Sunshine, birthdays and time at the farm

Spring time is so much fun, and one of my favorite seasons. I just have to learn to ignore the fifty mile an hour wind gusts and get on with the day. I've decided that the nice days tend to have the most wind, but if we stayed inside, nothing would ever get done. Learn to live with it, brace yourself and remember it'll probably get worse as global warming continues.

Today we built a trellis in the lower garden and planted some sweet peas.
 

pea trellis, lower garden

Our pallet fence has been improved with electric tape that rises to about eight feet...high enough to keep the deer out. Bambi and his relatives have been nibbling at my lilies and irises directly in front of the house, so Richard has put up make shift fences here and there to keep them out. I'm thinking of getting a big dog to scare them off--one that won't be carried off by a hawk like my chihuahuas. Been researching the giant guardian breeds like the Great Pyrenees. Might as well have a dog that will protect the livestock instead of hunt it.

Richard planted some spinach in the greenhouse and in his new cold frames. The planting has begun. There has been a lot of interest in tomato and pepper starts this year. It looks like more people are gardening this season. That's great! Good for them. We all have to be backyard farmers if we want clean, healthy and reasonably priced produce.

Free Birds

 

The fence in the upper garden is finished too, which means, the guineas are finally free. And what did they do but head straight for the llama pen, which they couldn't get into, so they opted for the goat pen. I chased them out and Richard stapled up some netting over the gate they walked through. Good thinking, because the goat kids would've walked through that gate too.

With the warm air today, I let the baby goats out to frolic in the yard, but Amelia's little ones decided to stay in the shade of the barn instead.

 

Ginger

 

All the goats are doing well. The babies are all healthy and active and looking pretty darn cute.They jump and play and butt heads. I could watch them for hours.

The llamas were gelded this past Friday. They don't seem to be mad anymore and are just trying to figure out who or what their new neighbors are. They stood and stared over the fence as long as the goat babies were out playing today. They are such inquisitive creatures.

Our son had a birthday this weekend too, so we took the kids to the Pueblo Zoo, which was great fun. We bought a season pass so we can drop by any time we are in town. Handy, and cheaper in the long run than even two trips to the zoo with two adults and two kids. 

We tried the cloth gift wrapping idea. and it worked really well, but I would advise everyone to have plenty of ribbons on hand to tie up the gifts. I was not prepared and had to rummage through my sewing boxes to find something suitable.

Festive cloth wrapping

The material to wrap the gifts cost less than wrapping paper would have, was a lot more fun and we can use it again for wrapping, or use it to make something else, like a birthday quilt at the end of so many years. Great idea put into practice. So, save a tree and dig out that old material you've been holding onto.Wrap some gifts. If I were the recipient of such interesting and thoughtful gift wrap, I would be thrilled. Think of the things you could make if all of your gifts came wrapped in material! A crafter's dream come true.

I also found an antique treadle Singer locally

Sewing, off the grid!

for less than I anticipated.

I am so excited. I'm still trying to find extra accessories for it, and I have yet to learn how to use it, but I can't wait to make those birthhday quilts without electricity. Can you imagine? What a wonderful thing.

Makes me wonder if the modern conveniences are really such a great thing? This machine is about 100 years old and still going strong because it was made to last.

Also this past Sunday, one of the guys from our local feed store came out to help Richard work on the Earthbag barn. Progress is being made. We picked up the cutest miniature scaffold in Pueblo, and it seems to work just perfect for hoisting those buckets of dirt up to the top of the Earthbag wall. Before you know it it will be time to put the roof on. Can't wait. Unfortunately, the tamper broke, so it's going back to the store we purchased it from less than two months ago. Apparently it was not built to last.

Babies

Here are the photos of Amelia and her big moment...delivering twins.

