penny for your thoughts

This will always be one of my favorite snaps of Hazel.
(She's the tiny one.)

Well, this may not seem like major news, but this morning Hazel ate a carrot penny and then asked for another. I hope this means she's turned a corner, because for the past two days she has not wanted to eat or drink anything. More accurately, she would approach her water bucket or food pan and either brush her nose over it - in the case of her pan of chaffhaye - or take food and start to eat it, but spit it right out - in the case of apple slices or carrot pennies. 

As with many livestock injuries or illnesses, it's a matter of searching one's memory and imagination to determine what could be causing a behavior. Hazel wanted food, but not enough to pick it up...had she overeaten earlier and was simply full? She wanted a favorite treat, but could not or would not swallow it...was her throat sore...did a piece of alfalfa twig get caught in her throat or scratch the inside of her mouth? Was moving her jaw painful...did she get a bruised jaw from mixing it up with another goat? Was chewing painful...could she have a loose tooth that is uncomfortable to bite down on? I did my best to test these possibilities, but all I can tell you is this: you would be surprised how sharp goat teeth are.

Yesterday she was still peeing and pooping, so I decided that *if* I could get a bit of nourishment into Hazel, I would hold off on a stressful vet visit. When all the usual temptations were refused throughout the morning, I came up with the idea of blending a half-cup of oatmeal with a cup of warm water and a little salt, putting it through a sieve, and slowly hand-feeding the liquid with a 60-ml syringe. Hazel had mixed feelings about it at first, but did take about 100ml at lunchtime, and she seemed a bit brighter in the afternoon. When I hopefully offered a second serving of oatmeal smoothie at bedtime, Hazel was less willing to have it, which was disappointing. But she accepted 50 ml, and then a syringe of water, so I felt that she would be alright overnight. If she was no better in the morning, I would try to get the vet out.

Yesterday's all-day rain finally stopped in the wee hours of this morning, and Azalea and Hazel were both in the barn paddock when I went out for morning chores with a pocket full of carrot pennies. More like half-pennies, as they were sliced very thin to minimize the need to chew them. Hazel accepted one, and, while I held my breath, swallowed it. Then asked for another. And another. She was still not willing to even taste her alfalfa, and I didn't see her take a drink. But she ate about a carrot's-worth of pennies, and a couple of peanuts. And since it is not raining today, I opened the inter-paddock gates and Azalea and Hazel headed right down to the Upper West Side as usual, moving from rock to rock as much as possible, to stay out of the mud. So, fingers crossed that the worst is over and there will be continued improvement today.

So, how is your December shaping so far?

~~~~~

somewhat wordy wednesday

I'm sorry about the recent lack of updates - cashmere harvesting is well underway, and it's been a challenge just keeping up with daily chores. I've been trying to write ever since I posted that one photograph of Azalea with her newborn girl, but more than once in the past week I have actually fallen asleep while uploading photographs. Jolting awake because you start to fall over in your seat is a very unpleasant sensation, and I don't recommend it!

Anyway...

Here is one of my favorite pictures of Azalea and her little girl,

on the baby's first outing in the barn paddock at 3 days old:

And here is another picture of them, taken this morning:

I wonder what has captured their attention?

Could it be...

 ...another kid?

Vinca's boy was born Monday evening.

Today, both mamas brought their babies out of the barn and into the bright sunshine.

It was still below freezing, but the day gradually warmed up to around 40F.

The girl isn't wearing her jacket because she runs around like crazy outside.

She still wears it at night, though - it's gotten down as low at 18F this week. 

In case you are wondering about names, so am I!

As I've mentioned before, all the goats born here have been named for something that was either blooming or leafing out when they were born.

You can imagine the difficulty I'm having in coming up with suitable names for these two, with the ground still mostly frozen.

Will I have to change my naming system?

I'd rather not.

Feel free to make suggestions.

I'm thinking of calling my BFF (Best Forester Friend) and asking if he's seen something I've missed. Even bud-break would qualify at this point!

Meanwhile, right on schedule at 10 days old,

Azalea's daughter tackled Goat Mountain for the first time:

And at not even 2 days old, Vinca's boy was doing extremely well learning to manage those long legs while climbing around the many obstacles in the paddock:

When Vinca was calling him this evening, I pointed out that

her baby had already put himself to bed in the barn.

He must have had the most exciting day of his life :)

~~~~~

wednesday with ice

Please enjoy the sight of Azalea, back up on her bench today and looking relaxed and happy. Hard to believe that exactly one week ago I could have lost her. Life, as they say, comes at you fast.

