At my sister's house today I took this photo of a robin's nest that had been made in a wreath hanging on their door. What worried me was that the mother had left the nest - probably because of all the people there for her birthday party - and the eggs were unattended. I'd hate to think they were now not going to hatch. Only nature could make a color as spectacular as robin's egg blue.
Well, it was confirmed this morning at the vets; Melina is not pregnant. She is off to Weight Watchers in the morning.
Seriously though, there is reason to believe there was a bit of a false pregnancy going on. She is huge, and I didn’t increase their feed when they got pregnant. I have mixed emotions. I’m sad she won’t be having a baby. I’m relieved there’s nothing wrong with her and she’s not in any medical emergency. I’m sad that will mean one less goat to milk and get milk from for the cheese, soap and other things I planned on trying.
Cissy &* Kate cleaning off the bottom branches of my burning bush today.
I've got big windows and a side porch now!
This was in the window of a home in Texas. I thought that was a pretty funny thing to have on your house window. And did you notice the colors of the house? Obviously somebody that enjoys life lives there.
My friend Cyrena and I spent 8 hours this week cleaning out my attic. We’ve got a great walk-up attic here and over the past 15 years it has collected 6 people’s outgrown clothes, unused lamps, furniture, books and other miscellaneous crap. You could barely walk up there anymore and it was time to do something about it. I was ruthless. This photo doesn’t even show everything I’ve taken out of there, and I’m still not done. It was a good feeling.
Today they got the porch roof completed and the small roof over the entry door completed. I am just loving the look of that back porch. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that the windows arrive tomorrow. I swear I’m moving out there when it’s done.
My bee guy, Mike Paoletto from Paoletto Farms came down today to help me with a hive inspection. I need to take some of the brood comb and start a new colony, but after evaluating it and doing some cleanup of wayward comb we decided it needed to wait another 3-4 weeks to do it. At that time I’ll be able to get the hive I built this winter started and I’m excited about that. I’ll post more about the bees and the honey harvest soon.
And finally I’m off early in the morning for a vet appointment with Cissy and Melina to try and figure out what is going on. Melina has now made it 2 full days past her due date. I spoke to the breeder I bought them from today and she has never had a nigerian dwarf go past 150 days. That got me a little panicked. That and the fact that besides lounging around all day she shows no signs of going into labor. There are too many possibilities, most of them bad, to explain why she hasn’t had the kid yet. The simplest one would be that she simply isn’t pregnant. It’s hard to imagine why she’s so far though! I’ll know more in the morning.
Cissy is indulging in her pregnancy cravings and tries a popsicle.
This is how sick Melina is of being pregnant, or fat, depending which it turns out to be.
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.
My 'bee guy' came down today to help me evaluate the hive; Mike from Paoletto Farms in Trumbull. We had some cleaning up to do and I got some honey as an unexpected benefit. This photo shows me extracting the honey naturally with the help of the sun, some mason jars, and screening.
Just because there isn’t time to cook doesn’t mean you can’t have a nice meal. I was going non-stop today. At 2:30 I managed to run out and grab some lunch and at the same time I stopped into the wonderful cheese store we have in town and picked up some things for dinner. I didn’t even have a moment to sit down and eat until 8:00 tonight, but Jim and I enjoyed it as much or more than any meal I cook.
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.
Last year in Costa Rica we were off on a drive exploring and came across this deserted beach. This wind-torn hut looked so beautiful in the setting sun with the waves crashing in front.
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!