Amelia's first baby

Amelia's second baby

Two little ones: a boy and a girl

All the new kids together

When we let the mom's out into the yard for hay and water every couple of hours, the babies get to hang out together. They all have dog sweaters on to keep their core temp up in the chilly barn at night. Richard named Amelia's kids Vincent (lying down, in green) and Pixie (in black and red). Cinnamon's girl is Ginger (in green, orange, blue stripes) and Tres's boy is Surprise (on the right edge of this picture). Two boys and two girls. They are adorable, as baby goats always are, and in a couple of weeks, after the moms are not making the colostrum any more, we will be back into goats milk here on the farm. Lots of milk for ice-cream, yogurt and cheese.

Goat birth update

Wouldn't you know it...when I went up to check on the goats after posting my last blog, Amelia was ready to have her baby. Richard made it just in time to help. She had twins--a boy and a girl, without any fanfare at all, except she seems to want to walk around while giving birth, which makes it interesting to catch the baby. They are beautiful brown and black babies and I will put up photos tomorrow. Now...I'm going to bed for my first full nights sleep in a long time.

Oh, and post note, we "bounced" Amelia after the first kid and felt the second, so we knew she wasn't done. That's where you stand behind the goat and put your hands in front of her bag and lift up on her abdomen. If there are babies in there, you can feel the hardness instead of gushy guts. We bounced her after the second and she was just gushy. Wish we'd done that with Cinnamon. Of course Amelia's kids came out quick, within like ten or fifteen minutes of each other. Text book delivery.

We now have four babies here at the farm. Two boys and two girls. Mamas are all doing well.

Baby Goats!

We've got babies!

It has been a tiring couple of days with little sleep overnight while we wait for baby goats to show up. It started on Wednesday with Cinnamon going into labor.

"It's time!"

I called Abigail, from Cloud 9 Farms, over to help, and wouldn't you know it...nothing happened. (Except that I spilled my emotional garbage at that poor girls feet and wouldn't be surprised if she never came back.) That was around four pm. I continued to check on Cinnamon throughout the evening, expecting something.

After I got my kids to bed, I went and sat with mama goat, and eventually the labor began. Richard and I sat in the barn until 2:30 am waiting for the babies. We got one little girl at 12:30...and that was it. Cinnamon labored and labored and no more babies came, so we though she was done and was waiting to expel the afterbirth.
 

It's a girl!

She looks a little like her Mama.

We decided to go in the house and take the baby with us, letting Cinnamon finish up on her own.We were exhausted and cold. The barn is not that comfortable after 6 hours. Richard named the little girl Ginger...my own spice girls.

Ginger in a basket

Up again at 5:30 am and out to check on Cinnamon by 6:30. She was up and walking around. She nursed the baby and went out with the other girls for morning hay. Maybe she ate the afterbirth? Not unheard of.

It wasn't until later that afternoon, after Richard went to work (of course) that I noticed something was amiss. Cinnamon was back on the floor, laboring and straining. That wasn't right. I figured she was done a long time ago. I couldn't have been more wrong, and knew this was more than I could deal with, so Richard and I decided to call the vet, who told us to bring her in right away. 

That was interesting. Richard was still working, and I had to load two human kids, an ailing mama goat who didn't want to get  up, let alone walk into a trailer, and a wee newborn doe. And fast. Richard called off from work and made it out to help as I was pulling a goat down the hill, carrying her baby in my free arm.

Richard stayed with the kids (all three) in the car and I stayed with my favorite goat.

It was a nightmare. The vet took one look at her and told me she had another one in there, and after an exam with the stethoscope told me it was already dead. No, no, no. She also told me it was not going to be pretty and the baby might come out in pieces. Cinnamon is bleating away now and the vet and assistant give her an epidermal, which numbs her back legs. I'm holding her head and talking softly to her as the vet goes in to retrieve the stuck baby. It's sideways, she says, it's spine is coming first. She had to turn it and pull it out. No easy feat. It seemed to take forever.

