Spring is in the Air (and with it, lots of pollen)

I've drafted many posts for this much neglected blog over the past few months, but then wasn't able to get around to publishing them while they were still relevant. Finally, at 1am, I have some time!

We started kidding season on January 27 with a beautiful set of triplets out of Sky Lupine, and we're now up to 69 kids on the ground, with more on the way. We've had four sets of quadruplets so far, plus our first ever quintuplets (and from a first freshener no less), and our first ever sextuplets. Watching Bambi have her six kids was sort of like watching a clown car empty- the kids just kept coming and coming. I've never had this many kids in one year, let alone compressed into about two and a half months and I'm not sure that I'll ever have so many does kid at once again. It is nice to get to evaluate all of the does around the same time, but with the large number of first fresheners, getting all of those girls trained to the milking routine (and keeping it straight in my own mind) is making chore time extra-long. This year I have been letting pretty much all buck kids stay on their moms so I have less bottle feeding to do.

Andy and I have enjoyed watching spring unfold and the warmer longer days which allow us to be more comfortable working outside. As many visitors to our farm know, we are big fans of California native plants, and we've worked to incorporate many more of them onto the property while removing non-native invasive species. We managed to get quite a few new natives into the ground last fall and have spent the last month or so diligently checking on the plants (the spice bush is alive!) and updating each other on their progress (the black oak is leafing out!). We've been exceptionally pleased with the various California lilacs (aka ceanothus) blooming enthusiastically in their new homes. It seems to be a good year for brodea- a very pretty native bulb with purple flowers- in some areas around us, it fills entire meadows. I hope to have some pictures up soon of some of our natives in bloom.

The birdhouse we put up on our own house in an effort to appease the flickers so they wouldn't go after our eves with so much vigor has attracted a very different resident. For the second year in a row, a pair of kestrels is raising a family in that birdhouse, which is somewhat surprising because it is above our heat pump/air conditioner- not exactly the quietest location on the property. We see them often in the largest of our black walnut trees over by the garden and take a certain amount of pride in their return to the farm.

Another birdhouse, which is located on one corner of the garden, has a titmouse family in it. They're quite cute little birds and they swoop in and out of the house with an amazing amount of speed. In fact, we didn't even realize that anything had taken up residence in the birdhouse until Andy heard the peeping of the little ones. A third birdhouse does apparently remain empty, although we have seen western bluebirds checking it out for the last few years. We keep crossing our fingers that they'll move in, but apparently it hasn't quite passed inspection yet. I've also seen a pair of red tailed hawks gathering branches from some of our trees, so they must also be setting up house close by. We can hear ring-necked pheasants near us, and it sounds like wild turkeys are expanding their territory towards us as well.

Andy's been working to get the garden in for the spring- he planted seeds in the greenhouse quite a few weeks ago, and now that we've passed the last frost date, he's able to get some of the seedlings into the ground. Broccoli is in and will soon be joined by peppers, beans, tomato plants, and I believe zucchini will be joining them. We're also going to plant paddy pan squash (the ones that look like alien ships) and pumpkins around the stone fruits- the squash I've requested because the goats enjoy them so much when the squash get way beyond the size that any person would want to eat them. Andy is also planting some flowers for a cutting garden so I can enjoy some fresh flowers in the house. He has also discovered that in addition to the large western fence lizards who live in the greenhouse and keep the place virtually bug free, we now have some sort of frog amongst the seedlings. Between those critters and the ladybugs, we have a full range of natural pest control at our fingertips.

While I'm thinking of it, this month is also perfect for a few goat related items: check the tattoos in your goats' ears and/or tails as they may have faded over the winter. I've lost several legs on one doe in particular because her ears keep absorbing her tattoos. This is also a good time to order fly parasites. We had a subscription for them last year and they work so well. I would recommend them to absolutely anyone- they take the fly population down to about mid-winter levels, which is especially nice when it comes time to clip the girls since I have yet to find a fly spray that actually works.

A Fine Whine

This isn't really an update on farm happenings so much as a whine about how the last couple of months of the year have gone. Just when I was getting caught up on things in November, my lap top (which I use for everything) was hit by a malicious spy-ware attack. For several weeks I was without a computer and it seemed as though every time I thought things were fixed, another problem would pop up or something wouldn't work the way it was supposed to. It's much more complicated than I'd like to explain, but for a couple of weeks, I was just frustrated with everything due to the computer problems. Several hundred dollars later, I have my computer back up and working, along with a better back up system, but I'm still having trouble every now and then just getting on my e-mail.

I finally added DHIA test results to the senior does and first freshener pages for tests done in 2005 and 2006. They only look right on Internet Explorer, and I've only gotten one to look right on Firefox. I've also noticed that lately when I look at pages on Firefox 2.0, there is significant image quality degradation. If any readers of this have figured out tables within tables for Firefox, please drop me a line.

