Back in Beezness. . .

Ok, so I know I've been absent lately. I gave up Facebook and Coke (gasp!) for Lent. I don't typically participate in Lent, but it's been a rough year so far (and here I just KNEW that 2014 was going to be a better year. . .) and I needed something to kick my spiritual rear in gear. Anyone who knows me knows my love of Coca-Cola. I know, I know. . . it's like the Satin of organic living, but my love of Coke goes back way longer than my knowledge or passion for more natural living. It's my chocolate. It's my coffee. It's what gets me through the day with three small children and a neighbor kid or two usually in tow. But I gave it up. It wasn't easy, but it was easier than the last time I tried to give it up.
Anywho - I've also been off of Facebook mostly, except for my business pages (hey, gotta sell the soap to keep the goats!) and I found on the first day without it that the only things worth sharing with the rest of the world are the things that you're doing when you're not on Facebook! However, being that it is spring, our schedule has been pretty busy so I've not found a lot of time to write any decent posts.

So, what have we been up to? When I last left ya'll, I was in the middle of kidding season.
The final tally:
Piper - triplet bucks
Baerli - twin bucks
Bri - triplets: 1 doe, 2 bucks
Annie - twin bucks.

Add 'em up. Yep, that's right.

First day that everyone got outside to play.

The kids had a blast with each other while they were here.

The only doe kid of the year. At least she was gorgeous! I'll be doing a repeat of that breeding in the fall. ;)

Barn full o' babies! And that was even before Annie had her twins.

Out of 10 kids, only ONE was a doe! Gah! Worse stats ever! (well, next to the poor lady that told me she had ALL bucks out of 20 does that kidded!) And the one doe that I did get went back to the breeders that I bought Bri from as part of the deal. >Sigh< So my dream of going to the ADGA (American Dairy Goat Association) Nationals this year went down the tubes. Since it was not a very productive kidding year, I figured I'd go ahead and sell off some stock. I know it sounds counter-productive when you're trying to grow your herd, but really I think this will make my herd stronger, quicker. By only keeping the best stock, I'll have room to keep more doe kids (should I be do lucky) next year, and/or I'll have room in the barn if I decide to invest in another doe or two that I really like.
Still, it's been a very disheartening spring so far. Piper and two of her wethered kids went to a family in a nearby county. The kids are going to show the wethers in 4-H and possibly Piper, but she's mostly going to be used as a family milker. Annie and her twins went back to my good goat friend's house. She's actually getting out of Alpines, but Annie was one of her first goats and she'd been missing her.
So I'm down to two milking does: Baerli and Bri, two yearling does: Penelope and Miss Kay, the buck: Tennessee, and 2 wethers out of Piper and Bri who will be leaving in a couple of weeks to go their new 4-H homes.

So that's the latest with the goats. Despite not going to Nationals this year, I'm still planning on getting out to some more local shows, a new show in nearby Terre Haute that I'm really excited about, and The Hoosier Classic. The Hoosier Classic is one of the biggest dairy shows in the state, it's put on by the Indiana Dairy Goat Association.

And then we had an emergency hospital trip the day that Bri had her triplets. Kindergartener came down with a nasty case of the flu. Luckily he bounced back quickly and was back to his hornery self by the next day.

Enjoying breakfast in bed.

On to other things. . . we've started planting. I've got the raised bed down at the south end of our goat barn full of a few varieties of lettuce, radishes, kale, and cauliflower. The lettuce and kale are coming up already and the kids and I are really excited about eating our first salad out of the garden! We've also got a row of potatoes in the ground. We had a short bout of warm weather, but it was to be follow by rain and colder temps so we just planted one row to be sure that a whole crop of potatoes didn't rot in the ground. The rest are going in soon. We've also got asparagus popping up too and I swear the rhubarb doubles in size every day. It was good for the spirits to be eating asparagus out of the garden already, especially since everything else seems to be late due to the never-ending winter.

One thing that has been very uplifting for my spirits is getting a new package of bees.
Last fall we had the disheartening experience of having our bee colony abscond, meaning that they up and ditched us. They appeared to be performing great throughout the summer, filling up the two deep supers with brood (bee eggs and larvae) and honey, then one day they up and decided to skip town. In hindsight, I should have seen it as a sign of the winter to come - they were trying to get the heck outta dodge.

