Mama goose fights off mini donkey! 😲

May 11, 2024

Happy Saturday friends!

I've been enjoying the new goslings lately. This couple had 7 babies and even after a week or so of living in the wild, they are all still alive! Goslings are constantly being eaten by all kinds of things in and around the pond, including turtles so to still have all the babies is an amazing testament to their parenting skills.

There was one set last year that only had one baby and they were the best parents ever. They would duck under water and pop up all around their little gosling who was happily paddling and splashing away, and I always thought they were chasing the turtles away.

Maybe this is the same set? Because the coolest thing happened this week! I happened to be outside when I saw the donkeys running around with their heads lowered like they were trying to bite something. What in the world! I heard a honk and a flap and Jaffee skittered away. Then one goose come out from under the fence with 5 babies but the other goose and goslings were still in with the Sweetness who was trying to get them. All in the same moment as I realized what was going on and started to run toward them, the parent inside the fence flew about 3 feet into the air (donkey head high) and chased Sweetness off while beating his head with its wings! Wow! The babies scurried under the fence and the parent followed and they were all safe and together once more. Whew! I wish I had a video!

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Last weekend was B-Rad's birthday! We had 13 people at the farm and served his favorite—Greek food along with 2 huge cakes!

The birthday boy and a few of the grandkids:

The three of us were toast the next day and lazed around although I did spend some time doing some meal prep too. ManChild's room is just behind the kitchen and he was trying to nap. I was trying to be quiet! But alas, he sent me this snarky video 😂 showing the difference between a kid whose mom is napping vs the mom when the kid is napping. Made me laugh out loud!

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My first 4 week Women's Circle only has 3 more spots open, if you're interested, send me an email: [email protected]. Here are the details in short:

•Once a week for 4 weeks
•Saturdays from 10am-1pm
•May 18th, May 25th, June 1st, June 8th
*$140 for the session

I will have a short supply list going out in the next couple of days so you'll have time to order on Amazon or go out and buy. We'll start out in the fenced pavilion in the lower pasture, surrounded by the horses Wynter and Rayn, the mini donkeys Little Man Sweetness and Jaffee, and of course the girl goats which include the 2 new babies! We'll have a "check-in" to learn a bit about each other, talk about the art that we'll be doing that week (think art therapy principles not fine art and there will be a tracing to follow if you'd like!), have some time to commune with the animals about the art piece, and then we'll head inside to work on it! It will be fun and easy and you'll make some new friends.

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This week the babies Parsley and Rosemary were disbudded. Always a hard time at the farm. Goats are born with the ability to grow horns and have little "buds" at birth, just little rounded nubs under the skin. It only takes a few weeks and those little nubs turn into points and then the horns start to really grow. Because our goats are pets and work with clients and because they can get their horns caught in fencing and break their necks and because they can hurt each other, we have them disbudded, meaning those little buds are removed. We brought Dancer and the babies in a big crate and went to Oliver's breeder (Parsley and Rosemary's father.) She gave them a shot of pain killer and waited 30 minutes and then did a great job getting them done quickly. The babies were put right back into the crate with Dancer for comfort and by the time we got home they were hopping around and ready to play again. If you really want to know more and are not squeamish, you can check out how disbudding is done here. These are the things no one tells you about when you are that pie-in-the-sky newbie goat owner.

I'm so thankful to not have any boys to "band" this year because that's way more traumatic than disbudding. Banding is usually how baby boy goats and lambs are castrated. If you're interested, here is a video of us banding and giving spring shots to the lambs at our Colorado ranch in 2020. Having livestock is tough sometimes.

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We kept hearing this really weird barking sound out back and I kept thinking that it had to be some sort of frog. I finally looked up "barking sound from frog" and came up with...the Barking Tree Frog (listen to it here!) Who knew! We had just seen this little cutie on our window the night before:

Do you love the Polar Bear's hair stuck in it's toes? 🤮

Barking Tree Frog side eye:

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It's been almost a year and a half since Mom died and when I saw this old picture of ManChild when he was just 2 years old, I knew I could finally replace the picture of Mom as the background on my phone:

I wondered if I'd ever be able to! I took this photo of ManChild when he was out with a bunch of other little kids—they were all shaking one of those huge colorful parachutes with a ball in the middle so it would flip around. Look at that precious, excited grin!

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We were out doing chores and B-Rad and I were chatting as I was finishing up cleaning a stock tank. I looked up and found him leaning on Wynter like he was a fireplace mantle lol:

Wynter just continued to munch on hay lol.

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And speaking of Wynter...

I can't even imagine how he did that! This gate has been on its last legs for a long long time. He's not helping matters!

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Little Jaffee has been with us since September of last year. Lately he's been telling me that he thinks he can be out loose during chores like Rayn and Little Man. For the last few weeks I've been discussing the Rules of Loose Equines with him: leaving the Polar Bear alone, leaving the goats alone if they are loose too, coming to me when called, allowing me to halter him, and grazing close by. This week he passed his first test with flying colors! Also, he thought he'd sweeten the pot by asking to carry the empty hay bags to the upper pasture for me 🥰