Birthing

As most of you know, we had our first birth at Corn Creek Farm on Friday, February 28 at 2:30 am with the temperature in the low 30s.  I hope I never forget the experience because it was amazing. Two nights in a row I set my alarm for 2 am to get up and check on the soon-to-be mama, Dena, because I knew she was close. A friend asked, "is that the magic hour for birth?' It was just the time I picked between checking on her just before bed and again at day break. The second night she was in labor when I got to her. I sat with her and talked to her, petting her as she groaned and pushed and rested long enough to start again. I don't know if it helped her any, but I felt better for it.

I felt privileged to get there in time to go through the experience with her. My Dena has gone from being completely afraid for anyone to touch her (when we got her at 6 weeks old) to allowing me to pet her sometimes and even scratch her neck and head from time to time. She still doesn't like for me to grab her collar, because it usually means being led to do something she isn't ready to do (it might even be something she usually likes, but she hates to forced to do anything and I can relate). This night she seemed comfortable having me there, looking up at me when she was resting between contractions. She lay still and never resisted my attention.

Joan was still sleeping. Our arrangement was that she would keep her phone beside her so I could wake her if something happened. I waited until the first little body came sliding out before I sent her a text saying "we've got one". I had one towel that I'd taken with me and the birthing emergency kit I'd left in Dena's kidding stall. I wrapped the mucus covered baby in a towel and moved him close to Dena's head so she and I could work on cleaning him up. She did her part, and I helped as I could with the towel. Joan brought more towels and some hot tea (for me) and water. She got there in time to see the first kid all cleaned up and cute. Interestingly, both Joan and I instinctively referred to the first kid as "he" even though we'd hoped for 2 doelings. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't stop using the male pronoun. Our lack of experience with new born goats made it difficult for us to confidently discern gender, so it wasn't until the next day when I saw him pee that I knew he was a boy, and that our instincts had been right from the beginning.

We cooed and cuddled the new life in our arms, passing him back and forth to clean towels. When Dena began to push again, Joan went back to the house for more towels and my camera. As was her preference, she missed the messiest parts. When the second slimy life slid out of Dena's hind end, I did the same thing over again. Putting the first on a towel next to his mama, I wrapped newcomer in a fresh towel and moved her to where Dena could reach to clean her up. Again Dena was up to the task and licked her baby clean as I toweled her dry where I could. Joan got back in time to admire the second tiny, delicate life mostly wiped clean. We recognized the afterbirth when it emerged and knew there only two. She sat with me for a while because it's hard to leave so much cuteness, even in the middle of the night in sub-freezing conditions.

I wanted to make sure they were all going to be okay on such a cold night so, when Joan went back to bed, I stayed long enough to make sure the babies were dry and Dena was strong enough to keep them warm. She stood, with the blood ball hanging from her rear, to let the babies nurse, and I dutifully snapped pictures. I knew they would all be okay when I saw the babies nursing and standing up on their own. It takes a surprisingly short period of time for them to be able to stand and move around. When I went back to bed myself, they were all lying down, huddled together to keep warm. Walking back to the house, I was surprised that I had not really felt cold the whole time I was there.

The next morning I had to do my usual morning chores for the chickens, ducks and guineas as well as milking Daisy and feeding all the goats. Afterward I spent as much time as I could allow myself sitting with the babies to watch them walk and run and jump as they got used to their legs and figured out what they could do. I couldn't resist picking them up to hold them, but I put them down again, because watching them was fascinating.

I had to go to my part time job the day the babies were born. But I went in late and everyone understood. Leaving them at home was one of the hardest things I've done. I made sure Joan sent me a text when she got home to assure me they were all still doing well. I felt like a new mom, excited and worried all at the same time.

That was 4 weeks ago and they have grown incredibly fast. The girl can't seem to be still, and some time soon we will have to teach her not to jump on our backs since, so far, we've been encouraging it. I already have an appointment to have the boy neutered next week because we can't have him knocking up his sister or his mother, and we are keeping him. We knew we would be keeping the first babies born here. We hoped we would have two girls to put into the milking rotation Luckily one was a girl. She will be old enough to breed in a year. His only other option is to be sold for meat (yes, there's a chance someone would buy him to be a pet, but most likely he would be meat), so we are keeping him as a pet. She is Quinta, because she is our 5th goat and because she has Spock eyebrows (named for Zachary Quinto who played the younger Spock). He is Paco, because I think it suits him and it keeps the theme of Spanish names going.

Fierce Mom

Before Dena's babies were born Joan carefully and meticulously built an addition to the goat shed with it's own small pen so we could separate her and the kids from the other two adults.

 I was concerned that the larger goats might, accidentally or even on purpose, injure one of the tiny kids. Daisy has been an aggressive queen, reminding Dena especially of her position with random head butts. But it didn't take long for the kids to figure out that they could get through the fence and wander around the larger pen at will. Fortunately Daisy and Spike were well behaved.