On Monday, the leader of our local county beekeeping club (who happens to be a neighbor) sent out an email saying that he was going to do a demo on how to install a bee package. I knew we weren't giving up on the bee venture so I let him know that I wanted to attend. He mentioned that he was going to get a shipment of bees that day and that he would have an extra one if I was interested. Score!
So, all day yesterday I brushed up on my bee installation knowledge, and headed over to watch an installation. It literally takes about 5 minutes and isn't difficult or tricky at all! Whew! Relief! I felt confident that I couldn't screw this up. After demonstrating one installation for me and a few other rookies, the BeeMan said that he had another package to install in another hive and told me to demonstrate it.
Uuhhhh... Ooookay.
Easy peasy. After doing it myself - The BeeMan knows how to teach newbies! - I knew I could install ours.

So tonight, Hubby and I trekked out to the Bee Yard and for once (well, not once, but it was one of the few times), I got to play the teacher and show The Husband how to do something Ag-related! The installation went smoothly and when I went to check on them about an hour later, they seemed to be settling in fine.

The new digs.

 I used a front feeder that slides into the hive entrance, yet leaves a little bit of room for the bees to come out. It's filled with sugar water as an early food source for the bees since they don't have stores built up yet. This hive body actually has frames with capped honey it in left over from last year for the bees to start eating on, but it won't last them too long and I set out the feeder to be sure that they don't go wandering off looking for food before they decide to stay put in this hive. It's pink colored so that it's easier to see the level of the syrup from a distance and because I'm trying a little experiment. The BeeMan told me that if you color their sugar syrup, it'll change the color of the honey they produce! Since this first honey will be used to feed their brood and the colony, I figured I'd give it a try since The Husband is not thrilled with the idea of eating honey that is any color other than natural. Silly man. Once the pollen flow hits and I'm not feeding anymore, the honey will go back to a normal color. The one color you probably don't want to try is blue, because it turns a puce green color when the honey is made and no one wants to eat it. I don't know how bright of pink it'll turn, I may try red next time and see if it turns the honey a bright orange color. . .Either way, I figured it'd be fun to show the kids. Ooh! My crazy brain just had an idea (never a good thing), I could swap out colors whenever I go to refill the feeder and make a rainbow/tie-dye effect on the honey cells! Or not.

Everyone seems to be settling in fine.

The three bees that are standing in a little triangle in front of the hive entrance are standing with their abdomens up in the air and their wings look blurry b/c they're moving so fast. This is called "fanning" and it's telling the other bees still in the package to "come this way, the colony is in here."

Isn't she pretty? Miss E thinks so. She told me so. ;)

Well Hello!

Checking each other out.

 I REALLY hope this colony takes and sticks around. Despite the late spring, I think we got them installed at just the right time because the flowers and trees around our house are just starting to bloom, meaning lots of food will be available soon for them to build up their honey stores. Surely after the winter we've had, we'll be rewarded with a good growing season, right? Right? I'll be nervous going into winter, but a good beekeeper doesn't harvest honey the first year anyway to give the bees the best chance of growing strong and putting up enough food for the winter so if they do well through the growing season, they should have a pretty good chance of making it through the winter. I'm going to try to expand this year too. Everyone kept telling me that we needed to have at least 2 hives to start out with and I wish I'd have listened last year. As soon as I can get some more materials together, I'm going to try to get on the Swarm Call List where I can be notified of any bee swarms in the area - basically free bees!

I'm off to go get the milking done and check to see how my new garden buddies fared the night. I LOVE this time of year, you can't help but feel better after the depressing winter that we've had.

The Babies are Here!

Well, some of them anyway. . .

The girls have been driving me crazy since last Monday. Bri was supposedly due that day (the 24th), but she still has yet to kid 10 days later. . . Oi.

Piper and Baerli both went over the due dates that I had calculated for them, but when I looked back at my breeding date notes, Baerli may have actually kidded right on time.

Piper went 3 days over her due date and had nice big triplet bucks!

They were 8.2, 9.3, and 8.4 lbs respectively. Her labor was fairly uneventful other than the first kid was born with one leg back, instead of the normal both-feet-first position. She was still able to have him without too much intervention, but we had to help her out a little by stretching her vulva some in order to get his shoulders out. By "we", I mean myself and two of the neighbor girls who actually have more goat experience despite being in college and high school. Piper's labor had been taking longer than I thought it ought to (probably delayed by the position of the kid) so I called them over for advice/assistance in case I needed more intervention.

The other two bucks came out fairly easily and in the correct position. They're all doing well and the boys are full of spunk! Paul calls one of them Knight, but hasn't decided on names for the other two yet. I call the biggest one Greg. If you "Like" my La-Maa Goat Milk Soap and La-Maa Alpines pages on Facebook, then you probably saw where I had a drawing and a follower got to name a goat. He picked Greg. So Greg it is.