Beginning yesterday, we've had several fresh inches of heavy wet snow, followed by hours of sleet that added a hard crust. The smallest goats can almost walk atop the crust, but not quite - every few steps a hoof goes through and sinks. It makes for very lopsided and off-balance walking, which, for sure-footed goats, may be annoying. Or at least unsettling. I think several of them eased their feelings by redecorating the barn this morning:

Mineral Tub: pushed out the door and emptied.

New divider: one board shattered.

My chair: hooked from it's corner in the back of the barn, and tossed out the door.

I felt like a landlord, visiting my rowdy tenants the morning after a party.

Everything is coated in ice again, and while I was doing evening chores tonight, more snow began to fall. I'm not even going to check the forecast - I'm already doing everything I need to do, whether there's a blizzard or a thaw. I'll let it be a Big Surprise this time.

I hope all is well in your neck of the woods,

whether it's winter or summer!

~~~~~

azalea update

Friday morning update: 

Azalea ate an entire carrot's-worth of carrot pennies this morning, and after I had returned to the house, she ventured out of the barn - with her mama Lily of the Valley by her side and her son Mallow trotting along behind - and into the roundtop to the self-serve hay dispenser. I still don't know what caused her to become ill, and I'll continue to watch her closely to be sure she is eating well and is fully recovered. But for the moment, I'm feeling much relieved!

Thank you very much for your concern and kind words - it meant a lot to me when I was sitting out in the barn for most of yesterday, trying to watch Azalea without making her feel that she was being watched :)

~~~~~

ice

This morning when I stepped outside to pick up an armful of stovewood, I was delighted to find the air warmer than expected. Maybe as high as 20F, I thought. Almost balmy.

I can generally estimate the temperature within a few degrees, so on the way back inside I checked the thermometer by the door: 11F.

Eleven.

Balmy.

After a series of very cold days and nights, I apparently need to recalibrate my internal thermometer!

There is ice everywhere, and most of it is now under six or more inches of powder. This is not a great situation, and I've been very careful going from house to barn to workshop to stilt barn and into the paddocks to fill water buckets and distribute hay.

There are de-icers in both big water buckets - huzzah! - but I still use smaller buckets at times, and they freeze quickly. If they freeze overnight I can't just break the layer of ice on top - I must thaw the ice enough to get it out of the bucket. Here's how, in case you've never done it and ever need to: turn the frozen bucket upside-down and slowly pour a little warm water over the bottom and sides. Listen for the sound of cracking, and then one quiet thud. Lift the bucket off with a boot - to keep dry gloves off the wet bucket - and find a wide-based crystalline vase of ice, with a core of water that trickles out and leaves an huge ice goblet.

Last week I took photographs from inside these hollow cores, looking out through the curved walls of ice. There's one at the top of this post, and here's another:

Winter can be hard. Why miss an opportunity to have fun?

Today I actually had to leave the place for the first time in a week: get in the truck, deliver the recycling, pick up a book from interlibrary loan, and do some grocery shopping. When I got home in the afternoon it was still very cold but not too windy and off-and-on sunny, so I decided to take time to visit with all the goats and then do evening chores early.

Tsuga says, "Yes, do come visit!
And do you have something good in your pocket?"

While I was sitting in the barn waiting for the last goats to finish their grub,

Rocket discovered bootlaces.

He'd never seen them before, because I usually wear pull-on rubber barn boots. But today, since I had just gotten home after being out In Public, I was wearing my "nice boots" which I bought last month. They are like calf-height, waterproof, insulated slippers with rubber soles. And very long laces. Rocket took one look and knew what had to be done.

Here are Azalea and her little boy Mallow - not so little anymore! - hanging out on a bench after having their buckets of oats. Everyone gets a little something extra to help stay cheerful in this ongoing cold, snowy, icy snap; extra oats, with a little sweet feed on top, and carrot pennies for afters. Even my careful rationing of hay - I feed multiple times in smaller amounts each day instead of the total amount all at once, to reduce waste - has gone by the boards for the time being. In weather like this, I believe it's more important to have hay available to everybody, all the time, than to avoid waste.

The sky looked like this for just a few minutes,

as I was coming back to the house after chores.

I'm so glad I didn't miss it!

The forecast says the weather is going to change tomorrow.

Warmer.

And then warmer.