I'm crying and my goat is yelling and my legs are cramping from the constant squat. There was a chain involved and it was absolutely horrible, but finally it's out. And the vet says she's going back in to make sure it's all clean. "There's another one," she says. "This one is breach too," she confirms. Now there are things she ties to its feet and pulls it out too.

I'm absolutely bawling now...me and my goat. One girl and one boy. Two dead babies. I should have known. I should have called the vet at 2 in the morning.Without really meaning to, I'm sure, everything the vet said made me feel worse. "See how big she was when she came in? And now she looks hollow. Now she's done."

My poor Cinnamon. I feel like I have single handedly murdered her children in my ignorance. Could I get past this?

"And sometimes, you can be an expert and know how to do everything and still lose them," the doctor told me. She lost her own foal a couple weeks ago. That doesn't make me feel better.

I cried and replayed the night in my head, wondering what I could have done? Could I have called that vet at 2 in the morning, having never met her before and not even knowing if she doctored goats? We had made an appointment earlier that week to bring in the llamas to get gelded, but that was still a week or so away. Could I have delivered those babies myself? Probably not, as twisted up as they were inside mama. I screwed up. I knew it. I felt responsible for all of it. 

It's too much, I decided. I can't do this myself. I can't give the goats the undivided attention they need while in labor and still run a household and take care of my human kids too. When Richard goes to work, it's just me, trying to keep everything running smoothly, and sometimes I come up short.

When we got Cinnamon home, she laid down in the barn and refused to look at me, but even worse, she refused to have anything to do with her living baby girl. Great. So now I've got to bottle feed the baby. The vet suggested sleeping in the barn to keep an eye on both goats. Really? Maybe she didn't notice my toddler children...I guess not, they were in the car the whole time. So, we finally get the baby to eat something, I put her to bed in an old playpen I've been holding onto, and I set my alarm for two hours later. I will get up and feed the baby and Richard will check on Cinnamon every couple of hours. The previous nights four hours of sleep was a luxury.

Cinnamon is depressed, and rightly so. I'm afraid she isn't going to make it through the night. Richard thought to dose all three mama goats with a vitamin supplement at bedtime, and I think that may have made a difference.

In the morning, Cinnamon is a new goat. I suggest that Richard milk her because I'm in short supply of milk for the newborn. We decide to take Ginger up, to see what Cinnamon will do. It's worth a shot, right? And, miracle of miracles, she starts licking the baby and lets her nurse! And, she lets me pet her head too. Maybe we could get past this.

Good news. 

Today will be busy too. I eye the other pregnant goats with suspicion, not ready to deal with any of it anymore. I have to head into town to pick up the syringes the vet forgot to give me for Cinnamon's medicines. I also need more goat birthing supplies. Joe, from Westcliffe, was coming to help Richard with the Earthbag barn. Another big day on our little farm.

I'm trying to think of how to get help. I research the WWoofer program online. Maybe we could get a farm intern. Good idea. No time to write up the farm info and submit it.

I run errands and wash up the towels from the birthing the night before, and check on Cinnamon and baby often. Tres and Amelia are lounging in the sun in the goat yard. Everything is fine...until, I hear Richard yelling..."We've got a baby!"

What? Amelia? "Who?" I yell back, grabbing fresh towels and locking the kids in the living room with a movie.

It's Tres, and she's just given birth to a big healthy boy in the middle of the yard. No trouble, no noise, and no warning at all. She didn't look like she was going to pop...not at all. We weren't even sure she was pregnant. I guess she was.

Baby goat born in the dirt

So we grab the baby and the mama and take them into the barn. Thank the gods for the extra hands on this day. Richard and Joe tie off the umbilical cord and dry the baby.

Joe and Richard take care of the new boy

Wow! Crazy days! What are we going to call this little guy? "Surprise," suggests Joe, and so his name is given.

Surprise

Later that evening, after all the mamas are settled with their babies, we get an e-mail from the lady who bought Penny and Yvette. Penny has just given birth to triplets of her own. Can you imagine? And when I go up to check on my goats, Amelia is showing the first signs of going into labor. Great...here we go again?