Baerli kidded with two BIG buck kids just after midnight on Monday morning. I had to help pull both of them because their heads were rather large. Since Baerli is "Bo's goat", I let him name the kids. He picked Licky and Black. Not very creative, but that's what happens when you let a 4 year old choose.

Have you ever seen baby goats play? It's only one of the cutest things on Earth, backed by the fact that there are several videos of goats playing that have gone viral over the internet. So it must be true.

This video was taken when Piper's kids were just a couple of days old, so they're not quite up their max bouncing power. In a couple of weeks, they'll be in full-on Tigger mode.

Then there's Bri and Annie left. . . Now, Annie typically goes over her due date by about 5 days. She's due March 14th, but I'm not really going to get too excited until around the 19-20th. . .

Whoa Annie!

 I dunno how much wider she could possibly get though.


Bri on the other hand. . . She's on day 160, 10 days over her due date. Now, I'm pretty certain of her due date, but I'm not going to say that there isn't the possibility that she got bred at a later date. . . Many a doe has gotten bred through the fence behind the back of their watchful goatherd. If she did, then I'm calculating her due date as March 17th, St. Patrick's Day, AND her birthday.
While it's an uncommon thing for humans to have a child on their birthday, in livestock it's quite common. There are many times that we go to record a birth for one of our cows and find that she's calved on her own birthday before and usually within a day of the date that she calved the year before. Not all cows follow this pattern, but it's not uncommon on our farm. So it's not impossible that Bri could actually be due in a couple of weeks.

Now, the issue is what to do with all of these buck kids. . . only the best bucks with the best genetics get to stay bucks. The rest are wethered (neutered). I usually sell mine to kids as 4-H projects, I prefer my wethers to go to these homes because I know that they'll have a cared-for life and most likely be pretty spoiled before they go to the auction at the end of the fair. The goats are taken care of, and I'm helping support today's youth both with a project for them to learn from, and they get to keep any money from the sale of their animals in the auction. Yes, most wethers wind up at the butcher's shop. It's part of farming, just like with cows, pigs, and chickens. Right now there is actually a growing demand for goat meat in the ethnic markets and among those who want a backyard source of meat that they know has been raised to their own standards.

I really hope to get at least 1 or 2 doe kids out of Bri or Annie, otherwise you might have to suffer through a grown woman crying. . . While I'm thankful that my girls are able to carry big healthy babies to full term, I can't keep all of these boys and my herd won't grow and improve without having doe kids.

Maybe this year I'll take the money from all of these boys and buy a new doe?

Husband would just be thrilled I'm sure. . .

It's Go Time. . .

Well, this is it. Time to start my (very) short kidding season. This is my FAVORITE time of year. Well, really any time of year is my favorite when babies are being born, but this is typically the time of year that my goats kid. What it is not, is my favorite season. Especially this year.

Like any mommy-in-waiting, my nesting instinct has been going full-speed, and these aren't even really my kids! I've got the barn cleaned up (well, as clean as a barn can be, anyway), kidding supplies ready, baby monitor set up, and the alarms on my phone set to go off every 2 hours during the night to listen on the baby monitor for any funny sounds. The Husband does not appreciate the lull of Buck barking at random wildlife through the night over the monitor. I can't really say that I disagree since it sits right next to my head on the bedside dresser.

I'm ready.

Girls look like they're close to ready.

Yep. . . just waitin'. . .

Ok, so this period of kidding is not my favorite part. The waiting period. The up all night checking for sounds of pawing or low groaning. The sitting in the barn staring at goat butts and feeling around on rumps for any sign that labor may be within a few hours while the girls lazily munch on hay or lay around chewing their cud. The jumping up and running to the barn any time I hear noises that sound like some action is about to take place.

Tonight I was fixing dinner, listening to the monitor in the kitchen. I'm in the middle of peeling potatoes when I hear some low "maa"'s. I look at the clock, it's been an hour since I checked on the girls. I figure that I'll finish getting the potatoes ready and then go see what's up - what could happen in another 5 minutes, right? So I continue on, cutting up taters. . . I hear more "maa's". And they quickly get louder, and they're getting closer together . . . Oh shoot, sounds like someone is REALLY uncomfortable! I realize that I'm practically chopping the potatoes, trying to hurry up. I get the last of them done, throw on my coat and dash out the back door. I ran into the barn, "Who's doing what?". Piper and Bri who were already put in their kidding pens looked at me like, "What?". I still hear the moaning, so I head out of the barn into the pasture area and there's Annie, just talking to herself and enjoying the last bits of sunshine of the day. She's not even due 'till mid-March, but she's moaning like she's starting active labor. I walk over to her to see what's up and she suddenly awakens from her mantra and scuddles (make that waddles. . .) off all miffed that I interrupted her.

