New goat kids, 2 doelings and a buckling (Cinammon, Nutmeg and Alder) from Tulip this month. Jeanne bottle feeding Alder in photo above. A fairly easy delivery, Jeanne had to assist a bit, by pulling front legs forward, but much easier than some have been. Surprisingly, a day after delivery, Tulip suddenly stopped eating and grew lethargic. We scrambled to figure out what was wrong, using the internet and books, and after a few missteps and some dosing with electrolytes and shots of vitamin B (and allowing her a goat's dream - unfettered access to the garden to eat whatever she wanted), she came around, but it was a close call (milk fever, then rickets). At one point we thought we might need epinephrine for anaphylactic shock, put the word out and another goat herd owner in the valley (who we hadn't even met yet!) came driving right over in his pickup with an Epipen for us. What an amazing community.
This blog seems to often describe projects Linc is working on, and not so much Jeanne's. The pattern we've evolved for the past year or so has been one where Jeanne takes care of the goats and poultry, and processing the dairy, eggs and much of the garden produce, while Linc runs the garden, pastures, trees, and watering. On a daily basis, the animals and birds take a lot more time than the garden, on average anyway. The result is that, while the garden can be a handful to get established, and picking and processing produce does too, Linc has more time to take on homestead projects. Like the one in photo above - a new broody coop enclosure with netting on the roof so that ravens, hawks and Magpies can't grab the young chicks. This month involved a lot of garden prep, much of it with the help of our friend and neighbor, Aaron, who helped in the garden in a work exchange for the LLC that owns the land.
Our neighbors, Marian and Huckleberry, visited with Tulip's kids on a nice April day.
The field work continued, marking furrows for flood irrigation.
Always good to see new goat kids in the spring - incredible cuteness is a nice thing to have around the farm every April.
Lastly, we finally found the right person for the tiny house barter, or she found us. It was easier to interview her, as she was a friend who lives in the valley. She took to the goats right away, learned quickly, and was nearly ready to take over for a few days while we went backpacking, when Jasmine (the one who started butting Linc last month), decided to start butting her too. That didn't work for our friend, so she moved back home, and we started interviewing again. Someday, we'll be able to go backpacking together!
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