I'll definitely be wearing the pull-on rubber barn boots.

~~~~~

being there

While I was doing a second round of chores today, snow began to fall. 

First, just a scattering of flakes.

 Then a bit more.

The goats moved between the barns and paddocks,

eating their hay, as bigger flakes began to fall.

 Beautiful flakes. Falling slowly. Falling densely.

I brushed melting snowflakes from the paddock chair

and sat to watch for a while.

It was that rare, lovely snowfall that looks the way

I imagine people who do not live in snowy climates think all snow looks -

almost unbelievably perfect.

 I exhausted one camera battery and switched to a second.

By the time that battery was nearly done,

my clothes were wet through with melted snow.

It was time to head inside.  

For all the snow that fell, what remained later in the day was not much more than a dusting. Just enough to make everything look very pretty. If I hadn't been out in it as it was falling, I could not have guessed the way it looked coming down.

Isn't it a gift to be there, eyes open, for beauty?

~~~~~

light today

4:23 AM

1:10 PM

5:54 PM

7:57 PM

~~~~~

goats unplugged

I got a decent night's sleep last night, and am sufficiently energized to give you the follow-up on Mallow and Rocket.

 Today they are both looking pretty chipper. FINALLY.

Thursday was not Our Favorite Day. They had their surgeries around noon, and I stayed in the barn to be there when they came out of the anesthesia, which, based on past experience, I expected to be within a half-hour. The actual procedure is very quick - my vet is efficient and has done this many times. I fully expected that by 1 PM the boys would have been up for a while, walking around in their stalls and nibbling at hay, and I could get on with my day.

While they were out, propped up on their sternums to help prevent bloat, and with noses pointed down to keep mucous draining in the right direction, I took the opportunity to make a little sketch. Here is is.

It's called: Mallow Being Still For The First Time In His Life.

One hour turned into two, without a blink or a twitch. Then three hours. I didn't want to call the vet, who already seems to think I am a fretful softie who worries about nothing. But I certainly would have felt happier to see the boys up and moving. And when, after three and a half hours they finally wobbled to their feet looking very dazed, they were too uncomfortable to move around and keep themselves warm. Both goats began shivering so hard I could see it from ten feet away.

Then I called the vet, who suggested making oatmeal for them.

This is not a painting of the oatmeal I made on Thursday. This is oatmeal I painted several months ago. But Thursday's oatmeal looked very similar and an image may break up this long story a bit, so here you go:

Unfortunately, Rocket and Mallow were still too out of it to want to eat, even lovely warm oatmeal. Vinca and Azalea, their mamas, thought being fed oatmeal on a spoon was great, though. They think we should do this more often, and not just on special occasions.

I did everything I could think of to try to get Rocket and Mallow thoroughly warm, so that keeping coats on them would then be enough to help them maintain their body temperature. But "everything I could think of" wasn't really that much. Using a heater in the barn is a fire hazard. These goats aren't like dogs or cats who will snug up next to a person and stay there, benefiting from their body warmth. And before you ask...no, I couldn't bring them into the house. Perfectly reasonable question though!

Rocket under my coat, seen through a hay manger.

Here's an enlarged view of Rocket's eye.
This is not the eye of a comfortable goat.

I got my extra-large electric heating pad from the house, and - being very careful to monitor how much warmth it was generating on the lowest setting - began putting it on each goat in turn like a saddle blanket, then covering the goat with one of my old barn coats which I am finally proven justified in keeping, so there's that.

I have only one heating pad, so I would put it on one goat until he had stopped shivering for a while, and keep an eye on the other goat. When the second goat started shivering again, it was his turn, and if the goat who was losing the heating pad was lying down, he could have the hot water bottle against his side, under his coat.

Rocket was up and down at long intervals, so the hot water bottle was a helpful back-up for him. But poor Mallow got up once and then could not lay down again, though he tried and tried and tried. He was so tired he was literally propping himself up against the wall of the barn. When he would try to lay down he would get his front end folded under properly but then, as soon as he tried to tuck his hind end down, he must have felt enough of a painful twinge that he would wearily straighten back up again. This happened every few minutes for hours. I cannot convey in words how sorry I felt for him.

The heating pad was at first swapped from goat to goat every 20 minutes or so, but the interval gradually stretched to an hour or longer. I didn't dare stop monitoring them, because the "unplugged" goat eventually started shivering badly again, every time.

By the middle of the night, both goats were occasionally nibbling a few blades of the hay, which was one load off my mind. As you goat-fans know, it is critical that goats keep their complex digestive systems in action.

Mallow in my old fleece jacket, nibbling a bite of hay. 

It was a cold night. Below freezing. I can't stand, or sit in a chair, for very long, and the boys weren't in the part of the barn that has a bench. So I was lying on the floor of Mallow's stall, where I could keep both boys in my line of vision - they were in adjacent stalls with a stockpanel divider between. I stole one of Piper's old mats (which is fair because she stole it from one of my chaises last year) and brought out a wedge cushion for a back support, and had an old lightweight sleeping bag to wrap up in. I was wearing two fleeces and a rainjacket and corduroy trews and gloves and a wooly earwarmer. My laptop was on hand to help pass the time "just in case I have to be out there for a while," but I couldn't listen to an audiobook because strange voices would have made ALL the goats, even the ones in the other barn, more upset than they already were.

When I took the heating pad off Rocket at 4 AM, he was cuddled up in a corner under his jacket, dozing. Mallow was still standing, so I gave him the heating pad again and went into the house to warm up and get a couple of hours sleep. At dawn I found Rocket moving around in his stall, with slightly runny eyes but a clear nose. Mallow was still standing and looking pretty sad.

I brought their mamas - and Rocket's sister Iris - into the stalls with them. They had been in the next stall over, where they could all see each other through the night but where the patients could not get pushed around or accidentally knocked down.

And then as the sky was getting light, I fed and watered everybody else - half the herd had been standing huddled together in the next paddock staring at the "recovery room" all night - and came back in to feed Piper and the cats and put the hot water bottle on my own back for a while. I had very good company.

Later, during the warmer part of Friday, both boys were allowed out for a while. But I kept Azalea and Mallow in a paddock next to the rest of the herd, and gave Mallow a little bit of pain medication to make him more comfortable.

Friday it didn't rain.
It was like some kind of crazy miracle.

Over the weekend it's been a gradual return to something like normality. Rocket's recovery has been straightforward, but without the repeated "reheating" throughout Thursday night, that may not been the case. I simply couldn't risk it - even a tough little monkey like Rocket is not designed for 12 hours of constant shivering.

I've kept Mallow and Azalea locked in a stall each night, so Mallow couldn't get pushed out of a shelter during the constant cold, dank weather we've had since Friday. Today is the first day he is looking more bright-eyed, and I saw him wave a horn at Azalea when the two were sharing a manger full of hay. It is always a relief when you see a poorly animal feeling cocky again. If it isn't raining tomorrow, I think we'll be back to our regular routine. How glad I will be!

And on we go.