Stupidgrumblegrumble. . . whydoigrumblegrumble. . . messsingwithmegrumblegrumble. . .

I swear she does it on purpose. Cranky old goat. . .

I noticed last night that Piper had started to lose her mucous plug. This can happen hours, days, weeks, or even months (and then regrow) before a doe actually kids. I wasn't sure if this was a sign that she was closer than her due date on Wednesday, so I penned her up just to be sure. She still wasn't showing any signs of being close this evening so I let her back out with the others. No sense in dirtying up her kidding pen anymore than necessary and she doesn't care for being penned anyway.
Bri on the other hand is perfectly content in her pen. I think she's realized that she gets her own private feed and water buckets and doesn't have to be crowded around the hay bunk. I hope she doesn't decide to milk this for all it's worth. (no pun intended) She's due tomorrow and I really hope that she doesn't mess around about it. Mondays are grocery day and speech therapy day for Kindergartener. The groceries I can put off if I think that she's going into labor soon, but we can't miss speech. Wednesday is also going to be crazy. That's when Piper and Baerli are both due. We have speech for Bo in the morning and then speech again for Kindergartener in the afternoon. Luckily the morning speech is only 1/2 an hour and it's just a few miles away so I don't have to be gone for long. It's the afternoon speech sessions that have me worried.

And really worried isn't the right word I guess. . . I know my girls will be fine without me. Occassionally complications occur, but they're usually pretty rare. My girls are in good health and should be able to kid just fine without any assistance.

But still. . . I just like to be there. For one: I like to attend births in the case that something doesn't go to plan, but mostly I just like to watch. I love to be there the moment that a new little life comes into the world. I love to be there so that the first creature that a newborn kid sees besides it's mom is me. In my college equine classes we learned about imprinting. Most people are familiar with the term imprinting when they hear stories about newborn geese or ducks that imprint on the first creature that they see when they hatch. While that's not entirely true - they don't automatically think that they're humans if they see one as soon as they pop out of the egg - it's the same concept that an animal becomes familiar and bonds to other animals that are present near the time of birth. I think that it's a training process that can be applied to goats to make them friendlier and easier to work with as they get older. It doesn't guarantee that you'll have an easy animal - Penelope is still very standoffish and I was there at her birth just like I was for Miss Kay - some animals just have an easier temperament than others. But imprinting can liken your odds for success.

Well, I ought to be off to the land of nod. I have to try to get as much sleep as I can in-between barn checks and I still have to be able to function tomorrow.
It's Go Time ladies, I'm ready when you are. . .

Getting ready for baby. . .

**WARNING** There are some gross shots in this post. If you have a sensitive stomach, don't proceed. Don't say I didn't warn ya!


I get more nervous about my goats kidding than I was about my own impending labors. This will be my 4th kidding season, so I've had enough experience that I'm not nervous so much in the sense of being scared, more like anxious and excited nerves. I love watching birth. Cow births, goat births, chicks hatching. . . I've never actually watched a human birth, but I was present for 3, no need to watch.
I could watch animal births all day. I'm fascinated by it. Especially when it comes to multiples. Despite all the grossness, it's amazing to watch a new life come into the world. You never know what you're going to get: girls, boys, colors, spots, no spots. I look forward to the improvements that new breedings will bring to my herd.

And mostly I'm just a sucker for babies.

Cute, cuddly, fluffy little babies.

With this winter being so harsh, I do feel a little worried about making sure that the kids are dried off and taken care of right away. A lot of pregnant women (myself included) report having a surge of energy right before going into labor where they have the urge to clean the entire house from top to bottom in order to make a nice clean place to bring baby home to (or into the world for those moms who homebirth). Goats will do this some too. We call it the nesting instinct. While some women start scrubbing the kitchen floors, some does will start to make an actual nest. Yep, like a bird's nest. They'll paw at the ground and bury down in a nice dry spot in their bedding to make a nice area to have their kid(s). They don't usually have their kids in that exact spot because they're getting up and down and moving around a lot while in early labor and don't always make it back to their spot to start pushing, it's mostly an instinct behavior.
I've had the same kind of urges already. I'm already planning on cleaning out the entire barn, and even cleaning off the back porch in the case that I have to bring kids into the house if the weather gets too bad. (Just wait for that post - it'll be more like an obituary because The Husband will likely kill me. . .)