The next question is what to do with Dena. Does she stay inside the little pen while the babies run around at will? At first I was still concerned that the tiny kids would need a safe place to escape to and Dena should be there. After a while it became evident that everyone was getting along fine and poor Dena was just stuck in a small space.

We have three goat areas that can be opened or closed depending on where we want the goats to be, so at first we let Dena out into the main larger pen and closed off one pasture for the other two adults. But the kids got through that fence to follow Daisy and Spike.  I knew eventually they would all have to be put back together, but my main hesitation was around how Daisy and Dena would get along.

For the two years that our three original goats have lived together Dena has been submissive to Daisy's queenliness. Most recently, she did her best to simply stay out of the way.

Now that she had babies, would Daisy continue to beat her up, and would the babies get trampled in the process?

Turns out, motherhood changes a girl. When we finally decided to bite the bullet and let all of the goats be together in the same pen, Dena showed us all that she was no longer the submissive little girl. Now she is a fierce mom unwilling to back down to Daisy or Spike.

Bodyguards

This is my team of bodyguards. Hans, the rooster, has been stalking me more than usual lately. He likes to sneak up behind me and attack the back of my leg with his claws (and spurs). It isn't as painful as it sounds. His claws rarely break the skin through denim. But it is somewhat unnerving; and it's his attempt to show dominance, which I don't like to encourage. I often carry a walking stick around with me to discourage him. When the guineas are around, though, he usually leaves me alone. If a guinea or two happen to be nearby when he runs up behind me, they run interference and chase him off.

This is Hans with one of his favorite ladies. He's crowing to show off. Right now he has a really pretty, long tail feather, but he doesn't always have that. When the guineas feel the need to put him in his place they chase him around the yard grabbing hold of his feathers. More than once he has lost his pretty, long tail feather as a result. This morning he hopped up on the deck where I was sitting in the sun writing in my journal. When the guineas lined up on the ramp to the duck pool, he slowly turned away from me as if he had no intentions of challenging me (no, not him) and casually hopped back down off the deck and joined this lovely hen to regain his dignity and crow. This is only one of the reasons I like having guineas.

We were very lucky yesterday, especially knowing what I do today about the number of our friends who didn't make it home last night. The snow started here around 11 am, and I headed for the farm supply store to get chicken feed and goat feed. I was planning that trip yesterday anyway, but the snow made it a more immediate concern. Going to the farm supply store is apparently the farmer's version of rushing to the grocery store for milk, eggs and tp. It was the busiest I've seen it on a Tuesday. Coming home, I began to realize the roads were getting slick quickly. Joan sent me a text that her work place was closing at 2pm, but my info about the roads had her rushing to leave sooner, along with everyone else in Atlanta. The last couple of miles of my trip were scary, but I made it home in good time to find a beautiful winter scene, our first snow on the farm.

I made sure all the animals had what they needed and waited for Joan to get home. Luckily she got home well before dark, though it took her about 3 1/2 hours when it usually takes less than an hour.

About halfway into the day, the animals decided inside was better than out.

The birds are staying in the coop today, as well, though I've been able to coax the goats out a little.

Today I'm just making sure everybody has water to drink instead of ice and plenty of food.

Play time

Dax wants to play! What you don't see is that when I took the dogs out this morning, Spike and Daisy were playing like goats play; rearing up on their hind legs and coming down to touch heads. It's kinda like play fighting, I think. Dax saw this, and he wanted to play, too. He ran up the hill barking and scared poor Spike who dashed behind Daisy.

A little while later, Dax got distracted by something else about the time Spike decided to see what this little fuzz ball could do.

I wish I could let Dax into the goat pen to see if they would play together, but Daisy has shown some aggressive moves toward the dogs, and I'm afraid he would get hurt. They'll just have to get to know each other through the fence.

Gardening 101

Gardening on the scale I’ve set for myself at this new place is a completely different experience from what I’m used to. It feels like I’m learning all over again from the beginning.

I’ve been tending a garden of some kind for most of my life. The summer before my sophomore year in college, I put a couple of tomato plants on a sunny corner of my parents' house and enjoyed watching them grow. The first house Joan and I lived in together had a large wooded area behind a decent-sized back yard. I put a small vegetable garden at the back of the yard and planted flowers everywhere I could around the house. No matter how many times I’ve done it, watching a seed I’ve put in the ground sprout and turn into a tiny plant that grows up to produce food amazes me. I get excited every time I see the tiny shoots that prove that the seed-planting thing actually works. Every spring I have to call Joan out to the garden and point to tiny leaves and say “that’s going to be a [fill in vegetable variety here]”.