~~~~~

shhhhhh

  

Azalea, who has always been a sweet and steady goat,

is taking motherhood very seriously.

When she decides it's time for a meal, she wakes the baby by talking to him,

and calls him out from his cozy cubby under the bench.

After he's had some milk and a bit of exercise - mostly short backward bounces at this point - she tucks him right back in under the bench for another little snooze.

So far, she has a very cooperative son.

I've known Azalea for a long time, and at this moment in time...

I wouldn't want to argue with her either, little fellow.

~~~~~

one more saturday night

Staying up til 330AM on a Saturday night just isn't what it used to be, you know?

Instead of:

Don't worry 'bout tomorrow,

lord, you'll know it when it comes:

when the rockin-rollin music

meets the rising shining sun*

 I feel like I've been drug through a knothole backwards.

But the rewards can be pretty substantial:

Azalea's baby boy, 4.5 hours old...

and 7 hours old.

Azalea had a very uncomfortable day yesterday, and since there are no barncams, I was lucky she didn't mind me camping out in the barn to keep an eye on her - for what turned out to be 13 hours. But once the baby was on the ground it was clear she needed some quiet, private time. So apart from taking a quick peek every few hours and making sure she has plenty of fresh water and a buffet of tasty food items, I'll be staying out of the barn today.

I expect she'll be back to her very sweet and laid-back self once she gets used to her new mamagoat status.

Flashback to baby Azalea, with her own mama, Lily of the Valley:

And if you're in the mood for a little goat-drama, here's the story of her own birth day.

~~~

*from One More Saturday Night

words and music by Bobby Weir

Grateful Dead

(so many memories)

~~~~~

barn check

Just stepping out to the barn for a moment, to see how everyone is doing.

Would you care to join me?

Here are the charming Azalea and her mum, Lily of the Valley. Azalea seems to have forgiven me for trimming her hooves this morning. I want to be sure they are flat and smooth well before the 26th. I try to make sure the does' hooves aren't sharp-edged or jagged when they are due to kid. A mamagoat will often paw at a newborn kid with a degree of enthusiasm that will put the heart across you.

In the other side of the barn, we find Vinca having a nice snooze.

That little dark shape off Vinca's starboard hoof is Iris. 

See?

And then we turn around to see this:

Rocket, in the old chair kept handy for visitors.

Goatherd hand for scale.

 Twelve days old.

Little Big Goat.

~~~~~