There are some signs that you can look for to tell that a doe is getting close to going into labor.

About 4-6 weeks before they're due, some does will start to make an udder. Where their udder was just a saggy bag before, they start to fill out and their udder will fill a little like it's fully of Jello. I usually try to give them a bikini trim around this time, clipping the hair around her udder and rear so I can see the changes more easily, but in this weather I'll wait 'till they're closer to their due dates. This also helps the kids find the mom's teats, sometimes they get confused and will suck on random tufts of hair if they can't find a teat to latch on to.

Piper's udder about 5 weeks out from her due date.

But not all does will do this. Annie and Baerli insist on waiting till closer to kidding before "bagging up". But if you don't know your doe's due date, be sure to pay attention to changes in her udder. If she starts getting full quickly, like over just a few days - she's probably much closer than 4 weeks.

My tried-and-true go-to is the ligament checks that I explained Here. Once the ligaments on either side of the doe's tail feel like they've disappeared, it's time. Sometimes this doesn't happen 'till right before or during early labor, sometimes it happens a day or so before she actually goes into labor. But when it does happen you know to stick around and watch her.

I could practically wrap my hand around Moonpie's tailbone, this was the morning before she went into labor.

Her rump will look sunken in around her tailbone and her tailbone will appear to stick out.

 When things get down to business, the steps of labor are a lot like they are in humans. The doe will have a thick discharge, this is her mucous plug. Again, like in humans, sometimes this can happen days or weeks before she actually kids. With my own kids, I would lose it within a day of going into labor.

Moonpie losing her "goo".

Annie with a full udder and losing her "goo" last year.

At this point she'll be getting up and down, up and down. . . over and over. . . She may stand with her head against a wall, facing away from everyone else, or she may be practically in your lap wanting attention and support. She'll do a lot of yawning and stretching and pawing, she may "talk" to her belly even.

Things are really hoppin' when you see a bubble start to appear out of the doe's vulva, you should see a pair of feet and maybe a nose in the bubble, or you may see just feet coming out. If you see a nose and no feet, prep yourself because you may need to help the doe.

"The Bubble" The white part in the bubble is a hoof.

Feet with the toes point down so they are front feet.

So long as the feet coming out are pointed down, they are most likely front feet. If the toes are pointed up, they are probably back feet and the kid is in a breech position. Kids are naturally born this way, it's usually the second or last kid. Be on hand nonetheless in case the doe seems to be having trouble getting them out. Toes pointed up could also mean that the kid is coming out upside down, and you may have to help pull the kid out.

Here is a clip from one of the triplets that Baerli had last spring. It's a pretty typical, eventless birth that didn't require much intervention. Recognize that baby? It's Miss Kay. And the Jennifer that I'm talking about in the clip is another breeder friend of mine who likes the sundgau color. I will apologize in advance for my annoying voice.

It's a gross, scary thing to watch or be apart of sometimes, but it's also totally worth it. 

Charlie the barn cat helping clean off babies.

Healthy babies!

Moonpie was a good momma.

Being a farmer isn't easy, it's not for the faint of heart, and it's not always convenient, but the rewards are totally worth it and there's a sense of accomplishment in having a hand in the cycle of life and where our food comes from.

The Winter That Never Ended. . . And Being Allergic to Mornings

Is anyone else as tired of winter as I am? This one has been a doozy here in Indiana. Record snowfall, record temperatures. . . We've had some cold temps in the past few years, but they didn't last for days like they are this year. Today is only the second full day of school that The Husband and the Kindergartener have had so far this year.
I've never been a fan of winter, I'm a total fair-weather fan. Unless there's snow. I like snow. If it's going to be cold out, it might as well be pretty. I was just at the point in my life where I thought I could actually enjoy winter and the time off before the busy-ness of spring starts back up again. This year has killed that idea.
We're not even 1/2 way through winter and we've already exhausted all of our snow days. We typically get out of school the week before Memorial Day, but we're headed right into June and the high school has already pushed back graduation. We've got seniors who will be going to their college orientation before they've even graduated.
There's just 2 days left of January, then we still have February and March to get through, and it's not uncommon to have snow in March here too. . . We're just coming out of a deep freeze, and we're due for another snowstorm next Tuesday. Ugh. . . Hauling water buckets to the barn from the house since the spigots are all frozen is getting old.
The FIL says that this is the worst winter that the farm has seen since they started milking cows again back in the 90's. Such extreme temps are hard on the animals and the equipment. We're constantly battling freezing pipes, tractors and trucks that won't start, and trying to catch cows that are getting ready to have their calves so that the babies don't freeze at birth. (Note: We usually don't try to breed the cows to have their babies in January, but a handful of our girls got bred late. Great timing girls. . . way to pick the worst winter in 20 years to have a baby!)
I will say that I'm glad I made the choice to raise Alpine goats though. Alpines are part of the Swiss breeds, meaning that they hail from around the Swiss Alps mountain range. Alpines actually originated from the French Alps, but you get the idea of the climate. They're built for handling rugged, cold, mountainous terrains so they're pretty hardy critters. The cold weather has hardly phased them. I'll walk into the shed to check on the girls and occasionally I'll find one or two of them snuggled together in the bedding, but for the most part they don't seem too concerned. I've talked to friends who raise other breeds of goats and they've either got heated barns, or their girls are constantly in a massive goat pile trying to keep warm. They are eating a lot more hay though. Goats are ruminants and they need a constant supply of fibrous material to digest in order to stay warm. Plus, the girls are into the last month of their pregnancies, when the babies in their bellies grow the most so the girls have a pretty ravenous appetite.
The chickens haven't fared quite as well. I've lost 2 to the cold - including my rooster. A farm just isn't a farm without a rooster around to crow. I'll be on the hunt for a new one once the spring returns (if it ever returns).