Each year, I think, I increased the size of that vegetable garden, adding more and more variety. I wasn’t feeding us a lot, and I wasn’t saving us any money, but I loved watching the seeds and small seedlings grow into food-producing plants or colorful flowers. We even tried a small patch of strawberries (we let the weeds steal that from us) and a few blackberry bushes (they got out of control to the point that we couldn’t reach the berries inside the thorny branches and the birds got most of the fruit). I found a pile of bricks next to an old shed and built a patio by just digging the grass off the ground and placing bricks around in patterns and then planted flowers and vegetables around the patio. Sure I had to pull weeds from between the bricks every year, but I kinda liked it that way. All of this in a rented house.

When we bought a house and moved to East Point, my next door neighbor and best friend offered her back yard for my garden since mine was too shady. There was already an area surrounded by 4x4 lumber but covered with the same “grass” in our yards. We started that garden by painstakingly digging up every inch of weeds and grass, shaking the soil out of the roots to keep as much topsoil as possible. It’s an area about 10 feet by 4 feet where I was able to grow tomatoes, beans, squash and cucumbers and occasionally something else. I’ve always been excited by the variety of plants I could grow, not producing a great quantity of anything. Over the years in that house I got more ambitious and started digging up more area, branching out to my front yard and her front yard. When the house across the street stood vacant for a while, I even considered using that yard. Little by little each year I planted more vegetables and flowers and even a fruit tree.

Now here we are, on three acres of land with an area about of about a quarter to a third of an acre that gets enough sun to garden. Before we even moved in I dug up a patch and planted the first garlic and onions I’d ever tried. My goal here was, and is, to produce as much of our food as possible. Three small goats provide us with milk and a flock of chickens, ducks and guineas give us eggs (if sometimes begrudgingly). But I’m starting a new garden from scratch, and it’s the largest garden I’ve ever worked with (and yes, I still have a full-time job).

We bought a tiller and ambitiously tilled two large areas that we fenced off to keep the animals out. Rather than work to build the soil first, I had to start planting. We have lots of fertilizer from the poultry, the goats and a wormery, and I am Instant Gratification Girl (my super power?). A garden isn’t a garden if I can’t be watching something grow, so I have to plant it now. Of course, I don’t have time to plant the whole area and put down the mulch and compost it needs to keep it fertile and keep the weeds down. It’s mid-June and less than half of the area available to plant has anything besides weeds growing in it. The rest looks pretty much like it did before we tilled, covered in dandelions, tall grasses and other native weeds. If anything, the weeds are doing better than before we tilled.

I have a basket full of seeds that haven’t been planted, and plans drawn up for what I’d like both garden areas to look like. What I don’t have is the time to haul mulch, dig holes, build trellises and tomato cages, and plant seeds. I have tiny tomato plants started on the screened porch that aren’t big enough to plant yet, so I bought plants to put in the ground. I have sweet potato slips and cucumber seedlings flourishing next to the tiny tomato seedlings that I also don’t have time to plant. I keep reminding myself that we have a long growing season, and there is still time. I also remind myself that I don’t have to do it all this year. Most of the seeds I haven’t planted will be viable next summer. The space that isn’t planted yet can be used for a fall garden, for which I already have the seeds. Joan is doing everything she can to keep the fences up (goats consider fences mere suggestions) and build things like a chicken coop, goat house, compost bin, hay manger, duck pond and more (so you can see her plate is full).

Eventually the garden will be mulched and laid out so that all I have to do is dig a few holes each season to plant seeds or transplants. I won’t have to start from scratch every year. I’ve done this before. Still, I’m a little overwhelmed by the combination of the potential I have for garden space and the lack of time I have to turn it into a real garden. It is nothing short of a long-term project, and I have to remember to treat it that way. In the mean time, I do actually have some food growing. We’re already eating greens, lettuce, carrots, turnips, potatoes, onions and garlic from the garden. Soon we will have beans, lots of beans, and eventually tomatoes, squash, melons, corn, eggplant, okra and peppers. We also have apple, fig and pear trees and blackberry and raspberry bushes in the very early stages. We won’t get all of our vegetables and fruit from the garden this year or probably next year, but it’s a goal. Like last year, I should be able to can some tomatoes and pickles and freeze other veggies for the winter months, and I will have a fall garden this year to continue picking from. I need to learn to celebrate what I have, rather than pine over what I haven’t been able to do.

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Granola morning

I’ve been making yogurt with our goat’s milk, and I love it. It’s sweet, creamy and tangy, but it doesn’t get thick like cow’s milk. You pour it rather than dip it. I’ve found that it is really yummy over granola and fruit. Then I started reading the ingredients in granola, and, dammit, I’m going to have to make that, too. Do you know how much sugar is in granola?! This morning I made my first batch with quick cook oats, almonds, sunflower seeds, honey, cinnamon and a little molasses and baked it at 250 for an hour (stirring periodically to keep the color and crispiness even). After it cools I’ll add raisins and dried apples. Right now my kitchen smells wonderful and the granola is tasty without being too sweet.