Complacency

I'm loving this springlike weather we've been having these past few days.  It makes me want to do things and make plans to do other things.  It's that time of the year - planning time.  Time to look at how 2011 went and what I want to do differently (or the same) in 2012. 

All my goats are bred and dried up so as of tomorrow we'll have no more goat milk to drink:(  We're even running low on cheese.  I hated to do it but I bought a half gallon of cow's milk this week.  We're only getting 2 eggs a day now too because the days are so short and the older chickens aren't laying.  I bought 2 dozen eggs from another friend who has about a hundred chickens.    We're down to 9 goats  and it feels very manageable.  Of course I'm not milking yet so we'll see how manageable it feels come March.  Out of six does we'll probably have about 12 kids.  I plan to sell all those kids but all of you who raise goats know it's easier to say that than to part with them. 

One of my goals for the year is to work harder with all 5 donkeys.  I want to teach all of them to do something new, be it ride, pull a cart or plow or even just cross the road from one side of our farm to the other.  I'm also looking forward to introducing the 3 mammoths to the 2 standard donkeys and the goats.  I hope it goes well.

I'm reading a book about goats that some friends gave me.  They just returned from a 3 month stay in Italy.  For a good part of the time they were there they stayed on a dairy farm and assisted in cheese making.  The man who ran this goat dairy is the author of the book I'm reading.  A lot of the book is  for first time goat owners but my favorite parts of the book are little stories he writes about his own experiences and how he learned from his mistakes.  He's an American who now lives in Italy so the book is written in English.  I know you all thought I was just so smart to read it in Italian but that may have to be a goal for 2022 - to learn Italian.  I just finished reading the part about kidding season and that got me all excited for when our kids arrive.  I know it will be here before I know it.  It's my favorite time of year without a doubt.  This may not get you excited but watching these videos does it for me. 





One of the things the author writes about is an experience all of us goat parents will probably experience at one time or another.  It was an accident but a preventable one I can empathize with.  His goats got into his goat feed and ate so much that they bloated and 3 of them died.  Now my goats have never died from that but I have had a few scares from goats getting into chicken feed.  It's not something you'll ever forget.  It makes you feel horrible.

Where was I going with this blog?  Oh yeah, complacency.

It was so beautiful today and I had little to do so I let the goats out to graze in the yard.  They don't require much attention since there's nothing in bloom that they can destroy so I sat and read my book with them in my periphery.  What a great way to end the day, relaxing, watching goats graze and reading a good book.  After 30 minutes I realized they'd dissapeared from my view.  I worried about them getting into James' garden because one of the gate latches wasn't secured.  As I walked toward the garden I realized it wasn't the garden I needed to be concerned about.  With the author's story of his bloated goats fresh in my mind I hastened my pace toward the garage where I store all my animal's feed.  There they were all piled on top of bags of feed.   It was hard to tell who was in to what.  There's no stopping a goat when it's head is in a bag of yummy feed.  After much wrestling I got a cupful of crushed corn and called the goats to follow me.  Luckily all but one followed me back to their fence where I locked them in.  I quickly ran back to the garage where Cooper, my buck, had his head in the bag of hog feed.  Cooper weighs about the same as I do but I swear he was 10 times stronger than me when I was trying to get his head out of the bag.  It took a good while before I finally got him distracted by a bucket of ground corn and he followed me up the driveway  and in with the rest of the herd.  My chest hurt from all the exertion it took to get everyone back to safety.  Cooper looked none the worse for wear.  Just a little corn in the whiskers.  I hope everyone is feeling ok in the morning.

Time to lock the chickens up.  That's another thing I'd become complacent about.  I hadn't been locking the birds up at night because Keri was out there with them.  Two mornings ago Keri found a headless chicken in the yard.  I guess she can't be everywhere at all times so I need to close their door at nights again.