Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs

I like signs.  I don't know why, but on this farm, I put signs everywhere.  And they make me happy.  And I should be happy, because it's my farm.  I work here and live here and love it here and have made it my own.  So, signs are the where it's at!

Some signs are very common-- everyone has them

These are very necessary to us, as we live in a wooded area, and hunting season is full of, well, hunters. It works pretty well on the hunters (so far), but it does not work on the local kids, who still use our creek as a swimming hole. 

Some signs are just "for pretty"

I don't remember where I saw this quote, but I liked it, so I made it into a sign.

Some signs are informative

Proceed at your own risk

And some signs have no words, and no real point, except that I like labeling things, so that's why they're there

Yup, everyone got a sign on their gate

Plus, I think it looks nice.

But with the arrival of our newest farm members

I told you everyone got a sign.  I don't lie!

There needs to be additional signs put up.  It seems that the goats are adorable (no kidding!) and since they are in the "front yard", they attract unwanted attention from children.  Who feed them.  Which is bad.  So some new signs are going up, as the NO TRESPASSING sign does not seem to be doing it's job.

They're not done yet, so I can't take a picture, but this is what they will say.  Some are straight forward, and some are fairly snarky, because I am apparently a snarky kinda girl.  (I didn't know that, but after I saw this definition: A witty mannerism, personality, or behavior that is a combination of sarcasm and cynicism. Usually accepted as a complimentary term. Snark is sometimes mistaken for a snotty or arrogant attitude.
Yes, that's me.)

And it's my farm.  'Nuff said.

In the straightforward category:

"If you feed our goats, please be prepared to pay the vet's bill.  Thank you"

Straightforward and snarky-ish:

"Many plants are poisonous to goats.  Do you know what they ALL are?  Please don't feed our goats."

Getting snarkier:

"Our goats' browsing is carefully watched.  Yours isn't.  Please don't feed our goats."

And finally, snarky with some humor attached:

"These goats are our milk supply--Please don't play with our food."

I happen to like the last two the best, but that's because I am who I am.  I'm figuring most people won't get the last one, but I think it's funny, and that's all that matters.  For those who don't understand it, the other three should help them out.






Linking to:

Look!  Another sign!

Rundling

To Rundle:  To run/waddle.  ie:  When you're too fat to run, so you waddle, but really, really fast.

Example:

Watch the last one after she stops flapping.  It's the best shot, as she's running towards the camera.

Tee hee!

Went to the Vet, Made Some Soap

I apologize for the last title.  It was coarse, but wow, did I feel sick after seeing that show.  Unbelievable.
This title is much nicer and more straight-forward, don't you think?

This morning, I took Minerva to the vet.  I got up at my normal time, to do my normal 400 chores, and when I went to let my girls out to their pen, Minerva did not want to go.  So I rattled the grain, like I do, and then she usually comes running like a shot.  Not today.  She stood there and looked at me and did not move.  That's not good.

So I put the grain under her nose, because she LOVES her grain.  No dice. 

Then I got the goat treats out, which no one can resist, and Lilly was very glad to eat hers--and Minerva's, because Min did not want any.

Oh boy.

Now, I'm no goat expert, and the learning curve for these ladies has been unbelievably steep, but I know one or two things, and one of the things I know is that a goat who won't eat is a goat who's not well.  I looked her over, but hell, I had just no idea.  She seemed a little distended in her abdomen, and I know she's been fighting a cold, but I had no idea which issue was the one causing her not to eat.  Was it bloat?  Was it upper respiratory?  She wasn't talking. 

I gave her a bit of ProBios, and took her temp.  No temp, and she sorta took the ProBios, but the biggest worry for me?  When I fed Dulci, she did not try to steal the bottle.  Min loves the bottle.  Min is a big baby.  But today, Min was not interested.   That is bad.

Luckily we have a large animal vet near-ish by.  They keep large animal hours, so when I called, they were there.  Yeay!  I drove Min on down, and the vet looked her over and listened to her lungs and her rumen, and said her lungs were clear, and her rumen was moving, but slowly.  So what's wrong?  Hard to say.  The vet thought it probably had to do with the upper respiratory infection, so she gave her some Baytril.  She was also kind enough to draw me a syringe for Lilly, because if one girl has something, the other does too.

