Jumping Baby Goats!

May 04, 2024

Happy Saturday friends!

Let's start with the baby goats shall we? We all know that's what's most important! The video above was taken so I could send the sound of the cicadas in the background to my brother in Pittsburgh but the babies decided to be silly too! Do you hear that whirring sound? There are two broods, a 17 year and a 13 year and they are creating a really interesting sound that sounds like an alien ship is getting ready to land. Kinda cool. If you are in Colorado or other drier places with fewer trees, you probably have never heard this. I don't remember hearing it in the 18 years we lived in Colorado. Apparently there has to be a lot of trees around for them to lay their eggs on the leaves and those trees still have to be there 17 years later for them to complete their cycle. The sound you hear is the males. We also have annual cicadas here but they sound completely different. Aaaaand...back to the goats!

I love that I have 3 generations of black and white goats here on the farm!

B-Rad getting a morning snuggle:

This one makes me both laugh and feel such a sweetness. I wonder how she feels being a new mom? She's very good at it. Does she wonder about the changes in her body? I love her, she is a sweetheart—she always allows her babies to get the first snuggles but she never leaves herself out, she makes sure she gets some love too. What a good lesson for all of us parents and caregivers:

This photo...just happened to catch it perfectly! It seemed that little Parsley was lining up at the Milk Bar:

At this age baby goats start going through the stage of everything goes in their mouth! They try everything, mom's grain, mom's hay, grass, dirt, wood, brooms:

Bonnie takes some cute pics when she comes for visits:

Speaking of Bonnie, she sent me the nicest words after Sage went to heaven, that really helped my heart heal quite a bit. I'm going to share them in case anyone might be going through something similar:

"Try hard to keep focused on what was true in this situation...you know in your heart you were ready to take on the challenges but it was outside circumstances that caused you to have to make the decision you made. Those two dogs love you and you love them. You couldn't sacrifice two to save one. We all know your heart and how big and kind and caring it is. Sometimes we really have no choice but to choose between the least of two evils and this was one of those times. Even if you had tried to keep Sage...what kind of life could you truly have provided for her and her limitations? You would have even had to sacrifice your life for Sage. You have way too many others who depend on you and love you dearly. She is now able to see and run and hop freely without any boundaries. She will be waiting for you..." ❤️

Several other people said they thought that Mom needed a snuggle buddy :-) One felt that Sage was Mom's soul coming for a short visit, just to be with me. And another had a beautiful vision as Sage was crossing over: Mom sitting in a chair, patting her leg for Sage to come to her. Sage bounded over and put her tiny feet on Mom's knee. An outpouring of sweetness over our little baby goat.

And now the babies are 2 weeks old and are just about ready to be fully integrated into the herd. On Friday I let all 3 adult girl goats into the mom/baby pasture while we were doing chores in there and while there were a few head butts to the babies, nothing major! Next week I hope to get the larger girl goat pasture fully baby proofed so we can do that. I know Dancer misses her mom Alaska too so it's time to reunited everyone!

Even the Polar Bear is getting in on it. I love how gentle she is with them:

The babies are so funny, sometimes they climb up in my lap and just lay completely sprawled out, belly flat out on my legs:

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Last weekend, in between smooching on baby goats, I pulled out all my planting stuff and took over the kitchen island again:

Since I inherited the bulk of Mom's plants, I still had a lot left to repot from the last time I did this. A few days after I had cleaned up and thought I was all done, I realized there were still 3 more plants in my bedroom that needed new pots too! Sigh. Next time :-)

This time I did a lot of consolidating, planting several kinds of plants in the same pot with the same watering needs and similar light needs. This is my huge Mother-in-Law's Tongue aka Snake Plant. I bought it last year at Whole Foods of all places for only $15! I've seen others this size since for $50-75! I love this thing and it's growing like a weed and has gained at least a foot in the year I've had it!

But I also have this crazy philodendron (the leafy stuff at the bottom) that was Mom's. It came from her original plant that was so fast growing that she once found that it had grown into the house (between the sheet rock and the trim and had little hairs along it's length that was stuck to the sheetrock! I trimmed it back for her just before she passed away and it quickly grew in water. I planted it in a pot and figured it would be fine for some years. LOL. It outgrew that pot too. So, Now it's in with this huge MIL Tongue. I think they will get along well together :-)

I had never had a MIL Tongue before Mom's plants and I find that they add some nice height in decorating. This one I replanted and added some Ivy to it as well:

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Odds and ends around the farm:

17 year cicada:

And this is what you see when you look up in the trees. This is what the cicadas come out of, that's just a shell now:

Found in lower garage where we store the hay and horse food:

Also found in the lower garage! We kept seeing poop and we thought we had a rat! Then one evening I went down there for something and found this young opossum. Those ears ❤️:

I was out tying two pieces of fence together with baling twine so the babies wouldn't get out and into the horse/donkey section and Little Man Sweetness came over to see what I was doing:

•••

Have you guys been seeing the Bear vs Man fuss all over the socials? The question is: If you're walking through the woods alone, which would you rather run across? A lone man? Or a lone bear? Men's answers are all over the map. But almost all women say, "The bear. The worst that could happen would be death." When the good men realize what women are saying, they are horrified. When the bad men realize what women are saying, they get angry.

I love this guy, you can see what he said about the bear or man question here.

When I asked ManChild the question, he said, "The man. You?" I told him the bear and why. His eyes went wide and he said, "JeSUS." If you have teen boys, bring this up with them. Even my sweet ManChild was shocked.

And this one just made me laugh:

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The MEMES!

As an ambivert (half introvert, half extrovert) introvert memes always make me laugh! But I never see the extrovert memes! Where are they?

First, if you live in the burbs this probably won't be of interest and you wouldn't even know what the tool holding the staple is. But if you have ever had to put up fence, check this out, OMG! No more smashed fingers: