told us the news I just felt like I couldn't bear it. How could life go on like this? How were we going to get through this? I just wanted everything to be "normal" again...but no, nothing would be "normal" anymore, that was a thing of the past. I remember so clearly spending time with Joel in the hospital. Reading books to him, coloring pictures, even one day taking a little stroll down the hallways with him. Memories that I cherish but yet are so painful.

Then Christmas came, I don't think I really even imagined that it would be the last Christmas we would ever celebrate with Joel on this side of heaven. We were hoping and praying that Joel would get well, I never really thought that it would be otherwise. But God's ways are not always our ways. January 3rd...that day was extremly difficult. The phone call late in the night saying that Joel had had a seizure, oh the memories of it are so painful. But still even through this the darkest valley of our life God's grace was still there carrying us through. And then on January 23rd, 2007 when God chose to take Joel home to Him in glory, the wonderful grace of Jesus was manifested to us.

Yes, it's hard, really hard, we miss him terribly, but I can just imagine him waking up in heaven as a dear friend shared with us, saying "I'm all done?" Yes Joel you are all done, no more pain, no more pokey things, and no more cancer. Joel experienced the ultimate healing, and though it was not the healing we were praying for, God has used his precious life to impact people around the world.

As I ask myself would I take him back if it were possible? No I would not, he is alive with Christ and free from all sorrow and pain. But yet I wish that I could hold him in my arms once more...see his eyes looking into mine and hear his little voice. But praise the Lord, someday I will, soon and very soon. What a wonderful day that will be!

I love you forever Joel, can't wait to see you in heaven!

Your sister,
Besh

An Affair Of The Heart

2008-10-25T15:39:00.000-05:00

Thursday evening Elijah dropped Anna and I off to spend the night with the Burnett girls, with plans to go to the "Affair Of The Heart" craft show together at the OKC State Fairgrounds. We had a GREAT time that evening, sitting around talking, snacking, and playing a game. :) I actually got to sleep at a decent hour, probably about 1:30...but my sister Anna stayed up talking until 3:00!! :o Fun though! Abbie and I had this great trick we tried to play on Hannah...but sadly it didn't quite turn out because she figured out that Abbie wasn't in her bed. :( Oh well...it would have been pretty good if we could have pulled it off without Abbie laughing! :D

Mom and Mercy joined us Friday morning, it was like SO cold...and guess what? I wore flip flops. :D My toes were about to freeze off until we got into the building, but thankfully it was warm inside! :) We generally don't do a lot of buying, just walk around and look at everything there, and sample all the dips, jellies and salsa's. Oh, and most importantly the coffee and cappuccino!! :) Mercy was a bit overwhelmed at first with all the people there, but toward the end she got used to everything and had a lot of fun, as well as getting a new baby doll. :)

Oh, and to answer Marie in NC's question, we've known the Burnett's for many years, they have 8 children right in the same age ranges as our family, and we love spending time with them. :) Unfortunately the don't have a blog...but I REALLY think they should get one! :)

Our chickens are all in the freezer now! Yay! We got them all processed yesterday evening and today...sure is nice having chickens to eat...but most certainly not our favorite job to do. :)

Barnyard Adventures

2008-10-16T14:05:00.001-05:00

Had a bit of an adventure this morning...I was out at the barn doing chores and I heard one of my Boer bucks hollering for some reason...so I headed over to the pen to find out what was wrong...and to my surprise he was going nuts because the other buck that is always in the pen with him was gone! I hurried into the pen and looked all over and checked the shed...no buck. I was totally at a loss...where in the world did he go?? Finally after a few more minutes of looking I spotted him over across the pasture up next to the girls pasture...I could have guessed. :D Grabbed a rope and a bucket of feed...which he was NOT interested in at the moment. I did manage to get the rope around his neck and then it was drag and pull the stubborn thing ALL the way back to his pen. Got him back in thankfully...and for some reason it didn't cross my mind to check to see how he got out in the first place. So I headed back to my work. One of the does was ready to be put in with my new buck, so I got her separated out and all the others put out to pasture....when I hear that same buck calling....oh boy he got out AGAIN. :( This time though it wasn't just one of them but...BOTH. Not good...thankfully just at that moment Andrew came out to help, so after a bit of chasing we were able to each grab onto one and put a rope around their neck... they were like SO determined NOT to go back to the pen.

