Our barn has cement floors. It is really nice for cleaning. The stall floors are covered in straw. In the summer we clean the stalls weekly. All that dirty straw goes into the composts bins and becomes wonderful compost for the garden. As summer came to a close we decided that we would use the […]
Goat Update
We really like having goats. They bring us much enjoyment and entertainment. Halle is still shacked up with Jasper so Brown Sugar is alone with the three doelings. We give them treats every now and then. This is some winter squash. They all love it. Since the doelings came from the same herd they are […]
A Joyful Visit
My sister and my two nieces came down New Year’s Day to stay the night. When we lived in Milwaukie we were minutes from all of my family. I miss them so much. I thought I would be able to talk on the phone to make up for it but life is so busy especially […]
Fun Additions at the Barn
For Christmas we got the boys a bunch of goose decoys. They want to hunt everything but we have limited it to Canada Geese. We surprised them Christmas morning with a field of geese (decoys). It was pretty funny. They thought they were real and told us to all hide so we didn’t scare them […]
Doelings or Leprechauns?
On Saturday a new and already beloved friend named Raspberry came over to teach us to 1) give our goats vaccinations and 2) tattoo our new doelings. Raspberry is a long time goat owner. He started in his youth with 4-H. He is a wealth of knowledge and wisdom. For 20+ years he was a […]
Delightful Doelings
Finally. We have been waiting for nine weeks to bring our doelings home. It is best to let them nurse for at least eight weeks. Our dear friend Bryn is giving us these precious girls. Two were born to her Nigerian Dwarf doe named Pippa and one was born to another doe named Peach (she […]
Animals, Antics and Analogies
I find it enjoyable to notice things on our farm. As the seasons change so does the landscape, birds and wildlife. During summer the the barn swallows reigned supreme. A doe and her spotted fawns could be seen in the lower acreage in the early morning hours. The bull frogs lulled us to sleep each […]
Frozen
For the past four days we have had some cold temperatures here on the farm. A lot of things are covered in ice. It sure is pretty. The pond started to freeze. Apparently the pond has frozen enough in the past that it was used for ice skating. The boys took ice off […]
Our Affectionate Animals
Michael has been taking care of opening the barn in the mornings. It helps me to not have to rush getting everything done before I wake the boys up at 7:30. I miss seeing the animals each morning though. I went out in the afternoon to visit the chicks and the goats. Apparently Brown Sugar […]
Creating Dry Lots for the Goats
The goats live in the barn. Both the girl’s stall and the boy’s stall have doors to outside pens. It allows them to go out and get some sunshine and have a little room to move around. Now that the rain is here we decided to “dry lot” those outside pens. What that means is […]
A New Experience (AKA: Wow, I Never Real...
Let’s just back up a bit. I feel I need to remind all of you that we have DAIRY goats. Meaning we want them to produce milk. Well, in order to make milk they need to have at least one baby. With goats (maybe other animals too) we call it “freshening”. In order to have […]
Animals, Shop, Garden and a Little Fun
I thought you might enjoy some pictures of the animals. The chicks sure have grown a lot. The Barred Rock chickens are very sociable. Our chicken coop has a door that leads out to an enclosed pen. I think that the Ameraucana chicken’s head looks like […]