Happily, while we were at the vet, Min pooed a bunch of times and peed a river, so I know she's not stuck.  She also burped a little, so things seemed to be moving along a bit.  Right now, Min is laying with Lilly in the pen--that's pretty normal for them, and considering that it's 45 degrees outside, staying warm is nice.  She has eaten some dry leaves (which she really likes for some reason) today, and I'm pretty sure I've seen her chewing her cud.  When I went out before, her stomach was less distended than before.  I tried to give her some Pepto-Bismol (at the vet's recommendation), but she wasn't loving it.  Goats are very hard to force to do something if they don't want to, did you know that?  I do now.  I think I got about 1/2 the dose in her before calling it quits.  She is still sneezing, but I haven't heard her cough again, and that's good.  Lilly's dose of Baytril is waiting on the counter until my able-bodied assistant (my husband) comes home.  I am hoping that this is going to knock out whatever they've been entertaining in there once and for all.

But do I know what's wrong? No.  I don't even know if she's any better.  I am pretty stressed out about it, because she's my girl.  I am checking on her way more than I should.

What did I learn from this?  Well, I learned that there's a good large animal vet exactly where I thought there was a good large animal vet, and that's very good, because now I know where to go.  I also learned that my girls are very important to me.  Very few animals get a trip to the vet when they're sick.  Ginger is the only other one.  Everyone else gets a home fixin' up, and that's that.  Min's my girl, though, so she gets to go if she has to go.  I also learned that I must know more than I think I know about goats because the vet said I was "well educated".  That's nice, but man, do I still feel stupid.  If anyone who owns goats can recommend a good book, I would appreciate it.  I have How to Raise Goats by Carol Amundson and How to Raise Dairy Goats by Martha Maeda.  They're both good, but not enough. I've read the Storey books, but I didn't feel they gave enough information.   I also have  a veterinary guide, but it turned out to be less than useless.  Any suggestions you can give would be huge.  Thanks!

On the lighter side, I made more soap.  When I went about soapmaking the last time, I made everyone soap except for me.  So I remedied that yesterday, and today was the big reveal.

The color is like a russet-rose, with a natural tone on the bottom.  The scent is English Rose, or something like that.   The kitchen smells really nice right now, I can tell you that.  My issue with this batch is that the natural color went to thick trace much more quickly than I expected, so I couldn't swirl the pink in as much as I would have liked.  Ah well, live and learn.  It's only for me, so it's just fine.  At least it smells good.

Six weeks until I can use it.  I'm looking forward to it.

To give myself something else to do yesterday, I popped out a few "cheater" soaps,

ie; melt and pour.  Cheater soap is instant gratification: melt, scent, color, mold, done.  Fun stuff.  The top two are for my mom, to thank her for the molds.  The bottom batch I did so I have soap until the stuff I made is ready to use (there were more of them, I just didn't think you needed to see them all--did you?).  I also hand-poured a candle for a giveaway I'm sponsoring next month.  Vanilla Black Raspberry-yum!

Well, that's all the news that's fit to print.  I need to go out and brave the arctic and feed Dulcinea.  Hopefully I will have to fend off Minerva, too.  I've got my fingers crossed.

'Till then,

And Then I Vomited

I was reading a whole bunch of different blogs, and came across this:

http://video.pbs.org/video/2214315175/

It's basically a 53 minute feel-good ad for chemical fertilizer, monocropping, CAFOs, and corn. 

I don't believe I've ever seen a show that puts a "positive spin" on large scale butchering of cattle on an assembly line.  Holy crap.

And it was sponsored by Dow.  Go figure.

Watch it with a pail handy, just in case.  I warned you.

Things

You wouldn't know it to look at my kitchen counters (or dining room table), but I'm a stickler for organization.  Everything has a place, or it should.  When it comes to my animals, I am very organized.  I have a bin for syringes, one for meds, and one for first aid.  Outside, everyone has their own color-coded tub with their feed in it, and yes, the scoop is matching color-coded as well. 

It's a thing.  I can't help it. 

The other thing I have is keeping records about the animals.  I use black and white notebooks.  I usually fill the first pages with information that I learned from books about the type of animal, because yes, I study the animal's needs before I invest.  That's a thing too.

After all the information, I keep records as to what happened that day, or who hatched what, or what is going on.  I do this because there is just no way I'm going to remember it all.  My head's too full, and stuff just leaks out.  I have found that keeping a notebook for each type of animal is what works for me.  But the black and white notebooks are ugly, so I cover them.  I cover them according to what animal's information is inside, so they are all different, and at a glance I can see which one I'm going for.  Plus, they look much nicer on the bookshelf.   I was pretty proud about my last fabric findings, do you want to see?

