Random

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!

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

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 :)

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!

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!

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

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!