Hammock and Goat Dates

Sunday, October 21st.  I'm making a note about that date right now, so five months from now I'm not taken by surprise if Peaches delivers a baby goat.  I could tell by Peaches crazy behavior that she might like a date with Little Buck.  Brandon and I were so busy all weekend that there wasn't time for a goat date until Sunday evening.  I think the timing was good though, because they started "dating" before Peaches was through the gate and before I could remove her leash.  We only allowed them to be together for a brief hour before Peaches was returned to the girl goat pasture.  I'm not sure how many dates it takes to make a baby goat, for sure, but if she doesn't start acting nutty in twenty-one days, I think I can assume the job has been taken care of.  

Noobi, the baby that was born last March, is a pretty big animal now.  Not as tall as her mother yet, but very robust and healthy looking.  While our good neighbor was visiting yesterday (to share a deer spine from his most recent kill with Wendigo, lucky dog) I asked him if he thought a goat Noobi's size would be ready to butcher.  Not that I want to eat Noobi, but if Peaches does make more babies, and I don't want to feed them through next winter, would this be the right time to butcher.  He agreed that she would have lots of good meat and be totally worth butchering.  Similar to a young tender deer.  Maybe next October we will have home grown goat meat!  

In my chick brooder right now, I have fourteen red ranger chicks, which are big-bodied meat birds, plus thirteen leghorn chicks, which are small white birds that make lots of eggs.  In four or five months I should have home grown chicken meat and more eggs that we can eat.  I know I'm not supposed to count my chickens before they hatch, so I probably shouldn't count my chicken dinners before they mature, either.  

I also have a bonus chick, who is a pretty black and white chick that seems very vocal and bossy, like he might be a rooster.  

Check out my birthday present!  Finally, my little volunteer maple trees are big enough to support my long awaited hammock.  It's a hammock built for two, but it takes some skill for two people to use it without ending up on the ground.  

The hammock is in the side yard, with a nice view of the house on one side and the young forest on the other, and far from all hungry goats and braying donkeys.  It's for relaxing, and it's perfect.  It's also the perfect height for Wendigo to lick my face when I'm napping!

With chicks in the brooder, plus all my normal feeding and watering chores, I stay occupied every morning and evening, just making sure all my charges have food, water, and a dry place to sleep.  It's usually my favorite time a day.  Because Brandon and I are making more of an effort to car pool to work every day, saving ourselves the expense of driving his truck to town, I have to be up very early, even earlier than the chickens.  I do my chores by headlamp in the early morning hours, and admire the stars as I toss hay to drowsy donkeys and spread pellets for sleeping hens.  

We've had a fire in the woodstove in the early mornings for a few days now.  The frost killed the last of the green been vines.  The donkeys get a pear every day from the old pear tree in the front yard, which always makes more than we can eat.  It feels like fall now, and I'm already thinking about heated water buckets for the animals, and making plans for Thanksgiving.  It's all happening so fast.