The Goats

Meet our two goats, Penelope and Bellatrix.

Penelope (Penny) is full Nigerian Dwarf and Bellatrix (Bella) is a mix. She is 1/2 Nigerian Dwarf, 1/4 Nubian, and 1/4 Lamancha (from which she gets her lack of ears).

Side story on how Bella got her name. We tried a ton of different names for her but couldn't settle on one so she remained unnamed. My son and I are currently reading through the Harry Potter series. Those of you who have read it or seen the movies might recognize the name. Bella came to be known as she-who-has-not-been-named. Since we couldn't bring ourselves to name her Voldemort we decided on the next best one, Bellatrix.

The original plan was to get two Nigerian Dwarf does. Well, actually, the original plan was to get one doe, but it seems that goats do not like to be only children. I have been wanting a goat for awhile. Why? Honestly, I have no idea. Maybe it goes along with my personality trait that likes to say shocking things just to get a reaction from people. Goats are different and unique. And strange. Especially in the fact that we live in a neighborhood. We are the only farm on the block.

For my husband it was much more like boiling a frog in a pot. I had voiced my desire to get a goat but never thought it would happen. And, he was PERFECTLY FINE THANK YOU VERY MUCH that it would never happen. Until, one day at work, someone mentioned the fact that there were goats about to give birth and the kids would be needing homes. He made the mistake of showing a little interest and getting me the contact info. Those goats didn't work out for us, but they certainly broke the ice.

So, off to Craigslist I went. I found this super-cute 2 year old Nigerian Dwarf doe (Penny) for sale, and after purchasing her I left her at the farm to be bred. Penny hung around there for a couple of weeks, but no action was happening between her and the buck. I was going to leave her longer. Unfortunately the timing of bringing the two goats home didn't quite coincide.

With my inability to stay well and clear of all things goat on Craigslist, I found a bred 1 year old that caught my eye. So I drug my sister-in-law with me to take a look (thanks, Kim!). Bella is due to kid any day (more specifically, she was due yesterday). On a side note, it just might kill me. All this waiting and checking and waiting and checking and waiting.

Here is a pick of the very pregnant Bella taken on her due date (yesterday. Hear that Bella? Yesterday. Get with it girl!).

Bella came home Friday and by Sunday we decided that we NEEDED to have another goat with her. She was only quiet when someone was with her. For our sanity, and the need to have happy neighbors, we went to pick up a non-bred Penny.

The plan is to milk them. We will start a few weeks after Bella gives birth and hopefully she will milk for a solid 9 months. This is her first freshening (fancy goat term for giving birth), so we don't know how great a milker she will be yet. Nigerian Dwarf is a dwarf breed (duh), but Nubian and Lamancha are both full size goat breed that give more milk than a dwarf (because they are bigger. Rocket science isn't it). We are hoping to get 1/2 - 3/4 gallon of milk a day from Bella. Penny should give around  1/4 - 1/2 gallon a day. We will probably breed her for a baby early next year so that our milk supply is constant.

Bella has been bred to a Nigerian Dwarf buck. So the baby(s) will be 3/4 Nigerian Dwarf, 1/8 each Nubian and Lamancha. I admit, I'm hoping for ears on the kids. ;-) Here is a pic of the buck.

He's kinda cute, as far as bucks go.

Since we are doing this on a normal neighborhood lot we have had to get somewhat creative for housing. We picked the side yard directly out my kitchen window for the goat run. Here it is before any work. You can see my trash can compost bin. This is also the area where the bunny hutch is and the first of my raised garden beds and my potato bed (?) bin (?). Whatever. The thing I'm growing my potatoes in this year.

Here it is the day we brought Bella home. I found a huge dog house (again, thanks to Craigslist) that I painted up to match all the rest of our buildings. It works great for the two goats.

My wonderful husband has recently taught me how to use all our power tools, so between us we put in quite a usable gate.

Here is the front of the dog-house-turned-goat-house. I opened up the opening for the door (power tools - whoo hoo!) and added an extra hay area above for some rainy day munching.

There you have it. Our goat adventure begins. 

Soon to come, baby goat pictures (if she ever gets on the stick and delivers!)

Suburban Farming

Our little farm is really taking off. Our chickens are happy and healthy. They love running around the yard. We live on 1/3 acre so we have a good sized back yard. Now that the chickens have explored around they pretty much stay in the back half of the back yard. It took me about a week of chasing them off of my porch before they got the idea and now they rarely come up to the house. Unless the kids have some sort of treat and the chickens are looking for a hand out. We have really noticed that there are way fewer bugs this spring. We are pretty sure it is thanks to the chickens.

This last weekend we picked out a goat! Penelope (we will probably call her Penny) is a 2 year old Nigerian Dwarf doe. She is currently staying at the place that we bought her from to be bred. Hopefully she will go into heat soon and take on the first cycle and we can bring her home at the end of June. Otherwise they will keep her another month and try again. This will be her first time as a mama. If all works out as we are hoping that we will have kids around the first of November and we will be able to start milking her.