And, since it is December, of course some major appliance has had trouble. Previous Decembers have brought us problems with our septic system, a ceramic stove top that shattered (we must have been out of the house when that one happened), a heat pump that no longer worked, and this December brought us a broken water heater. At the rate things are going, we figure we should start saving up for next December when either the fridge or the oven goes, since those are the only appliances we haven't yet replaced since we moved in.

And to end on a high note- kidding season is just around the corner! Sky should be our first doe to kid, and then we've got nine more scheduled to kid in February.

Hope everyone has a great whatever you celebrate and that 2008 is the best year yet for you and yours.

Fall Update

Whew! It's been a while since either of us had a moment to post, but I think our schedules are getting closer to "back to normal" now.

To recap our summer: we didn't get to make it to nearly as many shows as we had planned to this year, due to a certain event swallowing up most of our time (and energy!). We're looking forward to attending more shows next year, especially since we should have more does in milk this next summer than we did this past year. I had decided at the beginning of the spring that I would not be doing 305 day milk test this summer in hopes of being able to get out and hike and camp more, and may return to testing next year. I was able to manage one weekend of backpacking in the Sierra mountains and may get to squeeze in a few more hikes.

A couple of weeks ago we finished up kiddings for the year, ending much the way we started with the arrival of a couple of buck kids. A grand total of 42 kids were born on the farm this year, and out of that we only got 15 doe kids. It was a rather disappointing year that way- last year we started off with lots of buck kids, but as the kidding season went on, we started getting more doe kids which helped get us closer to a 50-50 ratio. Unfortunately this year, we didn't ever get to more doe kids. We're in the midst of breeding for spring kiddings right now, and I am really hoping that we get better averages next year.

Angora Fire

I meant to publish this earlier, but wasn't able to in between shows. I took the girls to Yerington, Nevada for a fun weekend show- two AGS and two NDGA rings. On the way back, right before I started into the Sierra's, I saw a huge plume of smoke, which was from the newly started Angora fire. I took this picture of it once I had gotten through a good part of the Sierras- the view is from the Mormon Emmigrant Trail. The fire was only a couple of hours old, but this is how big the smoke plume was already. It took the better part of a week and a half to get the fire put out, and I won't be suprised to see more of these fires since we've had such a dry hot year already.

See us on California Country

A couple of months ago, we spent several hours over two weekends with a crew from California Country, a television magazine program of the Farm Bureau. They were filming a segment about how I make soap from goat milk, and how it is packaged and sold at the farmer's market in Davis. The segment finally started running this weekend and can apparently be seen on various affiliate stations and on RFD TV. I've heard from people around California and even Michigan that they've seen it over the last few days. Check your local listings- we're on during the second segment of the show, after a long piece about growing blue berries.

Like what you see?

We would like you to participate in the blog! It's hard to know who is reading it and what you like or what you want to see more of. So please leave a little message, greeting or just put your name down just so we know that people are reading the blog.

Madera show goes well for Sarah

We had a nice trip down to Madera, CA. for the CCDGA goat show. Our own little TX Twincreeks WDF Sunprite won Grand Champion Sr. doe in milk and Reserve in the second ring. In addition some congratulations go to Debbie Toomey for her Jr. Grand Champion doe CRF Castle Rock Snowflower winning in the second show. Yay!!!

Garden Photos

I told you I would post them. From top to bottom - Early Girl tomato leaf measures 18 inches, a look between a row of tomatoes (the cages are 5 feet tall), a broccoli head measuring 9 inches across and Polish garlic with Lapines cherrys. The tomato plants were started in the greenhouse the third week in March and planted the first week in May. Plants that started 6-8 inches tall are now 3-41/2 feet tall in just 37 days. Yes, we are going to have a great tomato year. If you are at the farm in the next couples of months, you may go home with some.

Happy June!

I can't believe that it is June already! Where is the year going?

We're in the midst of show season right now and it has been great seeing our goat friends, although I think the does are a little unhappy with how many shows they've gone to where the weather is quite a bit cooler than what they are used to at home.

All of our bottle babies are weaned as of this week. Yay! Bottle feeding a couple of kids is quite fun- when you get over four of them on the bottle at a time, and when they near two months old, they can get pretty pushy. I think next year we may invest in a lamb-bar/bucket feeder to shorten the amount of time it takes to feed all of the kids. We have two more does due at the end of the month, and then we're done until the fall.

We did a count the other evening of how many goats we had on the property and came up with a grand total of 51. Looks like the "For Sale" page may need some updating soon. This morning, we were looking out at the pasture where the does were up visiting the bucks (on opposite sides of the fence), and with about 40 of the goats in one place at the same time, it did indeed look like we had quite a herd. Since the goats are so small, it doesn't usually look like we have that many of them, but this morning it did.

Interested in goat shows?

Show season has started so trying to get a hold of us on any given weekend will be tough at best. If you are interested in goats, want to know more about showing them, milking them or just want to hang out with us, check out the website for the most up to date information on goat shows in Northern California. The weekend of May 19-20 we will be in Placerville and Memorial Day weekend at the REDGA show in Santa Rosa. http://www.castlerockfarm.net