a little catch-up

Well, I'd hoped to get some great snapshots to accompany this post.

I've been trying ever since the camera came back from the shop.

Here's the problem:

when you aren't able to get pictures until kids are several weeks old,

most of the outdoor shots look like this:

So I did something I rarely do: I used the flash. 

I stepped quietly into the barn whilst the "new" kids were playing, and managed this:

Which is not much of a picture, but at least you can see two kids:

the solid black girl on the left is Vinca.

The black-with-brown-trim boy on the right is Dara.

Even in the barn and with a flash,

getting a decent picture of these kids is tough.
For example, the moment they noticed me sitting there,

here's what happened:

LeShodu's kids were born exactly one week after Lily's kids.

And exactly one day after my camera went for a swim.

These will be LeShodu's last kids before retirement,

and I really wish I had been able to document their first days.
As I watched Vinca and Dara learn to fly,
roughly 2,000 times I thought sadly,
"the lovely blog readers are missing the best bits!"

Because now, as you can clearly see,

these kids are so grown up

you can't really call them adorable anymore, can you?

Vinca fortifying herself

for a confrontation with Mean Auntie Violet:

Dara overcome with excitement during his first
meet&greet with the owners of the buck:

You'll just have to try to imagine that they used to be really cute.

~~~

And finally, here's a deliberately obscure snap of their mama, LeShodu:
Matriarch of my little herd, and President of the
Cloud Harvest Cashmere Dramatic Society.

LeShodu is in the middle of a sudden and hormonally-driven hairloss.

She feels fine and is eating well,
but looks quite shocking.

If I posted a more revealing picture,

I expect I would hear from her attorneys.

Then I would have to sell the herd to pay my legal costs.
LeShodu does not always think things through.

But she does make nice babies.
~~~~~