Archives for May 2011

Last week Slow Food USA was asking people to sign a petition to stop pending legislation that would make it illegal to take photos or videos of farms. They received over 20,000 signatures, two of which were me and my husband, and the bill has failed in Florida with Iowa and Minnesota still pending. If you would like to sign the petition you can click the link above.

Now they are working with people to put together an album of farming pictures for the key legislators in each state to show them that a well managed farm has nothing to hide. They were asking people to download them to their Facebook wall. There’s even prizes to win like a camera and getting your photo in the picture book.

I am such a Facebook idiot that I literally can’t figure out how to download a photo onto their wall. Not kidding. I hadn’t even been on Facebook in probably 6 months. Some of the photos were really stunning. Perhaps I’m doing something naughty here and breaking some blogging etiquitte, but I downloaded my favorites for you to see. If you’d like to take a look at tall of the great photos people have downloaded  and vote for your own favorites just click the link above.

It seems to me that passing a bill like this is solely aimed at protecting the factory farmers from being exposed for the inhumane treatment factory farming provides to animals. Without photos and videos I would not have been able to write my post of “The Truth About Those Eggs You’re Eating”. Nobody wants to read it, but we all have to.

The only thing progressing around here is the goat house. The pregnancies seem to be at a standstill. Day one past due date and no kids in sight. Today I am absolutely and totally exhausted. I didn’t get enough sleep and I’ve been crazy busy all day, so I sure hope they don’t come tonight and have the decency to wait until tomorrow after I’ve gotten some sleep.

All the doors are on, the back porch is almost complete and the porch roof has been started.

I am LOVING my new goat house. The doors are all on. The “porch” off the goat pens is almost complete, and the roof over the porch has been started. I wanted the goats to have somewhere to hang even in bad weather. I may have to get a bench and hang there with them it’s so pretty. The windows are supposed to be in on Friday. I am very excited about that.

The goats spent their first night in the pen last night. I had my new monitor on and they were very quiet until about 12:30 when I went to bed and then they started rustling around a lot, which of course had me on edge then because they’d been so quiet earlier.

I have spoken to both the breeder and the woman I bought Cissy and Melina from and they said it’s not unusual for them to be up to 5 days late. Today was day one late. I don’t think I’ll make it to 5 so I hope they don’t go that long.

I’ll leave you tonight again with no babies to show you, but some hysterical photos of the chickens running towards me when they saw I had their dinner tonight. (And please excuse the dolly’s and brooms littering my driveway.)





And here come the stragglers when they see me walking into the pen. That’s Princess Kate bringing up the rear.

Everyone is still waiting patiently for the baby goat kids to arrive!

I wish I had some adorable kid goat photos to show you, or some birth video to view, or even some fainting goat video, but alas I have none of these.

Cissy and Melina continue to lounge around sleeping their days away and no signs of imminent labor have appeared in either of them. I am still convinced that the breeder confused the names as this is what Cissy looked like this afternoon.




And this is what Melina’s udder looked like. There’s no comparison in size.

I sure hope I have something more exciting to report tomorrow!

So it’s time to choose the roof color for the goat house & chicken coop. I finally chose this grey color which goes beautifully with the milkpaint red of the siding, but cannot decide whether or not to use a red roof on the ‘silo’ chicken run or to keep it all the same grey. The silo will be covered in a wire that will rust over time. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated!

Do you think the silo should have a red roof or the same grey as the buildings?

No goat kids yet! And surprise surprise, I think it’s Cissy that is actually going to deliver first and Melina will deliver later this month. It dawned on me like a thunder bolt Sunday morning that perhaps the breeder had mixed their names up, as Cissy was much larger and her udder was more enlarged that Melina’s. Today Cissy is showing signs that labor is coming, but if I had to guess it’s going to wait until Tuesday night or maybe even Wednesday. They have both been sleeping an awful lot. Thankfully the weather has given them nice sunny placed to take naps. They seem absolutely exhausted.

Melina's out like a light.

Cissy is scratching her rear on a tree. She is VERY itchy and is using all manner and means to get her itches scratched; rocks, cement posts, corners of buildings, and trees!

Kate is tired just from keeping up with the big girls!

Cissy's udder was pretty full tonight, but it will get so full and tight it might even become shiny or "strutted" when labor is about 2 hours away I'm told.

On Sunday I prepared the small stall in the new goat house for the delivery. It wasn’t nearly finished, but I need the space. I can’t very well have her deliver in a dog house now. My friend Cyrena and I wrestled 2 3/4″ thick rubber stall mats into it on Saturday and cut them to fit perfectly. I laid down straw and put up a temporary hay rack and water bucket. Then I screwed plywood onto where the doors should be. It’s not perfect, but it’s a whole lot better than what it could be. I had them eat in there on Sunday night and they visit it a lot during the day. If she doesn’t go into labor I will have her sleep in there on Tuesday night. I’ve borrowed a baby monitor so I can listen for any signs of labor during the night.


And low and behold I got the door to the stall installed today!


There is a small deck out the back of the goat house that will have a roof over it so even in bad weather they can spend time outside. Fancy.

And Sunday we had our first hive inspection.

On Sunday we had our first hive inspection, which was probably pretty late, but it's been so cold here! It's a mess in there and we've got comb everywhere, but the colony seems healthy.

My bee guy is coming down Thursday to help me evaluate next steps in creating new colonies for the rear of this hive, which is a dual-colony hive, and for the new hive that I made this winter. Hopefully he can also help me get these messy honeycombs straightened out. I’ll report more on the bees after Thursday.