2012 Garden

 Last year I had some really big sunflowers in the garden.

I left most of them with the seed heads for the birds.

The stalks survived the winter and even a couple of the volunteer seeds grew up.

I would have gotten rid of them, but I had an idea.

I have lots of ideas.

What if I planted pole beans under the stalks?

Would they vine up? Some of them are figuring out the system.

Some of the bean vines are going a little wild.

I have since tied them with some twine to see if they figure it out.

The rest of my garden is pretty much behind the curve.

I got things planted late.

These are red potatoes. The guys planted white potatoes up on the hill.

I wanted some variety. 

These are banana peppers.

Kinda funky looking. I keep trying with them.

  

In the front bed I have some yellow squash and zucchini. They are small, but growing.

In the back are my tomatoes. The boards are what is left of my old ladder cages. Since we are using the raised beds now, the cages didn't really work. So I took them apart and have been meaning to rebuild them so that they work better with the raised beds. There is my first one in the back. That is a single tomato, the other two piles are two plants each. I really need to get them fixed up. The hole in between them is where the wind ripped two more out of the ground on the 29th.

Maybe before winter I will get some vegetables out of there.

I have fun goofing with the garden. So that works.

Fencing and Dogs

The guys have been working on repairing and upgrading the fence around all of the property to be woven wire with three strands of barb wire. This is the interior and exterior lines, including ours, the BIL's, and the neighbor's since he lets our cows graze that property. That is a lot of fence line and has been a two year project so far. I know if I can't find FabHub he is working on fence somewhere.
Because of the goats all of the fence around our property has also been upgraded to include electric since we want to keep them from sticking their heads through the woven wire and getting stuck. We also want to deter the neighbor dogs from coming under, which has entirely annoyed our dogs too.
They have managed to find away or two of getting out of our house yard to get into the pasture, which isn't really a problem since the goats haven't figured it out yet. I do expect the day to come when I arrive home to find some plants missing and a goat looking at me from the front porch.
All that being said - when Mom's dog comes to visit, because she is a very curious runner who might get lost, we have always had to keep her tied up or in a yard pen. Now that we have all this fence we only need to put a temp gate across the main driveway and she can run all over the place. She loves it.

The problem begins when there is a hole under the fence...

Because it can lead to a muddy foot print in the creek swamp...

Which can only mean...

Molly is one happy dog loving life on the farm. 

Luckily, other than the mutual fear she shares with the goats - them of her and she of them - there really wasn't a problem or anywhere she could go.

She also gets to enjoy the awesome redneck swimming pool. 

After a dunk, some vigorous scrubbing, and a rinse in a second pool of water...

Molly is looking much better and ready to do it all again.

She does miss her mama though.

And her cat.

Remember when they were little?

Back in April things around the goat yard were pretty calm.

And then they grew up.

Petunia and Peony

Eating has gotten a bit more difficult the taller they get.

Jack and Jill

Sweet William

Ace

 

Huey, Duey, and Louie

There are 10 more of them running around, but you get the picture.

When they were little they stayed around the goat house because momma would be back.

Now that everybody is big enough to follow their mommas around,

the day care center is closed.

The 5 Minute Post Hole

This post is here because other people aren't so lucky to have real dirt for post hole digging.

Start with a Post Hole Auger imported from the great state of Kansas.

Make sure the inspectors have signed off on the work before you start. 

Otherwise they just get in the way.

By the way...

These pictures are from the beginning of May when the inspectors were only a week old.

It was their first job.

They have moved onto another position and are now learning the fine art of landscaping.

Back to hole digging.

Press down and turn the handle around and around  to dig it into the dirt.

Lift the auger out of the ground.

Dump the dirt out of the auger basket.

Repeat.

Oh look! 

A rock. That added 30 seconds to the dig.

Don't forget to get the post hole digging inspection completed.

Depth measurements are important.

Then take the inspectors for a ride... 

yeah, that didn't last long. They jumped out.

FabHub's Birthday Cake(s)

Somebody's been baking again.

Mini Pineapple Upside Cakes

Not quite what they looked like in the magazine.

Brown sugar, pineapples, and maraschino cherries.

Topped with pineapple flavored (or just plain yellow) cake mix and put in the oven. 

Loosened edges are important. Sorry top right corner cake.  

And shared with anybody I can get to eat them.

:)

End of May Goats

February to May.

More than just a weather change at the goat feeders.

   

The new feeders are going to be off the ground.

Fewer feet getting in the food that way.

Daisy has another way of eating, when she can keep her head out of the fence.