I've had this one a while:

Chickens, obviously.  This is an oldie, but a goodie.  I no longer update it as faithfully as I once did, as I'm an "old hand" at chicken wrangling, but I do record new members and hatch dates and such. 

Then there's this one:

Ducks.  It was so hard to find a duck fabric that was NOT wild mallards and hunting, so I went for this one, with the little ducklings on it.  My daughter loves it.  However, ducks were not as hard to find as fabric for this one:

Geese.  Yep, there's not a goose on it.  I could not find a fabric with a domestic goose on it to save my life.  Americans just don't equate geese with farm animals, I guess.  I had to go with the goose feather theme instead.  Don't think it doesn't bug me.  It does.

Speaking of bugs:

Bees.  Yep, even though my bees all flew to Mexico or were abducted by aliens, they have a notebook.  We will re-bee next year, I think.  Hopefully it will go better.

This was my latest find, and let me tell you, I was psyched!!

Goats!  Like you couldn't tell, right?  How exciting is this?  Stupid fabric is so expensive now, I hardly buy any, but when I saw this I had to buy a little to cover my notebook.  This notebook has the potential to be the fattest one I own, because there is a tremendous amount I don't know about goats and their care is quite a bit more complicated than a chicken's.  Nothing like a challenge to shake up life, huh?

There is one more, and it's slightly irreverent, but I could not resist. 

I warned you...

Meat Birds.  I know, it's just wrong.  Now you know a little more about me than you did-I have a wicked sense of humor (and I'm super sarcastic, but that never comes out in writing well). 

I'm thinking I'll be putting the turkeys in here as well, but I'm not sure.  Most are destined for the table, but I do intend to keep a couple, so I'll have to see.  Anyone know where I can find a turkey fabric?

4+2=6

Maybelle is a mama who will go down in infamy, at least in my book.

You might remember Maybelle was sitting on 4 duck eggs and 1 goose egg.  I had no idea when she actually sat, but my guess was March 24th-ish, putting her "due date" around here sometime.  Well, on Saturday, after I came back from picking up Dulci, my son tells me he thinks he saw a little baby in with Maybelle in her house.  Of course, I had to check it out, and lo and behold, there was!  But it wasn't a duck.  It was this little one:

Was kind of hoping it would be a little Maybelle, but it seems it might be a little Arthur, instead.  OY!!

The one goose egg.  Of course!  It would be the one I was sort of hoping wouldn't hatch.  I got a look at baby and mama, and she seemed to be doing alright.  The baby was hiding under her wing, as goslings do, and Maybelle was completely over-reacting to my presence, the way new mamas do, so I left her alone.

The next night I went to check and see if there were any more developments, and I found Charles in the house with her, harassing her.  She was very agitated, and had crushed two of her eggs.  One I could not save.  The other was peeping and wiggling, so I brought it in, away from the insanity, to hatch.  I also removed Charles and shut the door on Maybelle to give her some peace.  The little one hatched, and it was this little one:

Mutt duck:  Khaki Campbell/Welsh Harlequin cross. 
A Khaki Harlequin?  A Welsh Campbell?

I kept the baby inside for the night, under a heat lamp.  The next day (yesterday), I brought it out, and put it with mama and checked the other eggs.  She accepted the baby, and the other eggs were not hatching, so I gave mama some food and water, locked the door so she could have some peace, and left her alone. 

All seemed fine until I went to check on her last night.  Turned out that the two eggs hatched during the day, and for some reason I cannot understand, Maybelle killed her babies.  When I got to them, they were both crushed.  How heartbreaking.  Needless to say, I was very upset at how senseless it all was.  I removed the last duckling from under her (the one that hatched previously), and put it with the four that are in the brooder currently.  I left her the gosling.  She'd had it since Saturday, and it had a tendency to sleep in her wing or on her back, so I didn't feel that it would be crushed.  Possibly she just did not understand that ducklings do not do that and misjudged.  I don't know.  I didn't want to risk any more lives, so I left her with her "own kind".

Fast forward to this morning, when I get up to do the morning feedings, and found the gosling wandering around out in the goose yard, being attacked by every goose out there.  Where was mama?  Inside her house (which was open, by the way), not a care in the world.

Motherly instinct, my eye.  I tried to give the baby back, but she went starkers.  I took the baby inside to be in the brooder with the other five ducks.  The little one settled right in.

