notes from the goats

Betula is doing well. 

He's staying in the barn paddock with Violet and Sambucus for company until I feel confident the broken horn will not start bleeding again. So far, that has happened twice. Most recently yesterday. Meanwhile he's eating very well, resting well, and generally acting comfortable.

In other goat news, cashmere shedding is definitely underway. 

Almost as soon as combing began there was a hiatus of a few days due to suddenly very cold, very wet, very windy weather. But now it's just cold and muddy, so we can expect weeks of combing. I'll try to comb at least one goat on any day that is not raining. There's no point in trying to harvest damp cashmere.

Did I mention weather?

In the past week we've had snow, rain, freezing rain, and a world coated in ice. Then the ice started melting from every twig of every tree, and now we have mud. And that's all I'm going to say about weather.

I'm continuing to fine-tune the system for distributing chaffhaye to the goats every morning and evening.

At this point I don't have to tie every goat, every time, in order to get every goat fed, huzzah. Just some of them, most of the time. And I'm still doing individual pans, morning and evening.

If I could shift them over to free-choice feeding, it would be a lot less labor for me. I couldn't try it right at the introduction of the chaffhaye, because there would have been a few very assertive - and chunky - goats and many very hungry goats. But now that they all know there will be pans for everyone I'm experimenting by doing both: giving them each their pan of grub, and then putting out additional feed in big bins, and keeping an eye on behavior.

So yesterday I asked my Occasional Helper to leave a couple of extra 50-pound bags of chaffhaye in one of the shelters for my convenience, next to a bin in which I opened a third 50-pound bag for self-serve.

Here's what the extra bags looked like by last night:

In case my description wasn't clear: there was a bin containing a wide-open 50-pound bag of chaffhaye literally 8 inches from these "backup" bags.

The forklift operator had made small holes in these two  bags, so maybe that was considered an invitation? Or a challenge? I don't know. But once these bags are open, they must be fed out quickly. For the next couple of days I'll have to carry empty feed pans down to this shelter and fill them from these wastefully punctured bags, and then carry those full pans all over the paddocks to distribute. 

So far, this experimental free-choice supplementation has not been what one could call "a time-saver."

Oh well, everyone is eating, that's the important thing. Here we have three generations - Lily of the Valley, Tsuga, and Fern - demonstrating synchronized chewing:

And I'll close this Note from Goat World with my birch boy, Betula,

resting his chin and soaking up some vitamin D:

~~~~~

snow

Well, it was a storm, alright.

I took these snaps yesterday morning, when we had about six inches of snow. We got over a foot before the snow stopped last night.

During morning chores yesterday, Violet and her daughter Sambucus were invited out of the paddock to hunt and gather between the barn and the house, while I was to-ing and fro-ing, to-ing and fro-ing.

They had a grand time!

The hemlock branches were weighed down by snow, and both goats meandered over to help themselves to branch tips.

Did you know that goats have no upper teeth in the front of their mouths? The way goats break off a mouthful of something is to grab it and then snap their heads up, with their front bottom teeth acting as a cutting edge.

Sambucus demonstrates the grab:

And, with snow-laden branches, the secondary result of the snap:

Want to see it again?

You're up, Violet!

The grab:

And the snap!

This is the face of a very happy goat:

~~~~~

thursday retrospective

from the ground, up.

the moment snow became hail

raspberry (beret)

Sambucus

more Sambucus

forsythia (yellow bells)