In other news, The Husband started teaching the Agriculture classes at the jr high and high school this semester. It's been quite an adjustment for everyone to say the least. Not only has the school schedule been a little hectic with all of the snow days and 2 hour delays (and my awesome husband lets me sleep in on those days), but the boys' speech therapy has kicked back up and now I'm gearing up for the impending goat kiddings. . .
My biggest issue is the mornings. Farmers tend to be morning people, especially dairy farmers who are up usually by 5:30, and even earlier on bigger farms. Those who aren't can usually down enough coffee to get through it. I have never been a morning person. I love to sleep, especially through mornings and Sunday afternoons. Now, one would think that with practice, getting up early would get easier. Not so for me. I can do a morning or two of getting up before 6 am, but anything more than that and I start to get nauseous. I seriously am starting to think that I'm allergic to mornings. If I wake up at 6:05, I'm ok. I'm still sluggish and grumpy, but I don't feel physically sick. I've tried eating first thing, I've tried eating a light snack before bed, I've tried caffeine first thing, I've tried holding off on the caffeine. . . I just can't get used to getting up before 6. I wish I could. I really want to be able to. The Husband does it all the time with no problems. He can even do it after a late night during planting/harvesting season. But my stomach does not agree.
My ideal time to milk is at 7 am and 7 pm. I can head out to milk as soon as the big kids are on the bus to school, and it still gives me a little time to sleep in on the weekends. This also gives me the day to get errands run, shuttle the kids to appointments and practices, and still get dinner ready on time and eaten in the evenings. I can be available to help milk cows at 4 pm if I'm needed too. During the school year, it makes for loooong days, but once school is out things aren't quite as crazy. Of course, at the rate that this winter is going, we could be in school well into the middle of June.
But before all of that, I have to get healthy goat kids on the ground. That could be a trick in itself this year. Most of the time goats can kid by themselves with little to no problems. I like to be present just in case something does go wrong, but also to make sure that the kids get dried off in the extreme cold. We've lost newborn calves before to the cold, and then there's my doe Baerli who lost the tips of her ears to frostbite when she was born at the tail end of an icestorm when the breeder was at work. Being a stay-at-home mom makes it more likely that I can catch the girls in action, but this year the girls are due on days when the boys have speech therapy and I have to be in the next county for a couple hours in the afternoon. I REALLY hope that the girls kid when I'm at home. Luckily I'm getting better at predicting when they'll be going into labor soon.

Farm wife problems.

So there's a little peak at a winter day in the life of a farm family. It can be crazy, it can be hectic, but it's totally worth it. It's also a great excuse to go to bed early for more of that sleeping that I'm so fond of.

I Am Mediocre Mom - Hear Me Roar!

This morning I was watching an episode of See Dad Run (Scott Baio's last run at TV) on Nick at Night.  (First off - why does Nick at Night play all day on TV now??) This is not one of my usual shows, but it comes on after the Yes, Dear reruns and I happened to catch this one.

