wordless wednesday

 

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tsuga and sambucus

Here's a very special picture I've not shared before:

Lily of the Valley and daughter Tsuga, a few seconds old.

It's been one year today since Tsuga and Sambucus were born.

A "typical" goat gestation is 150 days.

LeShodu, the matriarch, likes to be efficient: she produces her babies on Day 150. 

Thank you, LeShodu!

Her daughters, Violet and Lily of the Valley, were bred for the first time last year.

Those two kept me guessing the whole time.

Had they "settled"?

Had they not?

The nice buck who visited had been very enthusiastic

but his approach was, well, somewhat less than professional.

Directionally-challenged might describe it.

~~~

After months of watching, this is Day 150.

Do these girls look pregnant to you?

I know.
I can't tell either.

When you raise animals, it's hard not to look at things with a "sympathetic eye."

Is she looking a bit heavier than a week ago?

No.

Well, not really. No.

Well...maaaaybeeeee.

"And we aren't telling!"

On Day 149 and Day 150 and Day 151 and Day 152,
I spent some time just watching Violet and Lily

for any changes in behavior.

On the right: Violet.

On the left: me, in a lawn chair.

"Say who is watching who, now?"

Violet could have done this all day.

I doubt anyone has ever won a staring contest with a goat.

~~~

On evening of Day 153, Lily seemed...slightly...hmmmm...

so, after evening chores, I kept a close eye on the goatcam. 

With cashmere goats, a "hands-off" approach is recommended,

but when it seemed Lily might be going into labor,

I went out to the barn to be quietly on hand in case help was wanted.

And as Lily was approaching the brink of giving birth,

Violet, watching from about three feet away, went into labor.

Two first-time mamas-to-be in simultaneous labor!

Good times!

~~~

Lily was that most wonderful of things:

A Natural.

She easily produced the tiny, compact, wavy-coated(!) Tsuga,

and went directly into mama-mode:

cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.

I even had a moment to snap a picture,
which I almost never do during births.

That's the picture at the top of this post.

Within an hour of Lily, Violet also produced a beautiful single girl, but so different!

A long-bodied, long-leggedy, solid black and velvet-coated Sambucus.

The two kids reminded me of an Arabian and a Thoroughbred;

both perfectly proportioned but built so differently.

Violet did not flip the Mama Now switch as instantly as Lily had.

She had just watched Lily give birth, so she was perhaps a bit boggled
about making the shift from Audience to Center Stage.

"Baby? Lily has a Baby! Baby? Baby! Wait, what?"

No photographs this time!

I directed her attention to the beautiful and squalling kid she had just produced, 

"Look, Violet! Your baby is right behind you!"

and made sure Violet was going to get involved with the initial clean-up.

It was touch and go for a minute (which felt like a year to me)
but she gradually shifted her attention to her own kid.

I started to relax.
I had time to dash into the house and fill two clean buckets
with warm water and molasses.

~~~

After each new mama had had a huge drink,

and I was certain both kids were well up, warm, and successfully getting milk,

and each mama had tucked (this is a nice way of putting it; if you saw the way goats move their newborn babies around, it would put the heart across you) her baby into a safe snuggery,
and everyone was settling down for a good nap,

I cleaned up and went back to the house.

Exhausted and relieved.

I kept a sleepy eye on the goatcam.

Not because I was worried; but because now I could enjoy the

"whew!" of a healthy kidding by two first-timers,

and peek in on the maternity ward without bothering the goats at all.

Lily was resting while Tsuga slept under her bench.
Violet was standing with her whole head under the stanchion,

where Sambucus was curled up, sleeping.

(Very attentive, Violet! I was so pleased she had caught on to the mama thing!)

Every now and then I saw Violet pawing

(again, a nice way to put it...paws are soft, goats have sharp hard hooves)

at Sambucus.

Nothing unusual there. Paying attention. Good.

At one point Violet pulled her head back and I could just see Sambucus.

And I realized I wasn't seeing any reaction from the baby - 

not a flinch, not a blink.

Of course, she was probably sleeping heavily.

Nothing unusual there. Full belly, resting up. Good.

But...I am a worrier.

So I dressed and headed back out to the barn.

I quietly said hello to everyone then reached under the stanchion
and gently put my hand on Sambucus.

I was stunned.
She was no longer warm.

She was cold.

And unresponsive.

It had been less than an hour since she was warm, active, and bright-eyed.

I lifted her out, put her inside my down coat 

(to Violet's concern)

and began massaging her gently but briskly, head to toes, all the while

telling Violet, "It's alright, she's right here, I'll give her back, she'll be fine,"

and hoping, hoping, hoping

this would be true.

~~~

Well, you know the happy ending of this story.

Happy First Birthday, Tsuga and Sambucus!

Well done, Lily and Violet.

~~~~~

the chicken and the egg

Soon it will be time to decide whether to add a new group of chicks to the flock.

At the moment, there are only five hens here. The two Buff Orpingtons (one seen above) and the Black Jersey Giant are a few years old now. The Rhode Island Red and the little brown hen are almost a year old. I bought them last autumn to bolster the winter egg supply. I've never added half-grown birds to my flock before, so I cautiously kept the newbies in the barn with the goats for a couple of weeks to watch for any health problems.

The Rhodie in quarantine.