So picture me with a rope around a 200 pound Boer buck that has got his feet planted in the mud pulling as hard as my 100 pound weight can pull. :P And Andrew has his own set of problems with his, but he was trying to help me out with pushing mine from behind....so inch by inch we made it all the way back to the pen, crept past the cows who had to come watch and got them back in their pen...since we had them caught I needed to give them a dose of wormer so I grabbed that and FIXED the fence this time. :) Whew, quite the workout, and by the time I was done I was smelling nicely like a buck in rut. :D I think breeding season has finally hit hard, it's pretty crazy around the barn right now... :D Exciting though...because that means babies coming in March! :) Later than last year, most of them kidded in February...but oh well, hopefully it will be a bit warmer and I won't have to freeze my chuff off like I did last year. :)

We had a super fun time yesterday with my dearest friend Danielle. It was raining and muddy out, so we didn't get to play any volleyball, but we did manage to go out and see the goats...and I tried to give a unicycle riding demo...which didn't go quite so well. :D I haven't practiced much at all lately... :) We had lots of fun sitting around talking, playing "Rook", and just being together.

Looking a bit weird...check out the boots! :D

Now to get ready for a Boer goat show on Saturday in Ada, we're planning on spending the night with the Burnett's while we're down there, which is always tons of fun. :) So lots going on but that's now I like it!

~Bethany

Duffy is Embarrassed

2008-10-09T19:19:00.000-05:00

Well, Duffy and I both went to the groomer today...him to the doggy one and me to a "people" one. :D Poor Duffy though....I was like SO in shock when I saw him! I mean, he looks so embarrassing that Mom won't even let me post a picture of his whole body on here...so the face one will have to do. :P To get an idea, he's got a fluffy head, a fluffy tail....and everywhere in between is practically skin. He had a lot of mats....and I guess the groomer couldn't get them out...so he got a full body shave! I feel so sorry for him, poor guy...he's really embarrassed about how he looks and he just can't get used to his fluff on his tail tickling his skin. :) I'm sure he would appreciate a few encouraging comments to let him know that hopefully his hair WILL grow back soon. :D

As for me...mine turned out a bit better than Duffy I think. :P It was like MAJORLY "big" right after the lady was done styling it, (I don't think Elijah would have liked it) but by the time we took the picture it had tamed down a bit. :)

This evening we had a Spanish family come out to look at some of my Boer bucks I have for sale, I had met them at the OKC State Fair, and they finally made it out here to look at them. I think they are really interested, kind of neat actually, if they buy him he will be going to a ranch in Mexico! :) We'll see I guess.

More pictures! :)

2008-10-08T12:25:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning we headed to Stratford to visit our friends the Burnett's. AND while we were there I was able to come up with a few more pictures of Hannah. :) So I just had to add these. :) We had a great time, Abbie had fun playing with my hair, she had been wanting to try diffusing it, so we did and it worked pretty well.

SO....here's the pics! And I guess I'll have to put a few of Abbie fixing my hair too....although I'll pass on the ones of my leaning in the tub getting my hair wet. :P :D

A little bit late....