Richard and I take our camp chairs, a space heater, a book, the phone and prepare for a long night. but once again, nothing after several hours, and we decide to go to bed in the house. Same old story. I set the alarm for every couple of hours and check on Amelia. Nothing. Nothing today either. I'm so tired I can hardly function. Richard went back to work. The kids just went to bed and I'm trying to get everything ready for the class tomorrow. 

Now, I'm on my way back up to the goat barn to see what's up with my girls tonight. I think I may have burnt the pumpkin bread I was making for tomorrow. Another long night in store. 

Still looking for a farm intern...

Learning more simple ways

Daffodils on the northside

I'm going to go ahead and decide that spring is here, with all of my plants waking up throughout the gardens.

chives

We've got chives, green onions and catnip coming back along the path to the goat barn, and a lot of the trees and bushes we planted last year are budding. Won't this spring be a glorious one!

catnip

The classes this past weekend were a big success, even if we only had three folks show for the chicken class. It was still great fun, and a little more personal as we all got to know one another a little better. There was a nice couple from Pueblo and another fellow from the Greenhorn Valley who also came to the Season Extension class on Sunday with his wife. Interesting people, all of the participants. I really enjoy hearing everyone's story and why they are interested in our sustainability classes. Turns out we all have a lot in common when we think about the future of America.

On Sunday, Richard and his class got the hoop house up over the newly planted potatoes in the lower garden and possible future home of a USDA funded high tunnel.

They bent the conduit pipes for the frame on the small hoop bender Richard built.

pipe bender (hey, there's another one of those pesky pallets)

 And, with all those hands to hold that plastic, the breeze was hardly noticeable.

long hoop house

Here's a really easy and functional cold frame Richard built out of two by sixes and an old storm window from our Victorian house in the Springs.

Three pregnant goats, Cinnamon in the middle

Things don't have to be expensive or complicated to get the job done.

Cinnamon still has not given birth...so we wait...and we wait.

Gates across the driveway

One of the best parts of the weekend was getting the gates across the driveway. Finally. I've been waiting a long time for those gates that will keep people from just driving in (selling meat from a freezer?) and will keep my kids and animals from running out into the road that people drive down like a race track.

We also had dinner with some new friends this past weekend, and enjoyed ourselves immensely, talking and talking well past the kids' bedtime as they ran from one end of the house to the other. Luckily, our guests were not frightened away.

I had a moment, while trying to get the kids to nap during Richard's class, to watch a documentary on the Amish, which was fascinating. They are a people not much different from myself, minus the religion. They want to live sustainably and avoid the trappings of the mainstream society that would drag them into the chaos and lesson their quality of life. And, they'd like to protect their children from a culture that is ego based and competitive to the point of self-destruction. I'd like that too. The Amish believe in work and the enjoyment of choosing a life dedicated to family and community, living simply and giving themselves an opportunity to be close to nature and God.

With the upcoming energy crisis, I have to wonder if the Amish ways are not better ways. I find myself looking into more of the pieces of their culture and realize the rewards of abandoning the use of electricity for manual labor. I'm very interested in finding a functioning Singer Treadle sewing machine to replace my worn out electric machine. Wouldn't that put some joy into making clothes and quilts for the kids? I would find joy in learning to use and maintain an antique machine that proved itself capable of withstanding the changes of modern man, to the point where it becomes useful again. The items that we need to stock our homes with to survive the future are the things the Amish have been using all along. We could learn a thing or two.

And, Amish are about humility and fighting the Ego, something I have personally been trying to overcome in my own life. Ego is the killer. Just think of a life, a simple and sweet, natural life without that troublesome Ego messing everything up. Wonderful. I wonder if the Amish give workshops? Classes? "How to live Ego free in a mad society." "How to restore a hundred year old sewing machine." "How to teach your kids the value of life and educate them without the use of Disney characters." Sign me up!