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.