2008-10-06T21:31:00.000-05:00

...BUT I HAD to get in a birthday post for my dear friend Hannah!! Her birthday was yesterday, 20 years old! Oh my goodness, not sure what I'm going do with all my friends turning 20 on me...just a little bit weird. :) But hey, you are gonna be a senior citizen before me, that's for sure!! :D

Hannah is SUCH an amazing young lady, I've known her since I was about 12 years old, and it's been totally wonderful having her for a friend. I would say our personalities are pretty different...but she puts up with all my "craziness" quite well, and hopefully gets a laugh out of it every once in a while. :P

Rather hard to catch Hannah doing something crazy....this was the closest I could get when I was looking through pictures of her...CUTE huh? :)

Hannah is quite the gardener, she plants a vegetable garden every year, it's a lot of work I know, and she does a great job at it. She also loves canning...you'll find her canning green beans, or making "possum grape" jelly which is totally delicious by the way! :)

We have tons of fun together, it's always quite a trip whenever we spend the night with them....especially if my sister Anna is not there to monitor me, I just have too much fun with the Burnett family. :)

Thanks for being such a great friend and example to me, I so appreciate your meek and quiet spirit, and am blessed by seeing your close walk with the Lord. I pray that this next year of your life will be filled with blessings!

Love you so much!

Besh

Rancho's Rough Week

2008-09-30T13:58:00.000-05:00

My dear little pup Rancho was able to come home from the vet Monday morning!! I was SO happy to see him again, and SO glad that he is actually home after not knowing whether he would come home or not.

For those of you that don't know what happened to him, last Wednesday morning he was extremely sick, throwing up pretty much non stop and totally lethargic, I checked his temperature and it was also very high. The day before he had been perfectly fine, running around just like normal. Right away I could tell something was seriously wrong, so I called our vet and was able to get him dropped off there. Later that evening the Dr. called me and said that he was very concerned, wasn't able to put a finger on what it was yet, but was suspecting some kind of intestinal blockage, and wanted to get some x-rays.

Thursday he had the x-rays done, and that evening I was told that there was possibly some blockage...not at a specific point but nothing was going from his stomach to his intestines, so now I had 2 options, send him to a specialist for surgery which would cost like way more money that we could afford, or have my vet do an exploratory surgery, if he went in and it was something simple, like something just stuck in there he would remove it and hopefully all would be well, if it looked too major he would just put him down and not wake him up from surgery. Needless to say I was having a really hard time with it all, I really love that little dog and it just about killed me to think of having to put him down at such a young age. :( So we all started praying, that it would be something simple, and God would work things out somehow. He had his surgery on Friday, it went well, they didn't find any specific blockage, but found that his intestines were kind of out of place, the Dr. corrected that and we were just hoping that fixed the problem. Saturday morning I called and they told me that he was up, and doing a bit better but was still getting fluids and needed to stay there at least until Monday. Monday morning I called again and the Dr. said Rancho was up and going acting like a total new dog!! I went and picked him up yesterday afternoon, and the vets were just quite amazed at how things had turned out, they did not think at all that he was going to make it....and the Dr. told me that it must have been God that turned things around, and I'm sure it was!! Praise the Lord! I know it's just a dog...but God cares about even the sparrow that falls to the ground, right? :)

He's doing great, just sad that he has to stay confined for a while except for going out on a leash to make sure he doesn't eat anything weird and mess things up again...I'm sure glad to have him home!! I can't stand this picture of me...but it was the best one we got...so it will have to do. :D

Besh

My New Boer Buck!

2008-09-29T19:41:00.000-05:00

Finally was able to get pictures of him today! I'm sure most of you read on Mom's blog that I got him...so neat how the Lord provided.

Actually it was rather humorous, Saturday morning Caleb, Daniel, Andrew, Josh and I were driving to the sale and all of the sudden it hit Caleb that we really didn't know how we were going to pay for a buck. So he started asking me about it, and was like "why in the WORLD are we going to this sale without the money to buy something???" :D I was like...well, hopefully the Lord is going to provide somehow. So we went on there, and sure enough I was able to find this little guy. I totally loved him, but had NO idea how high the bidding would go on him. Then I had the folks from Colorado come up and say they for sure were going to purchase the two bucks from me, so that was a major provision right there. Now just to hope the bidding wouldn't go TOO high. :) Finally it came around to him, they had 128 goats there and he was number 97 so it was almost all day before he sold. I was really nervous while Dad was bidding, but praise the Lord we got him, and for an even better price that we expected.

