Early Morning Sogginess

5:00am. Wake up to a downpour. Think it sounds pretty...

Really hear it. Wonder about the animals. Decide everyone is fine. 
Realize all the windows in the small goat barn are open! 

Listen. Doesn't seem windy. Seems to be coming straight down. 

Drift toward sleep...

Hear the wind. Shit. It's now coming into MY open windows! Get up, close my windows. Dogs don't stir. Even the pup. No one wants to go out. 

Put on socks and heavy robe. Walk around house, closing all the windows, most were just cracked. Whew. 

Go to mudroom to get my boots. 

!!!!!!

I had left ALL the windows WIDE open. Slate (thank God) floor soaked, along with the wood windowsills. Ugh. Add heavy Carhart hooded jacket to my robe and boots. Big white livestock guardian dogs ERUPT IN FURY the second I step out of the house. Obviously an intruder is escaping OUT of the house. I whistle. The screaming continues. I call to them. Nothing. They are pretty damn scary when they don't know who you are. I'm happy about this :-). 

Slosh through puddles to goat barn. How long has it been raining?? Goats are bedded down and completely dry. Yay. Slide windows nearly closed and slosh back. 

At least my worry for the goats saved my mudroom from flooding!

My ManChild and my Rayn

Our first Goat Yoga class at the Mother Ranch!

 
I'll let the pictures speak for themselves :-)

Silence of the Lambs

 
I expected a ruckus but I guess lambs are pretty quiet in order to hide from predators. On Thursday morning I went out later than usual for chores and found Honey and her twin girls! Oh happy day!

After admiring Honey's babies I picked one up, put it in front of her face and led her into the "jug" (a little temporary stall where they live for about 24 hours to bond) Honey followed her right in with her other lamb following right behind. Success! My sheep are not interested in having any relationship with me so I was worried about how to get Honey in her jug but this worked perfectly.

I had a hard time getting anything done yesterday what with all the oooooing and ahhhhing over the babies. I snuggled each of them for a minute or two but otherwise left them all alone--watching from a distance. So precious!

Last night Brad woke me up after spotting a head emerging from No Name (my brother was so upset by this and promptly named her Suzy) on the video camera he had set up in the barn. We went out to see and found the first one had been born--a little boy with a black head, brown edging to his ears, and white markings under his eyes.

After about 30 minutes of meticulously cleaning this new baby boy lamb, Suzy gave birth to a little white girl! This little girl was smaller than her brother and at first seemed very strong. She stood faster and went searching for Suzy's udder right away but never seemed to get anything from it. This morning she seems cold, tiny, and uncertain. Every time she tries to nurse, she can't find the teat. She does the head butt to the udder thing but then doesn't get the teat in her mouth. After talking to our sheep friend we went off to the farm store and bought milk replacer, nutria-drench (vitamins and molasses) and nipples that go on a water bottle. I gave baby girl a few cc's of the drench and then bottle fed her some milk replacer and put her back in with her mom. We'll see how it goes. Maybe she just needs a little bit of food to build up enough strength to nurse from her mom. That's the hope anyway!

Update--little white girl is doing great! 

Zaaaaaaap!

I can't tell if the fence is on...lean over to see if the light is flashing...
and rest my hand DIRECTLY on the wire going into the charger. 

"F*$!#!!!!"

Yes, it's on.

Ow!

 

Donkeys run wild!

 
I wasted my lunch break today by chasing three horses and two mini donkeys around a pasture before I gave up and got the halters. I guess the 25 mph winds and 50 mph gusts had all of us not in our right minds. Who the hell chases animals around a pasture thinking they can get them to go out the (open) gate? I was leery leaving them in the pasture (the why is below) while getting the halters but what could I do?

You may recall a Facebook post from several months ago discussing the perils of leaving ungelded mini donkeys in with full sized mares. I, in my vast farmy wisdom, figured it was probably okay. Ha! Not so! Many people piped up with stories of mini mules being born from just that situation.

TMI warning!

Apparently the studly mini boys wait until a willing mare has a little lie down and then pounce! Good lord. That painted a picture didn't it? :-/

So, since then, I've not put the mini donkeys in with the whole herd. When I occasionally separate out the geldings the minis can go hang out with them, otherwise they are on their own. 

So...how did they get in there?

They were in the pasture next door and jumped over the automatic waterer! They have had ample opportunities to do this before but never have! I just assumed that they couldn't/wouldn't, haha the joke's on me! Every single day I live here I learn something new. Glad I was standing right there to watch it happen and keep the girls safe!

After I got the mares out the boys kept lifting their upper lip at me and then decided to chase each other around to work off some steam. It ended in a "love the one you're with" episode. They each had a cigarette and called it a day.

How to throw your back out with overalls

 
Carhartt winter overalls are made of heavy cotton canvas. On the inside they have a thick quilted material. They are meant to go over jeans and sweatshirts and boots so they are huge. The matching coat is then big enough to go over all of that.

So, when I thought about this today, I realized I'm basically wearing a boat cover. HEAVY. Now next winter I don't imagine this being an issue as I'll be stronger. This winter however, is our first winter at the Mother Ranch and my soft, sweet, suburb body is suffering. Not only from the weight of these things but because I'm finding they are completely changing my walk--to one of a duck!

I can feel my spine telescoping downwards...