The brown hen began to lay as soon as I brought her home. Her eggs are a very pale green. I've always had brown eggs, so the first light ones were a bit of a novelty. They were also sporadic and very variable in size, but since this was a pullet just beginning to lay, it seemed likely she'd soon settle down into producing a daily egg of consistent size. But she didn't. Instead, she went into a deep, long moult in November, and didn't lay another egg all winter.

The brown hen in moult.

Then all three older hens also decided to take the entire winter off. So for the past four months, the Rhode Island Red has been the only working hen on the place, cheerfully presenting me with a lovely organic egg almost every day.

Thank you, Little Red Hen!!

To recap:

I've been feeding five hens organically all Winter,

in order to have one egg daily.

I am not going to figure out how much those eggs have been costing me,

but it's been a worthwhile expense.

Apart from the value of having fresh, organic eggs in the larder,  

they have also provided a reliably joyful moment

in each dark morning of this bitter Winter.

There's a special pleasure in picking up a warm, newly-laid egg

and holding it in your cold hand for a moment

before continuing on to a series of very cold chores.

Thawing the frozen gate latches. 

Breaking the ice in water buckets.

~~~

Plus, they're pretty. See? 

In the past couple of weeks, the brown hen has just begun to lay. But again, not every day - unless she is laying some of her eggs outside the Poultry Palace. I've had hens try all sorts of places: under a lawn chair on the screen porch, behind a shovel in the goat barn, on top of a tall stack of hay bales...I'll let you imagine how I discovered that last location.

So this morning I kept all the hens in the Courtyard for a while, to encourage laying inside the Palace. Shortly before noon, there was a lot of the sudden, exuberant hollering that some hens do to announce the recent achievement of an egg. Since I didn't recognize the voice, I was not surprised to find a pale green egg in the nest in the Palace, right next to the daily brown egg from the Rhodie.

Here it is:

Do you think this is what was meant by the recipe

that called for "one and a half eggs"?

And in case you may think I just have freakishly tiny hands,

here are the two eggs side by side:

Oh, little brown hen.

 I do wish you would try to pace yourself.

~~~~~~

harvest time

For the past few weeks, I've been combing at least one, usually two, and occasionally three goats nearly every day. Remember Acer the Early Bird? He's done. The others are all in various stages of releasing the fiber on different parts of their bodies. This can go on for weeks, and once you see the signs, the only way to know if a particular goat is ready to be combed on a particular day, is to gently comb a little and see. If the comb feels stuck, no combing today. But if there is a slight but yielding resistance, you know that beneath the concealing topcoat, cashmere is gathering into a roll of near-weightless fluff in the teeth of the comb.

That's it.

That's the cloud harvest. 

Here's how it works:

Once a goat has released the cashmere undercoat, one of two things can happen. 

First, the cashmere may gradually fall off or, more often, be vigorously rubbed off on fencing and trees and the edge of shelters and the tips of horns. Either way, it's gone. 

What's that on your horn, Sambucus?
"I had a ITCH!"

And what's that on your horn, Lily?
"I blame Bui! Seeing her scratching made me itchy, too."

A blend of topcoat strands, bits of hay and old leaves,
muck, ice, and, oh yes, cashmere.

So the first scenario results in lost cashmere, period.

The second thing that can happen: cashmere fibers can be released from the skin but then be caught in the topcoat. As soon as this happens, you have the perfect conditions for combing. And there is no time to delay: it doesn't take long for some of the cashmere to become matted into clumps or tags, making the fiber useless. (At least, as far as I know, it's useless. If anyone knows how to salvage tiny fibers of cashmere from dirty, felted, matted clumps, please let me know! Like spinning straw into gold.)

A lot of fiber is being lost this year, despite the goats' excellent efforts at growing it, and my diligent efforts to collect it. It's due to the variable weather; especially, the wet and the bitter cold that came "after" Winter. Some of the goats suddenly started dropping fiber during a very wet period, and you really can't comb a damp goat. Then after a brief taste of warming weather (when I combed daily), it suddenly got terribly cold again, with ice storms for added drama. Lily and Tsuga had just begun to shed, but as long as the fiber was trapped in the topcoat, it was doing its real job of keeping the animals warm and healthy. So I left it there, and hoped it wouldn't be ruined before the weather changed and it could be harvested.

A lot has been ruined, but some has been salvaged!

And the combing isn't over yet, by any means. On and on and on.

For example, this is what LeShodu looks like right now:

You can bury your icy, numb fingers in that fiber,
and in seconds, you'll feel the heat
radiating back into your hands. 

And this second picture gives you an idea of what she looked like

at this same time, two years ago:

This is all topcoat. She looks like a black bear.

LeShodu is the original source of every bit of cashmere on the place.

She is the Matriarch of the herd, 

and considers herself very much 

The Boss of Them

It's a big responsibility,

but she is up for the task.

"That's right, I'm in charge.
Now, I believe I requested carrots...?"

~~~~~

birthday boys

Happy 2nd Birthday, Acer and Betula!

Hard to believe it was two years ago today.

Two years since your Mama looked at the calendar and said,

"Well, it's pretty cold, and it's really windy.

But it's the 150th day, and the sun is shining, so...Tick-tock!"

Two years since I knelt on the ground,

cutting my fleecy scarf into custom-fit Goat Coats,

hastily stitching them up with scrap yarn and my kitchener needle.

Born To Dance

Acer

aka The Maple Man.

aka The Gentleman Goat.

Betula.

aka The Birch Boy.

aka You Betcha!

And today...

Hard to remember a time when these handsome boyos weren't part of the herd.

~~~~~