So here he is "10 Buck 2 Boers 111"...let me know what you think of him! :) And keep in mind, he's only 5-1/2 months old.

Besh

It's ANNA'S Birthday Today!!

2008-09-24T02:00:00.000-05:00

WOW!! My little sister Anna is 16 years old today....hard to believe, but actually that makes me like REALLY old, oh boy!! :)

So much I can say about my dear sister...hmmmm where should I start? First off I guess I'll say Anna and I are like COMPLETE opposites in so many ways. She has light hair, I have dark, she likes to get up early...I LOVE sleeping in, I like goats, she likes cows, (that's a big one :P) Anna is quiet, I'm...umm, not so quiet. :) I make bread, she makes desserts...lots of little things I guess. But despite the fact that we are opposite in so many ways we ARE best friends. :) It probably wouldn't be such a good thing anyway if we were both loud you know. :P Anna is great for keeping me in line...she will claim that she has to go along with me to places and "monitor" to make sure I don't act TOO crazy. :D She's also really good at "detecting" certain things...very observant. :)

Anna is a SUPER good dessert maker, which is a REALLY good thing for me, because I greatly enjoy trying out what she makes. :) It's always the best!! It really IS a good thing that I don't get fat. :P She is also extremely talented at playing the piano, I'm amazed at how good she has gotten. There WAS a time long ago when I would teach her....she passed me up many years ago. :)

Photography is also something she greatly enjoys, and I'll add is VERY good at. I love seeing all the pictures she takes, she certainly has a lot of talent in that area. She always gets a good laugh when I get behind the camera...somehow I just don't get it!! :) So, in case you see a drop in quality in these pictures....that's because Anna didn't take them. :)

One of her favorite things to do is going out early in the morning and seeing the cows coming in for their morning feeding...she really enjoys anything that has to do with cattle, has her own black Angus heifer as well. We always have to joke around about what is better...goats or cows, but in the end we just have to realize that we'll never be able to quite agree there! :)

Anna is just an amazing sister, a lot of times it almost seems as if I look to her for an example...even though I'm the elder one. She loves the Lord with all her heart, and loves serving her family. We have tons of fun together whether its in the kitchen or out walking through the pasture. I'm truly blessed to have her for my sister.

I got some input from some of her friends as to how they would best describe Anna, I thought it fit her perfectly! "She's a very sweet, kind, wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, kind of girl, quiet but loves to have fun, a great photographer, and just like a "little mom."

And then from another one... "She is very humble and loving to her family and friends. She is loyal, and is a faithful letter writer!! She has a meek and gentle spirit, she loves the Lord with all her heart, and is a great prayer warrior! I would also say she's a real cowgirl :D, a superb dessert baker, and a wonderful photographer!!!!"

I could go on and on about Anna...she's just SUCH a wonderful sister. Hope you all enjoy the pictures I was able to gather up of her! :)

Love you SO much Anna!! Happy 16th Birthday!

Your sister,
Besh

OK State Fair Boer Show

2008-09-23T13:29:00.001-05:00

The Boer goat show was a lot of fun even though we didn't win anything significant. :) Lots of competition out there with Boers!! We had fun though, I took seven and boy was it ever a lot of work getting them all ready. :D I had lots of help though, Elijah, Andrew, and Dad washed and dried them for me so all I had to do was the clipping, mostly. Although I did end up washing the first one which happened to be my buck....phew did he ever smell!! :D I finally finished up with everybody around 9:00 and we headed home.

