Lily-in-waiting

Lily of the Valley

I've been trying to get the little barn organized quickly

because two of the does, Lily and LeShodu, are expected to give birth

sometime between the 13th and 26th of May.

I had hoped that Lily, her yearling daugher Tsuga, and LeShodu

would share the barn for a while,

but that peaceful interlude lasted less than 24 hours.

LeShodu started throwing her weight around,

so I moved her into the Chalet

with the similarly assertive Violet and Sambucus.

~~~

Lily and Tsuga have been temporarily enjoying Sole Occupancy of half the new barn.

And over just a few days, I've watched flighty Lily relax more and more.

It's been very pleasant to see.

This is Lily, casually examining her bucket:

"Is it worth getting up for?"

No. She just pulled it over with her nose

so she could eat laying down.

That's right, Lily. You take this chance to be Queen of the May.

"Indeed."

~~~

With a list of small pre-kidding projects slated for the barn,

a weekend of "100% chance of rain" was a bit of a concern.

Hammering and drilling and sawing would drive the goats outdoors,

so...

no hammering and drilling and sawing on a rainy day.

It rained all Friday night, as predicted.

Here's what Saturday looked like: 

Yes, 100% chance of rain looked like this:

Joyfully seizing the day for the gift that it was,

as soon as morning chores were done,

I commenced hammering and drilling and sawing!

I had a lot of input from Tsuga:

And supervision by the team of Acer and Bet:

The priority task was building a simple bench for kids to tuck under,

with a choice of cubbyholes:

Also:

I added cleats to the goat ramp for safety,

attached hardware to the dutch doors for individual use,

ran a heavyduty extension cord from the workshop through the barn wall,

set up a drop light and remounted the goatcam,

swept and rebedded the big stall,

fetched hay and unloaded it,

stored 900 pounds of feed,

and ran a hose to the paddocks.

It was a splendid, magnificent, glorious day!

~~~

This morning, like most mornings lately, I was a bit tired.

I've been waking up about every 2 hours to check the goatcam.

So today, although another nice day weather-wise,

was not likely to be a very productive day.

Kind of a lazy, slouchy Sunday, actually.

Sun porch, chaise, audiobooks and watching the birdfeeder.

Catching up on PBS programs on the laptop.

And in the middle of "Call the Midwife,"

I heard a strange bird.

Beep...beep...beep.

I looked across the porch at Piper.

"Did you just say, beep...beep...beep?"

Then I heard it again.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEEEEEEP!

And I headed for the barn.

A very loud, very insistent, very newborn goat was calling. 

And here's where Lily decided to have her babies this year:

Under the new barn.

Possibly a swell choice for a wild goat.

Not ideal, from my perspective.

Or, really, from Lily's perspective.

Because the first kid, the one who was beep-ing,

had started to stumble off, half-bathed, even further under the barn.

Lily, who was in the process of delivering the second kid,

could not go after the first kid because it is apparently hard

to crawl into an increasingly shallow space whilst giving birth.

So I slid (that sounds much smoother than it was)

under the barn, like a mechanic going under a car but 

without benefit of a wheelie-board,

got my hands on the first half-cleaned kid

(the not-yet-cleaned part was not only gooey and slippery,

but also coated in a layer of earth)

and slid back out into the light of day.

Checked his nose, gently toweled some earthen-coating off,

and set him on a nice pillow of clean hay

in the barn.

Went back under for the second kid, who had had less attention from Lily

and was therefore as gooey and dirty as a newborn kid can possibly be.

Unlike the very vocal silver firstborn,

the black one was quiet, and struggling to get all four legs working.

(The struggling was a good thing, though. Long hind legs can be tough to manage.)

I told Lily, who was still under the barn and shouting about two inches from my face,

that both babies would meet her in the barn, and started inching out.

Lily and I got to the stall simultaneously, and she got right to work:

cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. 

She really is an excellent Mamagoat!

~~~

I promise there will be better pictures soon,

but for now, I thought you might like to see exactly what I'm seeing.

