I owe you. It’s been
wa-ay too long since my last post.
First some updates. (Wrote this in June 2013, but forgot to post!)
Got goats!
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| Meet Stella, Violet and Coco! |
Finally. We have
three. Stella is the mama goat. She’s lovely, for a goat. She, unlike most goats who view humans as
primary predators, was bottle raised in the home of the Conrads at Riverslea
Farm several years ago when she was born and orphaned in the early Winter. She’s a bit needy – she likes her peeps. She keeps tabs of all of our comings and
goings and looks forward to visits. And
she “talks” a lot, for a goat. Purely
conversationally, of course.
Her twin kids Violet and Coco round out our herd of
three. Violet is a little more cautious
of her human family and visitors, but friendly enough. Coco is all boy. Growing like crazy, horns and all. He’s a bit of a spaz, really. But the girls keep him in line.
Hubby built them a sturdy and practical goat house that can
be moved around the property. (It’s built on 2x10 skids.) And we now have 4 x 164-foot sections of movable
electronet fencing that keeps goats in and predators out.
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| Stella in the foreground and her growing kids foraging and playing balance beam on fallen trees with our human kids. |
The plan is for them to stay until the forage is gone for the
season and take them back up to Riverslea, where they have large over-wintering
herd and a big barn. It is our hope that
Stella and her next kids and Violet and her first kid will come back to us in
the Spring. Not so sure about Coco. Depends on how full of himself he gets, and
whether the Conrad’s like the look of him for breeding or eating, and whether
Stella and/or Violet have a buckling...
In the meantime we are enjoying our little goat family
immensely and they are doing a great job clearing what used to be the southern
pasture nearest the house. Poision ivy,
wild raspberries and bittersweet are favorites, but the garlic mustard,
buckthorn, and young Norway maples are disappearing too.
Chicks, too!
Our kids just graduated Kindergarten. And one of the classroom projects this Spring
was watching eggs hatch in an incubator.