The show was Saturday morning...we had a bit of an adventure though when my big Boer buck got loose in the show ring!! NOT GOOD!! He is still just WAY wild and so he took of running, jumped over a chair and then went right into a crowd of people. Thankfully someone grabbed onto him, but he got pushed really far until our neighbor who was standing by grabbed on too. So thankfully he was caught before he did any serious damage. :) That buck is just a bit scary on the loose. :P

Next is the Tulsa State Fair Dairy goat show...coming up on Friday! :) I'm pretty excited about it, and I'll be sure and update when I get back....NOW make SURE you check back here tomorrow...I'll have a little something up that you will want to check out. :)

~Besh

Oklahoma State Fair Dairy Goat Show!

2008-09-18T15:19:00.000-05:00

We arrived back from MO at about 4:30, loaded up all my equipment and goats and took of for the fair. We made it in time, and I got right to work getting my girls ready. I had already clipped 2 of them, so they just had to be washed and dried, and then I clipped the last one. I take SO long clipping goats, so we didn't get finished up until about 9:30. I was taking my time though, because I was talking to a lady for a while, and then people would come through and ask questions and such. Several times I had quite the group standing there watching me. :D Somehow our stalls were like right where everybody came into the barns so we had tons of people coming through. :) It was so funny though, because we were right next to a whole row of La Mancha goats (they don't have ears) and it seemed like EVERYBODY almost was constantly asking "why do those goats not have ears??" or "do they cut their ears off?" I probably got asked that at LEAST 20 times! :D LOL at least with my girls I don't have to worry about that question...they've got ears a plenty! :P Then I had one person ask me if you could use my clippers to cut a little boys hair... she liked how quiet they were. :D I was like, well I guess you could, it's the same type thing. :D

The Tuesday show didn't go so well for me...and quite honestly I was really discouraged about it, thinking about how much we had invested into these goats, and trying to figure out why they weren't winning. :) Anna thinks the judge was mad at me for some reason... but I don't know. :P My goats were like SO not behaving that first day...oh boy it was NOT good!!

Wednesday turned out to be the big day. We left a little bit later, because my girls don't show until later in the day. While we were waiting I decided that I wanted to try out riding some Go-Karts that some of the others had drove the day before. It turned out being so fun!! Andrew and I got a 2 seater because he's not tall enough to drive one, and we were moving!! Poor Micah was so frustrated with his car because it didn't seem to go as fast and Anna and I kept passing him up. :) I think Andrew was just a bit worried about how fast we were taking the corners. :P We ended up doing it again when Caleb, Dan and Elijah came up later in the afternoon. I embarrassed myself really bad though the second time I drove. :P LOL got in trouble rather, it was pretty funny. :D And my back is majorly sore from driving them, they have absolutely NO padding and it's super bumpy. :) Rather painful sitting in hard backed chairs at the moment. :)

The show started out with me placing 4th in the open show with Main Attraction, which was higher than yesterday. And THEN my girl Shardae took 2nd place out of a large and VERY competitive class of juniors! I was SO happy! Andrew's doe placed a lot higher than the other time as well. The doe that placed 1st in front of Shardae ended up going Grand Champion Junior doe, so Shardae had a chance at Reserve, but it ended up going to a yearling doe.

The Youth show was really small, but we got Grand Champion, and Reserve, and then ended up getting Best Junior Doe in Show with Shardae. :) I was really happy about that too. It was so much fun, and certainly made up for the day before!

It was my first dairy show ever, and I really enjoyed it. Learned a lot and am looking forward to the one in Tulsa next week. :)

But for now...I'm getting ready for the Boer goat show on Saturday. Elijah and I took them to get their health papers this morning, and we'll be taking them up to the fair tomorrow afternoon to get them all prepped up. I'm taking seven, three bucks, and four does. Should be fun!

A Trip To MO!!