As always, the gosling's the one with the big mouth!

Now there are 6 inside the large brooder, and Maybelle is out with the gaggle like she hasn't a care in the world.  Fantastic. 

Compare that, if you will, to Ginger.  She's a pariah with the gaggle, and she only hatched ducks, but she is so vigilant and careful with them, it's not even funny.

"I keep telling you!  Stay AWAY from my children!!!"

"We are SOOOOOOO outta here!"

She walks around all day long with the two little ones circling her feet like she's a planet and they're her moons.  She never steps on them and she takes them everywhere she goes.  She's even figured out that they should sleep in her house with her at night, instead of in the bushes (yeay!).  She's a good mama.

Maybelle, not so much.  I played the shouldawouldacoulda game all last night, while I beat myself up for not doing something sooner.  Or seeing this happening.  But how could I have?  It was a tough lesson to learn though, and it cost two lives to learn it.  I don't ever relish adding to our cemetery, and it seems I've been adding to it too much lately.  This one was a tough one, I'll tell you that. 

This life has so much joy, and so much sadness, doesn't it?  This is one of those "mixed blessings" kind of times, and it's hard to know whether to laugh or cry.  Hell, maybe I'll do both.

Be happy, friends,

A Little Insurance

I'm a day late with this post, but I have a good reason for it.  Wanna see what it is?

On Saturday, I took another trip. 

Over the mountain ( kind of live on the mountain, so it's not as big a deal as it seems):

Past some fields:

And some really nice barns:

Not far at all really, but it was a beautiful drive.  This was the second time I'd made this drive, but this time it was to pick up some "insurance".

This insurance:

Her name is Dulcinea.  We call her Dulci.

Look Ma!  Tiny ears!

She's a Lamancha kid (could you tell?) who's all of two weeks old yesterday.

I didn't want a bottle baby-I didn't need all the work.  But her owner breeds mama for milk, and not for kids, and didn't want to keep her any longer than she had to.  Fair enough, but the transition has been rough on Dulci.  She went from 2 siblings, a brother and a sister, and a mama with a lovely udder to no siblings and a bottle with cow's milk in it.

Not fair.

She's been a good sport about it, finally figuring out the bottle late Saturday night.  She finally drank a really good amount yesterday for the first time.  This morning she did pretty well.  Still, she is a bit stressed, and it's been a little rough going.

She did meet her new sisters, Lilly and Minerva, and they get along ok, but Minerva is the queen and can be too rough.  Lilly has butted her also, but nowhere near as hard. With the rain we've had, no one's been outside, having to stay in the indoor pen.  Dulci doesn't have anywhere to run in the inside pen to get away from Min, so she's got her own pen adjoining the big girls' house.  It makes her sad, because she's lonely.  So she spends way too much time in the house with us so she has someone to talk to.

As you can see, no one is happy about that.

Dulci is here not because I specifically wanted a third goat, but as insurance.  The other two girls, Lilly and Minerva, come from the same herd (not same moms).  I don't know their track record.  They could be amazing milkers, or terrible milkers (either way, they stay, because I am just too in love with the both of them).  Dulci comes from a mama with a proven record.  I met her mom, and her dad (she looks like her dad) and I know her history.  So hopefully, she's a good one.  Also, if anything were to happen to one of my other girls (heaven forbid!), one won't be alone.  In this very short time that the girls have been here, I can see that a lonely goat is a BIG problem. 

In any case, she's here, and we just love her.  Stay tuned for many more stories about the three goat girls!

One Week Later

Baby update!

Let's start with the feathered first, and end with the furred.  On the feathered front, the little ducklings are doing just fine.

They are spending as many days as possible out in the "tractor" in the sun.  They are getting big.  I put them out with the class chicks, whose rear ends you can see here:

And here's the other one:

They are also getting big. 

Celebrating their one week birthday this week are these two little ones:

Can you see them under Ginger's crippled wing?  Ginger finally switched from sitting mode to mommy mode on Sunday and started to walk around with them.  They walk right beneath her feet, which is funny to see-especially because she never seems to step on them.  There have been some problems with these guys, mostly because Ginger is such an outcast amongst her own tribe, as it were.  She's not allowed near them, so she doesn't have access to the pond like they do.  That's meant a lot of special care on my part, which is tiring.  I've had to find where she is and feed them, because now she's not allowed to eat with the gaggle.  Luckily, Ginger is smart, and remembered that she can come get me at the front door, if she needs me.  Yesterday I found her "knocking" at the front door, babies in tow.  I realized she needed food and water, so I served her on the porch.  Since that worked, she did the same thing this morning.  So now maybe we have a system.  We'll see.