In this episode, David (Scott Baio) has to host a  playgroup at their house. As he goes around the room, trying to entertain and socialize with the different moms, he comes across several of the new "trends" in parenting: The Tiger Mom who doesn't let her kids watch TV and teaches them Mandarin at age 6 and has a 16 yr old at Harvard. . . The Hippie Mom who serves only gluten-free-sugar-free-buckwheat muffins (?). . . The No Coddler who only allows 3 hugs a day and makes her son self-soothe through art (and he's like a baby Mozart), and The Attachment Parenting Mom who has a 6 year old in a carrier still sucking on a pacifier. So that night, David has a dream and panics because he realizes that he doesn't have a parenting style. He then goes on to incorporate every kind of strict parenting style and winds up driving his family nuts.

Sometimes, I have episodes like this where I feel inadequate as a mom. Thanks to social media like Facebook and mommy groups on sites like Parents.com, I've had my eyes opened to a whole wide world of parenting styles, ideas, and attitudes. After reading so much, it's difficult not to be hard on myself for not making creative cutesy snack for my kids, for not reading 20 books a day to them, for not doing sensory activities from birth or teaching them to play the piano at age two. (Which actually, I did start the piano at around age 3 or 4, but quit in the 4th grade.)

After a little reflection, I've decided that I'm not an Attachment Parenting kind of mom, we don't cosleep - except on those exhausting newborn nights when I fall asleep with baby in my arms during a midnight nursing session or when the kids are sick. I wore the kids in a Moby-style wrap or in a backpack carrier, but it was more out of necessity that I had to get stuff done and baby wasn't going to stay in one spot or was just having a "hold me" day. I don't believe in coddling, don't make a huge fuss when the kids fall and skin their knee, I make sure they're alright, slap a bandaid on it if required, and send them back out to play. But I'm not a No Cuddler, I do hug them, and smooch them, and squeeze their cute little cheeks and teach them how to give butterfly kisses and eskimo kisses, and smoochy-smoochy face kisses. There's a balance between making your kids feel safe and secure, and letting them figure out how to make their way in life on their own. If they feel safe and loved, but not smothered, they feel more confident and independent.
I'm definitely not a Tiger Mom - my kids watch TV and don't know a single word of a foreign language - mostly because I have a hard enough time teaching them the English language (both of my boys are in speech therapy) - but the first words I did teach them was "please" and "thank you". And despite Kindergartener's speech delay (which he has progressed with amazingly this semester!), he's still held to the standards of the other kids in his class. He still performs well in class (except for coloring activities, he's not a fan of coloring), he's not at the top of his class, but he's not falling behind. He has his strengths and his weaknesses, just like EVERY kid. We live on an organic dairy farm, and I try to do things as "natural" as possible when it comes to our health and how we raise our animals and our food, but I'm certainly no Hippie Mom. I'm a believer in DIY and living simply, but we're not off-grid or anything. We do a lot of things the way that The Husband's family has done them for hundreds of years, but still use new innovations to make our work easier. You won't find anything gluten-free in our pantry, but you will find a stockpile of sugar. We're lucky enough not to have any major allergies, so I don't worry about having the household on a complicated diet. My kids eat apples, bananas, and string cheese as snacks. They still get candy sometimes for a special treat, and while I don't keep Cheetos stocked in the house - we're big fans of tortilla chips and salsa.

The Tiger Mom character in the episode makes a statement along the lines of "kids who are entertained by brainless media tend to put the 'me' in mediocer". My kids watch tv, Bo and Kindergartener like "Jake and the Neverland Pirates", and all three LOVE Doc McStuffins and the Octonauts. I'm still a stickler about what they do watch - you will not see Spongebob on any of our TVs or anything that involves blatant stupidity for humor, but we all like watching Scooby-Doo together, especially when we can find the original episodes (Hubs likes the ones with the Globetrotters). I don't let them veg out all day in front of the boob-tube either, but we do have times like right now when we're snowed for a week straight that the TV is on most of the day. I try to break up the cartoons with actual movies or documentaries on the Nat Geo channel. Yes, we have Dish - there is no cable out here and The Husband just can't live without his ESPN. But our kids also have to go outside and play and run and make a mess when they play in the creek. Bo likes to help me plant the garden, Miss E has to be right in the middle of things during milking time, and Kindergartener LOVES to go on Adventures (other people call them walks in the woods). We pick up hedge apples, look for crawdads, climb trees, pick berries, and snuggle with our menagerie of critters. We go camping and jump in the silage pit and hunt for chicken eggs in the hay. 

I'm also not Spotless House Mom, Drill Sergeant Mom, Never-Raises-Her-Voice Mom, Always-Put-Together-and-On-Time Mom, or Most-Nutritious-Best-Chef-Ever Mom.

So meh.