This last week I went by the natural foods store and picked up a small container of raw goats milk and did a blind taste test for my family. We couldn't tell the difference between our regular cows milk and the goat milk. That bodes well for getting my family to switch over to the goat milk. We are currently paying $9 (!) a gallon for local raw jersey cow milk. So, we should be able to break even with our goat. That's the hope anyway.

I've been told that we need to keep 2 goats for them to be happy. We are going to try the one and see how it goes. If she has a hard time adjusting then we will get her a friend sooner. Otherwise we will plan on keeping one of the kids next Fall.

I am finding that I am a farm girl at heart. I am loving the changes around the "homestead". I am also finding that while I am fairly natural with the animals and feel very confident with their care my thumb is not quite as green as I would like it to be. We are trying square foot gardening this year in our first raised bed. Our plan is to continue with the CSA through this summer and hope that next summer we can raise all our own veggies.

We are trying to stay with heirloom seeds that we can harvest the seeds and reuse them next year. Lofty ambitions! So in our backyard we have red and gold raspberries, potatoes (yukon gold, russet, red, and blue - planted in a round wire cylinder - see above photo), rainbow carrots, lettuce mix, herbs, cucumbers, and tomatoes (still inside until we get some more warmth). We may even get some grapes off our vines this year. We will see. My husband and my mom's husband (thanks Ray!) are in the process of building an arbor over our patio for the grapes. Our vines have taken a beating, so I'm not sure how well they will come back this year. But we do have a couple of buds, so we are hopeful.

Spring is here! And Summer is just around the corner. I am so excited about this season.

It's all about the timing

Over time I've realized that much of life can be summed up by horseback riding illustrations. Most recently, my son. Or more specifically, my actions toward my son.

I love him dearly, mostly. Early last week, after asking a few questions and watching my kids for 15 minutes,  my son's pediatrician offered me Ritalin (for my son, not for me - I get wine).

I've tried many parenting approaches that I've gotten from friends and/or books but nothing has really worked. We have taken him completely off of artificial color and flavor which has helped a lot. But not enough. We have seen glimpses of the amazing person our son can be (and let me tell you, he is amazing!), but nothing lasting longer than a few minutes here or there. It is so frustrating.

Since I have more of a tendency to try the natural approaches I started reading about options. One of the books I picked up was Ritalin Is Not The Answer. Love it. Surprisingly it has very little to do with Ritalin. He explains why we should not use this particular class of drugs on our children, but most of the book is a new look at parenting and discipline. Especially for those kids that tend to have the ADD/ADHD behavior patterns.

I've ridden horses for 30 years and my passion is dressage. One of the keys to getting a horse to do what you want is timing. If you squeeze your left leg when the horse's left hind leg is on the ground the horse will push off with more impulsion and you will have more power going forward. But, if you squeeze when the horse's leg is in the air, the horse will step further forward and you will get a longer stride, thus extending the gait. It's all about the timing.

Reading this book I'm realizing that, parenting is all about the timing. The first step in the process the book lays out is positive reinforcement. This is a key point and one that, if left out, will hinder (or completely ruin) the outcome. But, it must be done at the right time. We must reaffirm our children when they are acting in a pleasing manner. Shocking I know! But seriously how many times do I not actually do that. For example, when my child is falling apart and puddling (those times when they are a mess on the floor), I see it as a time when I need to let them know that I love them, but that their actions are not okay. When, in fact, I should not give them my attention. And, certainly not tell them that I love them. This is a good time for a time out.

On the other hand, any (and every!) time that they are doing anything positive I should comment and complement them. We started this pointed positive feedback with my son last week and within a couple of days we started to see quite a difference. My first fear was that we would create kids that believe that our love is conditional. Instead, what I'm finding is that my son is getting more confident and secure in our love. He is also becoming proud of what he can accomplish instead of believing that he will just naturally misbehave.

Now, lest you think that in the past we have never said anything nice to our children, let me clear this up. I have always been a believer in being positive with my kids. I am just finding out that I haven't been doing it at the right time. I have now become more immediate and more sensitive to their actions at the time of the positive reinforcement and I am getting different results. It's all about the timing.

The second step is the discipline piece. Basically this is a time out, but done in such a way as to use the child's boredom against them. It is working beautifully.

I found myself a little misty eyed this weekend as I realized that, for the first time in months (if not years!), I was really really enjoying my children. Not just making it through the day with them. In fact, I even pushed my son's bedtime back because I was enjoying having him around so much.

We have only been doing this for a few days (we started the time out phase on Saturday). So, we will see how this plays out long term and I'm sure there will be rough days and battles ahead. Yet, for the first time I feel like I have something that really works for my son.

If you catch it...

My son went fishing a couple of weeks ago. I told him, "If you catch it, I will cook it."

We had a wonderful trout dinner that night.