red maple

Friday morning dawned cold (22F) and sunny. More snow predicted tonight and tomorrow. In other news, the crockpot is full of organic turkey stew and "move hay, fill woodbox" are at the top of today's Extra Chores list.

~~~~~

real snow

Sunday night looked like this:

Monday morning 3:30AM looked like this:

Heading out for morning chores on Monday...

 

...with my pocket loaded with carrot pennies.

A tarp "veranda," one of the extra shelters - there are always extras so scuffles won't lead to a goat being pushed out into bad weather - had collapsed under the weight of Sunday's snow, so I moved Violet and Sambucus up to join

the smaller group in the big barn paddock.

Here they are in the roundtop, happily tucking into the hay:

Here is the view from that roundtop.

All these images are a bit dark - the sun was never visible yesterday.

As usual, you can click to embiggen if you wish.

Put your boots on first.

After feeding and watering, I walked through all the paddocks,

dragging my feet to make a bit of a trail between all the shelters.

I save that chore for last because it's rather tiring and I am soaked with sweat by the time I'm done, and ready to head back to the house.

The goats don't really mind snow, but they do like it when I break trail for them.

Although I think Hazel, experiencing her first Real Snow, was looking for a place to attach a zipline in the barn so she could get to me and my pocket full of carrot pennies without wading through snow deeper than her belly.

(Don't worry, she got her carrots without any wading.)

By Monday afternoon the birdfeeders - which I had cleaned off first thing in the morning - were the scene of constant activity. The first flock of juncoes appeared, in a group of at least twenty. I always think of them as a sign that Winter is here.

This time, though, I really didn't need any extra signs.

I cleaned the feeders off again after evening chores.

~~~

At 4 AM this morning:

And out I go!

~~~~~

february snaps

It's February in New England.

Best to just take it as it comes.

~~~~~

sambucus

The black goats - especially the solid black goats - are always difficult to photograph.

So I was very pleased to get this portrait of Sambucus today.

Did you notice her lovely little smile?

I think Bui deserves to have an entire blog post, all to herself.

~~~~~

sunday afternoon

It didn't rain.
The humidity fell.
The sky was blue.
There was an occasional breeze.

I literally could have wept with relief.

The goats were so pleased with the change in weather, three of them would not even come into the barn for their buckets.

For the first time in many weeks, I took a sketchbook outside. Dusted the latest muddy hoofprints off the lawn chair - because they were dry and I could dust them off! - and settled down in the south paddock to Draw August.

There was company.

Lots of company.

The silver goat is Fern, and she is leaning against my chair.

There was close interest in the artistic process.

There was distraction. 

(Iris is trying to untie my shoe because I wouldn't let her jump into the chair.)

There was oversight.

There was drama!

(Bashing heads. This is a mother and daughter. I make no further comment.)

 ~

And eventually, there was Day 19 of Drawing August,

which is also #231 of Daily Markmaking 2018.

I had to come in and flatten out my spine for a couple of hours,

but it's still clear and pleasant outside.

It will be a genuine pleasure to do evening chores tonight.

~~~~~

more than halfway there

Each Spring, after weeks of daily plodding out to the barns with my basket-o-brushes, there's always a point when I know I'm on the long, slow, downhill side of the annual cashmere harvest.

I haven't found a feasible alternative to these giant ziploc bags.
But at least I reuse them, as you see by the elegant labels.

People are often surprised to hear how long this process stretches out. I have only a small herd, but the variability in shedding is extreme. Acer always starts shedding in February; Dara has just begun and April is nearly over!

Right now, some goats are functionally "done" and will just need one or two quick clean-up combing sessions so the last of the undercoat will be off and fresh air and sun can get to their skin. Like Sambucus here:

But there are some goats who will still need more hours of careful combing despite already having been thoroughly combed at least three times. Case in point: Azalea.

It takes a lot of very gentle work with a slicker brush to remove loose cashmere without tugging on this long, thick topcoat. It took over an hour working on just her left side (above) to get to the point where a rake would run smoothly through her coat:

And as you see, it's still picking up a few wisps of cashmere.

A few days after a thorough combing, Azalea will look like the top photograph all over again, and we'll have another session. I'll be collecting less cashmere next time, but she is still carrying quite a bit.

Betula is another long-coated goat. We've worked very hard this year, Bet and I, to harvest as much of his cashmere as possible. But now he is dropping the remainder so fast that it immediately becomes a matted layer trapped in his topcoat. I'll keep working to get it off, but more for health and comfort than for useful fiber. This is all discarded fiber from one combing of Betula this week:

With the harvest drawing slowly to a close, I'm already starting to think about knitting again. The past couple of years I've had to put all WIPs aside when the combing starts, because even though my mind misses the restful quality of knitting, my hands can only take so much in one day. This year, that meant a pair of nearly-finished socks has been waiting since February for toes.

Soon, socks. Soon.

Right, Azalea?

~~~~~