If our lifestyle makes me Mediocre Mom - then so be it. What I really liked about the "See Dad Run" episode is that at the end, he finally gives in at the next playgroup and gives his 6 year old daughter her beloved stuffed animal back. (He had taken it away and the poor kid had resulted to drawing a face on a roll of paper towels to cuddle with.) The "No Coddling" mom says, "You're going to regret that," but the dad stands up for himself and his kids and makes the realization that the only thing he's going to regret is not putting his kid's needs first. No "expert" can decide what is best for your family. No one has ever written a book catered to my family and our way of doing things. Sure, I could write such a book - but I wouldn't. Our style doesn't work for everyone else. What we value as important doesn't make the priority list in other families. I found out quickly after having The Kindergartener (back when he was The Squishy-Chubby-Snuggle-Bunny) that I didn't appreciate being told how to raise my baby. I didn't tell other people how to raise their kids, so why did everyone feel the need to tell me what to do with mine? I have my ideas, opinions, and theories about how things should be done, but I try to take the stance that my grandmother does: I'm more than happy to offer advice or ideas when asked, but I won't tell someone how to raise their kid. There's too much of that out there and we're stripping the fun and enjoyment of being a parent from each other.

So, I'll offer one piece of advice (because it's my blog, and I can): Follow your gut, it knows more about what's best for your family than any expert does.

Half-way There!

This week marked the half-way point for Bri, Piper, and Baerli in their pregnancies. Bri is due February 24 and Baerli and Piper are due the 26th, but of course like people those dates are just estimates. but As you can see, goats are also a lot like people in that they all "show" differently.

Baerli with 74 days to go.

Bri with 72 days to go.

Piper with 74 days to go.

 

Usually goats don't start to get really wide till about a month before their estimated due date, Baerli is apparently trying to pack on her baby weight early. She did have triplets last year (one of which was Miss Kay), so maybe she's got more than one or two in there. I dunno, what do you think? Here she is, with about 80 days left in her pregnancy with the triplets, so at about the same time as she is now in her gestation.

The Husband and I were pretty shocked when a third kid started appearing during Baerli's labor. I have no idea where she was hiding that third kid. Bri also had triplets last year, so it'll be interesting to see what the girls are hiding in those bellies. We could wind up having 6-8 kids in a span of 3 days! Or, the girls could keep me on my toes and drive me nuts like Baerli and Annie did last year. Annie was 6 days late and Baerli went 3 days late. I spent the majority of 3 weeks in the barn checking on them to look for signs of an impending labor. . . This will be my 4th year of kidding seasons and I feel like I've got enough knowledge under my belt to gauge when labor will start better.

There is no "tried and true" method of predicting when labor will start (again, just like in humans), but my favorite way to checking to see if labor is going to be coming in the next few days (or sometimes hours) is to check the doe's ligaments. There are two ligaments that run alongside the goat's spine in their rump.  

photo courtesy of fiascofarm.com. LOTS of great goat info there!

To "check her ligs" means to run your hand down her spine with your fingers along one side of her spine and your thumb along the other, feeling for those ligaments. Normally, they feel like pencils, they're pretty hard and round. As a doe gets closer to kidding, those ligaments get softer and they start to feel like rubber bands. Just before she goes into labor - or sometimes not until she's in labor - those ligaments will seem to "disappear" altogether and you can nearly wrap your hand around the doe's spine so that your thumb and fingers are touching. That usually means that kidding is within hours. 

Sometimes, ligaments "come and go", meaning that you may go out and check a doe's ligs and they seem nearly "gone", but then the next time you go out there, they feel harder. This can happen over the course of a day, or even days before kidding actually happens and is very frustrating. Annie did this to me last year and she nearly drove me crazy with anticipation. Baerli is the one you have to watch. She'll act a little "funny" the morning before she kids. And by "funny" I mean that you'll only notice it if you know her well. And her ligs will feel a little squishy. She'll usually kid within about 5 hours of breakfast. The first year she kidded, I missed it because I thought I had longer. When I went to check on her, she had twins up and dried off and running around. So the rule to catching Baerli in action is to watch her like a hawk.

Now for Bri and Piper, I'll be watching them like a hawk as well since this is my first kidding with them. The breeder that I got them off of told me that Piper had twin girls just fine. Bri on the other hand had a difficult delivery with triplet boys. I'll give her credit, she bounced back quickly and the boys were all healthy, they just got tangled up in there. Each labor is different, and things may go much easier for Bri this time, but I'm still going to give it my every effort to be present when she goes into labor in case she has problems again.

So, for the next 10 weeks or so, the girls get to hang out and grow those babies. I, on the other hand, will be impatiently awaiting their impending labors. . .