May 2018

With no one yet living in the tiny house that could take care of the farm while we go backpacking together, we decided to at least start getting out together as often as possible for day hikes between morning and evening chores.  The photos above and below are from a day hike in Dominquez Canyon, a beautiful canyon full of riparian habitat, and many signs of ancient habitation (petroglyphs).  These shorter trips remind us of how much beauty there is within a 1 hr drive from home.

 Jeanne decided that we were ready to try having a closed herd again (this is a herd with its own breeding buck).  An open herd involves bringing the does to a buck elsewhere when it is breeding time, and can result in contamination with caprine diseases that may be present on the other farm and not your own.  The last time we tried this, we had to keep the buck separate from the does (so that does that weren't really ready to be bred didn't get impregnated).  But that involved separate housing and a buddy (fixed male) for the breeding buck, so more hay, more time, etc.  But now, we've learned about anti-breeding aprons for bucks, which allow the buck to run with the does without risk of impregnating.  Plus, she's always wanted more Nubian blood and more color (spots, etc), so she arranged for a Nubian spotted buckling from Wyoming to be delivered to us.  Meet Sage!  He was a little weak from the trip, so started out living in our cabin for the first day or so while he got his legs back under him and was introduced gradually to the herd. 

Sage is a bottle baby (bottle babies are hand fed doe milk from a bottle since birth instead of nursing directly, which makes him easier to sell at an early age (because he doesn't need to be weaned), and also results in a goat that is super friendly around people).  Not that goats aren't friendly, they are super curious, friendly, attention seeking, intelligent friends (except when they are attempting to butt you), it's just that bottle fed goats are even more friendly, if that's possible.

Meanwhile, because Tulip had been sick, Jeanne had started bottle feeding Tulip's kids while Tulip got her strength back, and found that trying to bottle feed one kid while the others were trying to get milk too was a handful.  She learned online about using bike water bottle cages as milk bottle holders.  As you can see, it worked pretty well!

The rest of the month was a blur of garden bed prep and planting (April/May/June are peak effort months for the garden), a few hikes, and work related to our home renovation/rental business, plus interviewing tiny house barter folks.