She just climbs on top of the briers and goes at it.

This is FabHub and the bottle babies with the dogs.

They are about 2 weeks old in that picture.

Here they are at almost 4 weeks.

They look like a bunch of brutes don't they?

That is PM, AM, and Salvia.

They just finished eating, so they stood still for a minute to finish burping.

They all get 20 ounces of milk replacer with an egg mixed in it two times a day.

Thank goodness for friends with chickens!

They are getting fat compared to the others who eat off their mommies.

The bottle babies don't have to spend the whole day chasing after their dinner though.

Their's gets delivered.

They are growing good. So all is well.

After they finished looking at me to see if I had anything else for them they took off to play on the barrels. 

All of the babies seem to like jumping around on them so we turn them over during the day.

So far so good on keeping things going around here.

Later.

Sunday AM and PM

The last of the expected babies took their own sweet time in arriving. Marigold is their momma and we believe the first one was born before 7am and the second one was born just after 1pm. I put a question about naming them out on FB and decided that the first answer, with a mod, was what we would go with. So here I introduce two little boys named AM and PM. Isn't that creative? HA I thought so. My former classmate Terry suggested Aim and Pim, sort of sounds like am and pm right? But after rolling it around for a while just sticking with the regular AM and PM worked better.

I went to Tractor Supply this weekend and finally bought a scale so I can figure out how much they weigh and are gaining as they grow. Forgot to use it on Scarlett's babies, but remembered yesterday. Of course they had both eaten quite a bit by the time I remembered, but we now know that AM weighed 5 pounds and PM weighed 6 pounds. I meant to chase some of the others down to check them out, like Ace (the brown one) since he is easy to pick up, but things got crazy. 

14 big goats and 20 little ones take a bit of time to wrangle in the evenings. We are working on a new feed trough plan to help with that. Then after we got them all together, Daffodil showed me how she could slip under the goat yard gate. So I got a shovel and started moving some dirt to fill the gap. Then we had to tag all four babies. 

So that was the weekend and as I said in the last post, probably the last of the babies this year. We learned a lot about goats in the last year and now that we have all these little ones, I figure there is plenty more to learn. I don't want to sell any of them, but we cannot keep them all. That will be an entirely different adventure I am sure.

In the meantime. This is PM, he looks ready to head out for the evening while AM in the background seems to need a nap. It was a long day for AM. First we were afraid his momma didn't want him. We don't really know what was happening. She spent the time after birthing him up on top of the ridge with the other goats grazing and when I called them all down she ignored him. We got involved and forced her to feed him so he could get the colostrum, but afterwards she took off. Then later on we just happened to be watching her when she had PM so we grabbed AM and put him next to the new baby and she accepted him right away. Then a little later we found out they had actually been triplets, but the third, born with no hair though mostly developed from what we could see, didn't live. So we don't know if that is what helped her accept AM or not, but she is feeding them both so all is good at the moment.

And from what I have learned about goats -- that is all a person can say. All is good at the moment. Very cute and full of crazy energy.

New May Babies

We found some new babies yesterday.

Scarlett had twin girls born on Cinco de Mayo so I found Mexican flower names for them.

Dahlia and Salvia.

That makes 18 so far.

We are still waiting for Marigold to have her babies. Definitely twins in there too. As for the last two of the 14 girls, if Daisy and Honeysuckle are pregnant, they are way behind the rest of them, but we have been surprised before so we will keep an eye on them too. Daisy may have been younger than the man we bought her from told us and Honeysuckle came with the big group we bought in February so we don't know her history. We will just see what happens. 

Evenings when everybody gets brought back to the goat yard are getting a little crazy.

And that isn't even everybody yet.

But they get to live in this neighborhood so I don't hear too much complaining.

And with the electric fence keeping the dogs out, the rabbits are pretty happy too. 

This little guy didn't even consider moving.

Milking a Goat

Dandelion had her babies today.

Daffodil and Danny

They were having trouble figuring out how to get their dinner so we gave them some help. This is Dandelion in the hoof trimming/milking stand that we never intended to use for milking and yes, it was dark by the time we got started. She never did complain too much. It seemed like the teats were so full of milk they couldn't get their little mouths to work them right. So FabHub milked some out, we put it in a water bottle with a goat nipple cap, and got them to start eating while standing right next to Momma. Then we got them to work on the real thing and everything went fine. When their little bellies seemed full we let her down and sent them on their way. This was different from what the other girls have had for the babies, so hopefully they now know what to look for next time. If not, we can do it again. In a few days they will be bigger and able to do it themselves.