It's after 2 AM and I just checked the goatcam:

~~~~~

indoor chores

It's a raw and rainy day.

Fortunately, there are many indoor tasks awaiting my attention.

Many, many indoor tasks.

I could be doing some of this, for example:

The only thing standing between me and an emulation of Ruth Kellogg's perfectly-postured sweeping* is that my floor is a teensy bit less available than the pristine hallway above.  In fact, the floor is cluttered with boxes and bags and more boxes.

At the moment, walking through the house is an exercise in Interpretive Dance.

Advanced Interpretive Dance.

Because last week, three days into a wrong-headed effort at "organizing" everything I own, just when things looked vastly worse than before I began...

the weather changed.

All indoor work was immediately suspended in favor of an outdoor project, because after months of winter, a clear, warm day is a gift.  A treasure. An opportunity not to be wasted.

And when the bright and breezy weather persisted for several days, the indoor situation settled into an uncomfortable familiarity, whilst general outdoor puttering continued.

And it's been worth it.  There's been a lot of outdoor puttering underway, with at least a bit of progress made on several tasks.  The most satisfying accomplishment is this: after thinking about it for a year, I finally tore out the corner shelving in the little goat barn, removed all the feed and grain bins, and made a tiny stall adjacent to the Main Lounge area.

Here are a few snaps from the GoatCam, just to give you a highly-distorted, wide-angle, low-resolution idea:

original lounge area, with stanchion

Lily by stanchion, for scale

Lily in the little stall, connecting door on right

And here's Violet just visible - see the white ear? - in the corner of the little stall while Lily is in the original area.  The opening between can be quickly gated shut if necessary.  For now, it is like a connecting door in a hotel suite, and the girls spend much of their time to-ing and fro-ing between their rooms, checking out the courtesy bar and waiting for Room Service.

Although I might have gone to all this work just to entertain the goats, in fact there is a good reason.  (Perhaps I should say "another good reason," since I appreciate the value of habitat enrichment as much as anybody.)  Now it is easy to temporarily separate a goat but still keep her or him within the barn group.  Goats are herd animals through and through, and even when they suddenly do not like each other for some reason, they still want to be in close physical proximity.  A goat alone is a very unhappy and stressed goat.

And touch wood that it won't be needed, but from a herd-management perspective, it is always nice to have a "sick bay" for non-contagious issues.  Heck, if I start feeling poorly, I may move into that stall myself.  It's pretty cozy.

~~~

In addition to all this hammer-an-nail stuff, much mundanery came and went.  The most exciting moment was during a walk in the woods with Piper.  She was running far in front of me, as I ambled along enjoying the possibility that Spring will really, truly come.  Then I came around a corner to see Piper walking merrily straight toward a pair of ducks.

Piper was walking on shoreline ice.

The ducks were in open water.

"Piper, COME!"

Grey hairs?  Yes, I've got them.

~~~

It just started snowing again, so before I bring in another load of wood for the stove, I will close with a hopeful gesture:

Organic seeds, organic seed starting mixture, organic eggshells.

Fingers crossed!

~~~~~

*Miss Ruth Kellogg demonstrating correct postures for various forms of housework. 1921-26. Source: Div. Rare & Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library

Lights! Camera!

"Are you getting my good side?  Because if you are NOT getting my good side, I am SO NOT DOING THIS!!"

After a year of pondering, I recently bought a very low-end wireless camera to install as an experimental "barn cam" during kidding season.  If it works as hoped for, this gadget will communicate directly with my laptop and reduce the number of times I need to disturb the does before and during labor.

One doe in particular.  That one, up there.  I love her, and she puts the heart across me with her scary birthing behavior, which makes it impossible for me to really ignore her, but I always wonder if ignoring her would reduce the scary birthing behavior, but since it is SO scary, I can't ignore her, and around we go.

After the "excitement" of last year's kidding, I began dreaming of a way to monitor without disturbing, and discovered (again) that I am way, way behind the times.  Lots of people are doing fairly inexpensive online monitoring of their wildlife, their horses, their babies.  Well, move over, because here comes...

Goat Cam!

Maybe.  If it works.  We'll see.

"Can't wait.  Call me when you're ready for my close-up.  I shall be in my chalet.  It is the one with the big STAR on the door."

Since it is very sunny today (sure, I've had to knock the ice out of the water buckets three times, but it is sunny, which feels very pleasant indeed!), I decided to experiment with my little camera.

It needs to be plugged in, and I'm not sure how far it can be from my router, so I put it just outside the back door where I could step in and out and adjust things easily instead of running back and forth to the barn a dozen times.  Not that the barn is far from the house; it's not.  But every time I take even one step toward the barn, the goats think Room Service is arriving, and they all start hollering encouragement.

It gets old.

For all of us.

So, camera by the back door!

Shortly after I set it up, the camera emailed me pictures of these suspicious-looking characters:

And oh-oh!  This must be the ringleader:

Funniest email I've received today  :)

~~~

Before I can put the camera in the goat barn, I have to cobble together some kind of simple housing for it, to keep it from being destroyed by the ever-present dust from hay and grain.  And goats.  And chickens, come to that; they love to scratch through the bedding in the barn and find every last seed.  They do an excellent job, but the dust is unbelievable.

The housing must also have clear glass in front of the camera.  As you can see, the image quality is Not Great, and that's in lovely, delightful sunlight!  Inside the barn at night the camera will go to infrared, and images will look murky at best.  I could build something nice, but keeping expenses down is key.  Maybe I can find a little thrift-shop aquarium, turn it upside down, and pad around the bottom leaving room for the power cord...that might work.

Meanwhile, at least for today, it's...Chicken Cam!

~~~

"Oh, is that so?  Fine.  I'm calling my agent."

~~~~~