Now for the furred.  Let's start with the littlest, the kittens.

The little stripey blobs have been moved behind my husband's dresser, by Ellie.  I think she didn't want us touching them anymore.  See this face?

Look at those little fatties!  They are huge next to Ellie (who is small, granted)!

It clearly says, "Leave my babies alone, sucker!!".  Usually she's yelling at me when I stick my head back there, I just didn't catch it that time. 

Anyway, her babies are getting big and fat and walk like little walruses, and they yell when you pick them up. 

(There's no nice way to hold them, because they squirm, so it looks like I'm squishing him here, but I'm not.)

That's better, see?  He was quiet for all of 2 seconds. 

The boys are much more vocal than the girl, but they are all sweet.  One more week and their eyes should be open and hopefully they won't yell as much when they're handled.  I only can assume that they yell now because they're being moved and can't see what's going on.  That's got to be disconcerting.

Sigh.

And now onto the BIG furry babies:

Ah, my girls.  I just LOVE them.  They are sweet and funny and frisky and gentle all at the same time.  They are always happy to see me and I get lots of goaty hugs. 

With these girls here, the place feels complete.  Happiness. 

We've gotten our routine down-ish.  They are currently sleeping in a nice pen in the garage-barn, so every morning, I bribe them with a little grain to get them to go into their outdoor yard, where they spend the day, browsing and possibly eating hay (which they would rather not have, it seems, as they seem to prefer dry leaves or weeds or even sticks).  They get grain for dinner when everyone gets fed, and then after we've had dinner (the people, I mean), they get to free-browse while I watch them until my husband comes home.  They love that.  And they love him, too.  They run right up to him and chew his shirt and give him goaty hugs.  What open-hearted little creatures these two are!  It's really something.

Anyway, I have some more to tell you on the goat front, but it'll have to wait until Sunday, methinks. Until then! 

Just Burns My Biscuits!

I love that expression.  Know what I don't love?  Ignorant people.  I just came back from the feed store (my home away from home lately), and this is what happened:
I was looking over the chicks, waiting to be rung up (the clerk was on the phone), and I was talking to a man who was looking into buying some chicks for his kids to keep as pets.  Personally, I don't think chickens are pets, but I know a lot of people do, so I was giving him some pointers as to which breeds might work best and the very basics on what they need to have to be cared for properly.  As we were talking, an older couple walks in and looks at the brooders filled with chicks, one of which had meat birds in it.

Do you know where this is going yet?  Because I'm betting a whole bunch of you have had this same experience, and you know what I'm going to say before I say it.  But here it is anyway.

The wife looked at the meat birds, and said to her husband, "Meat birds?  How could anyone do that?"

To which, since I was in a friendly, talkative mood, jokingly replied, "It helps if you don't name them."

Bahdumbum.  Stupid joke, but come on.  I know the woman understood that it was a joke, but she looked horrified all the same.  Now I was a monster who killed chickens.  So I tried to explain "They're not like layer hens.  They're not able to live more than 8-10 weeks.  They're bred purposely that way."

Now the clerk (her name is Teresa) joined me and said exactly what I just said as well.  They don't live long, blah blah blah.  But that just made it worse, and the woman looked at the both of us like we had two heads.  We just dropped out of the conversation with her and went back to talking about what we were talking about before. 

I was ignoring the woman at this point and her "holier than thou" attitude, when I heard her say to the man behind me (who was the one I was talking to about layers before) "We treat our animals like family.  When they die, we mourn them."

I didn't say anything, but the implication was that people who would raise/butcher meat birds must not care about animals.  Oh, puhleeeze.  In retrospect, I should have said this:  Taking a life is no small thing.  It does NOT mean I don't care about the animals I raise.  In fact, I go out of my way to make sure they are happy and well fed and watered and comfortable.  Yes, they are meant for a certain "destiny", but it does NOT mean I will not mourn them.  I will, in my own way.  Your supermarket chickens had a horrible life compared to my birds.  Who really cares about animals now?

Of course I didn't say it.  But I should have.  Geez.  Ignorant people really burn my biscuits!

Spring is Springing!