2008-09-17T19:54:00.001-05:00

Well, we finally were able to make it to MO to visit my dear friend Danielle, they were having a screening of a documentary about her Mom and we went down to see that, and to spend some time with Dannie. Dad, Anna and I left early Sunday morning and made it there by about 1:30..,it was SO great to see Danielle again. :)

First of all we met up with Danielle at her house and got to meet her Dad and step Mom, and her cute little brother Luke. Then we headed to AppleBee's where everybody was waiting on us for lunch..."everybody" meaning Danielle's sisters Mandy and Tara, Sage and Tera Naylor, and Hans and Helena Bluedorn. The waitress there was like cracking us up SO much though, it was hilarious! :D After lunch we went over to a coffee shop, it was rather windy outside and well...lets just say Dannie and wind don't go too well together. :P Then we headed to Tara's house to change and get ready for the screening.

It was really neat to get to see the documentary, very sad of course but I really enjoyed seeing it and it touched me deeply. We got to meet lots of people there as well, which was a lot of fun.

After the screening it was time to party!! We all went out to dinner and then headed to the Hunts house, they were SO hospitable to us, opening their home and just treated us so kindly. I had so much fun, finally got to meet Collyn Hunt, Danielle's friend that I hear so much about. It was so neat though, even though we'd never met before it felt like I'd known Collyn and her whole family for years! We played "spoons" and then four on a couch, and got to hear some singing as well. :D AND we ended up staying up all night talking! :0 Well, actually Danielle and I were like SO wiped out that we ended up sleeping for about 45 minutes but that was it. :) We were just having so much fun together we didn't want to go to bed. :) And of course our time there was so short we had to make the most of it. We left Monday morning at about 6:30 so we could get back in time to take the goats to the fair...but I'm going to make a separate post about that.

It was such a great trip and I enjoyed every bit of it! The pictures aren't the greatest...but they are pretty much all I have. :) Love you, Dannie Mistina!

The Big Girls...

2008-09-08T13:37:00.001-05:00

Thought I'd post some random pictures Anna took of the cows...those little calves are getting big!

This little visitor was sitting up on the barn the other morning...not sure where it came from!!

Getting My Boer Ladies In Shape...

2008-09-05T16:07:00.000-05:00

I've been needing to get all my Boer goats wormed, and prepped for breeding which is coming up here pretty quick, and I still had some I needed to pull blood on for some testing as well. So trying to think of the best way to "get er done" I posed the idea to Andrew to make a pen and chute where we could run the girls one by one onto my grooming stand. That way we wouldn't have to chase each goat down and drag it on. :P So Andrew got to work and fixed up a small holding pen with a chute that led right up to the stand.

I had a lot of help too, Andrew would run the goats into the chute, and I would open the gate at the end and they would come right up onto the stand...the first one escaped but it worked really well with all the others. Once we got them secured, Hosie had a needle and syringe ready for me to pull blood, then they got wormed, and hooves trimmed. Hoof trimming does wear me out though, especially with my big Boer girls that enjoy trying to kick as much as they can. Not to mention a few toes stepped on....yes I was wearing flip flops. :P But it's so nice to know it's all done! We had a lot of fun, and Andrew just loves anything to do with moving livestock around so he had a blast helping out. :) Mercy even had fun trying to feed them hay. :)

Unicycling.... :D

2008-09-02T18:41:00.000-05:00

Well, I thought you all might enjoy laughing at some pictures of me "trying" to ride the unicycle. Beware these pictures are a bit scary of me though! :D I've been working at it for about a month....it's taking much longer to learn than my genius brothers who mastered it in probably a week. :) Oh well...practice makes perfect I guess! Or rather in this case "crashing makes perfect." :P I tried to pose some "wipe outs" while Anna was taking pictures...but she never could quite get them...and I got tired of crashing on purpose so just me riding will have to do. :)

Hopefully ya'll will get a laugh from these... :P

Oh wow, I just realized I actually did TWO blog posts today!! :D That's amazing for me! :)

Besh

Interview

2008-09-02T13:30:00.000-05:00

A blogger friend did a interview with me and posted it on her blog. Thought you all might be interested in seeing it, might find out something you didn't know about me. :)