This is, without a doubt, the "springiest" spring we've had here.  What do I mean?  We've got babies coming out of the woodwork!  Well, not literally.....

You already know about the class chicks.  They've been home a little while, but they are still in the brooder, so they are still babies.

Why is this picture sideways, Blogger?  Why???

Interesting blend of genetics here.  I seem to have one Copper Marans, two Ameraucana/something combos, one red and one white, and one something/Silkie because she's WAY too small to be anything else.  We sure know how to brew 'em here.

Then we have our ducklings.  The planned ducklings, ordered back in January.  They arrived on Wednesday and are doing wonderfully.

The little yellow ones are White Cresteds and the little brown at the top and the black on the bottom are Runners.  I think the Runners are my favorites.  They are always so friendly.

Then we have the little striped trio:

Gah!  Curse you, Blogger!!!!

You might notice that we're lacking the little black one.  Unfortunately, shortly after she was born, she started breathing oddly.  We did what we could, but she passed on anyway.  The little lives are so fragile.  I am very glad to say that the three here are doing very well, eating like little pigs and seemingly thriving.  We have one girl and two boys and they are precious.  Ellie is a superior mother.  When they all lay together, they are a stripey stripe-apalooza.  It is wonderful to see.

Today, we had some surprise babies!  I walked past Ginger, who didn't scream like a banshee, and I looked at her to see why.  Lo and behold:

Crazy Ginger hatched her babies.  Two little ducks, one looks like a Runner/Blue Swedish, and the other is a Welsh Harlequin/something combo.  We have interesting genetics here, don't we?  Chicken or duck, we offer interesting combinations, it seems.

They look to be about a day old, so I think they hatched yesterday, and we didn't see.  Unfortunately, Ginger was still sitting on her nest, on the third egg, which had either hatched and smothered, or rotted after being pretty well developed, and it STANK.  Ugh.  She seemed to still think it was going to hatch, but obviously, that wasn't gonna happen.  I held my nose and cleaned out her nest, hoping she'd now give it up.  She hasn't so far.  If she doesn't take the babies for food and water soon, I'll have to take them away.  I did sneak in and give them some water (fighting off the blows from Ginger at the time), and they were thirsty.  I am really hoping she gets on it and does what she's supposed to do.  If not, they'll join the four other little ones.  It wouldn't be ideal, though.

You'd think that was it, right?  Nah.  I've got more.  Yesterday saw the arrival of the two biggest babies yet to grace Chicken Scratch.

Yep, our little long-awaited goat girls came home!  After a very long ride from western New York, after gallons of goat pee and a slightly car sick goat (and a VERY carsick me), I present to you

Lilly (Lillypad)

and

Minerva!

How do you name your animals?  I often wait to see what they "look" like and then name them what seems to be right for them.  Sometimes they don't seem to have an name.  But did you ever have an animal name themselves?  I never have.  Minerva is the first.  Lilly looked like a Lilly to me when I met her, and I thought it would fit her, and it does.  But Minerva didn't have a name.  She didn't look like any name I could think of.  Nothing fit.  Honestly, I was just going to bring her home, live with her a little while, and see what might work.  But yesterday, I got her in the car, jumped in myself, said hi to Lilly, and then out came "Hi Minerva!".  Yeah.  I don't know where it came from.  It wasn't a name I had even thought of.  But there it was, so I have to figure she picked it herself.  And there she is.  Minerva.

Minerva is the herd queen.  Where Minerva goes, Lilly follows.

Eating from their outdoor hay rack

Minerva enjoys tasting everything.  Everything.

Like my book

Lilly is sweet.

 Lilly is more gentle.  Lilly like rubs on the bridge of her nose and on her hard walnut-shell head.

Don't you love their bright pink water bucket?  They didn't trust it yesterday, but now they do.

They both like to sit with me in their run, right up against me.   They are learning quickly how to walk on a leash.  They both bleat like mad when I go away. Though I love the noise (if I could bottle it for a bad day, I would.  I really think it would do the trick and brighten the day up), I'm hoping they will stop, because it makes me feel bad.  I think it's because they came from a much larger herd, and now that there's two, it feels like they're all alone.  Poor little puddings.  I visit as much as I can, which I know is counterproductive. 

It's just like babies.  Oy.  But I am pleased to say that they are doing very well and are sweet, sweet girls.  I don't think I've yet had an animal that is as accepting and open as these two are.  They are a joy.

And that's really it.  Be prepared for many more stories about all these little ones.  We are hopping!


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