Uncategorized – Grongar

Our darling buds of May

For the first time since the kids were born, May gave us a true spring day (an afternoon, at any rate). Poor Darcy had been cooped up in the barn for nearly a full week. It was time to throw the doors open.

The rest of the herd was down in the pasture, so I closed the gate between the pen and pasture, just to give the new family time to adjust to one thing before the next. Then I opened the barn door.

Darcy fairly bounded out, loudly calling to her babies to follow her. It took them only a few minutes to let curiosity override fear, and then all three were out in the sunshine. In her happiness, Darcy did a twisting joy-leap off the high drive, and galloped down the hill to the back of the barn. The babies followed with their first real run down the slope, their sturdy little legs gathering and reaching beneath them as if they had always known how do to this.

After awhile, Darcy, with her gaze focused on the pasture, started calling. I’m guessing she was calling after her last-year babies (the 3Gs). Soon the rest of the herd had assembled on the other side of that gate and I let them in to the pen. Everyone huddled around the fresh kids and there was much sniffing. Darcy kept an eagle eye on the babies, nickering constantly, butting away anyone who was a little too interested. The unconcerned babies were everywhere, trying out their running and balancing skills on the rocks and ledges. I’m sure poor Darcy felt like she had toddler twins loose in a busy shopping mall.

Eventually, everyone got busy eating hay, except for Gideon, who was fixated on the little ones (whether it was interest, curiosity, or jealousy, I don’t know), so Darcy kept checking him, heading him off, butting him, pushing him away. She was gentle as these things go, but persistent. After a time, he got the hint and left to eat some hay. I hung out for quite awhile, sniffing noses with goats and snapping photos until my camera battery died. And then I went inside to leave the herd to themselves.

When I checked a little while ago, the adults were all lying in the straw and grass, sunning themselves, while the little ones explored the run-in stall and the rocks of the barn’s foundation.

Just beyond the pen, the apple trees are budding pink. Dandelions have sprung up out of nowhere and I saw honeybees sipping from them. The lawn is suddenly long enough to mow. The snowshoe hare we’ve caught glimpses of this winter has turned mostly brown again. The goldfinches are brilliant gold. There’s no stopping us now.

p.s. If you have an insatiable appetite for goatling photos, you can follow along as they grow by visiting their album on my Flickr page.

Here we are now

Darcy kept us waiting six days. She seemed unbothered by it all. It was just the humans who were anxious, all the way through yesterday morning when I suggested maybe we should talk to the vet to see if we should be concerned.

Of course, that’s what did it. Like taking an umbrella along to ensure it doesn’t rain, if you express your concern to the universe, the goat says, “Ok then, I guess I should oblige.”

It was around noon yesterday and I was going to give her one more check before going for my usual dog walk. No sooner had I stepped outside than I heard a bellow from the barn. I scooted out there with a confused dog by my side and found one wet baby lying in the barn bedding, with Darcy and several other members of the herd assembled around her in a protective semi circle.

I moved Darcy and baby 1 into the prepared birthing stall, then ran to call M home from work. Back out to the barn and Darcy was cleaning that first little one, a girl, whose fur was turning light as she dried.

M arrived in plenty of time to watch baby 2, a boy, arrive. He’s lovely, darker than the girl, and with funny ears that flop around and won’t stay out straight like his sister’s.

They are both doing well. Nursing, napping, being cleaned by their mother, working on learning how to use those little legs.

Outside, it’s raining. I hear it’ll rain for a week. That’s as good an excuse as any to hang out in the barn, listening to baby goats dream.

Don’t fence me in

Sometimes I don’t know myself. [Make that most times, but you know what I mean.]

For instance, ask me what type of music I love, and I’ll give you a tidy list that includes American and British folk and folk-rock; jangly-guitar alternative; Motown and the Philadelphia sound; traditional country (Patsy Cline, I’m talking about you); and the grand embarrassment that is 70s top 40. All of these make sense to me: they sketch the edges of who I think I am, who I imagine myself to be (blue jean wearing, animal loving, rural living child of the 60s).

But it’s not so easy to pin anyone down by the music they love (or the books they read or the foods they eat or the company they keep). And if I reach further I find out that I love, among other things, Italian cafe music, Afro-Cuban music, salsa, R&B, the blues, The Moody Blues, and, yes, even a smattering of blue-eyed soul (I blame Simply Red).

Which brings me today’s song (thanks to H, who introduced it to me a month or two ago and so now it’s in my head most every day) by Pentatonix, a five-member a capella group (Penta, get it?).

I can’t stop listening to it. There, I said it. It’s playing on repeat as I write this. I’m doing that chair dance thing again. I’m impressed that it’s a capella, but that doesn’t enter into the fact that it sticks like honey to my brain.

That’s the thing about music love. There’s no explaining it. You love it or you don’t. It’s beyond words. It’s what’s on your lips when you wake up even in the dark, and it helps ignite the light of the day.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFCxiKXtKTI]

p.s. If you want more Pentatonix, you can’t go wrong with their covers of Hallelujah, Jolene (with Dolly Parton), and the wonderful Winter Hymnal.

A tune in my heart

Our excellent friend Kevin writes about all sorts of interesting things on his blog, Keeping Score. He’s a terrific writer, smart and with a generous heart. I enjoy reading whatever he writes, but I particularly love his end-of-year posts, where he shares his favorite music from the concluding year. He doesn’t just list and link the tunes, he gives us a little bit of insight into what he loves about each song, and that just makes each choice a bit sweeter.

Inspired by Kevin, and by the ongoing dreariness of the overcast weather and my generally overcast temperament this time of year, I’ve decided to post a song here each day from now until the new year.

They won’t all be new songs; in fact most of them will probably be old, but I’ll try not to bore you with too many repetitions, and I’ll do my best to follow Kevin’s lead and let you in on why I’ve shared each song.

Today’s song, for instance, “Call Off Your Dogs” by Lake Street Drive.

I heard it for the first time last night on my drive in to town to attend my monthly book group meeting (our next book is Zadie Smith’s Swing Time, if you want to read along).

I had the car radio on with no particular expectations because we have very poor radio choices around here, but two seconds into this song I was hooked. It was obvious why: it hearkens back to the music of my youth, with a frothy 70s groove. It reminds me, maybe, of E.L.O and long, carefree summers. It’s the kind of song that begs to be turned up loud and danced to.

I cranked it as I drove along the river in the drizzle. I couldn’t open the windows, but if you passed me you’d have seen my head bopping and my smile huge, all thoughts of rain and darkness banished for three minutes and 29 carefree seconds.

Our new 3G network

Please meet Gideon, Gordon, and Gertrude, born to absolutely perfect first-time mother Darcy, on April 29, 2016, between 3.45 and 5 pm.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC2WDmVUTDE&w=420&h=315]

Bears unwelcome

Do all towns have email lists these days? I suppose so. Our town’s list announces church suppers and firewood for sale; requests proposals for mowing the town green; advertises sporting equipment, cars, pianos, and livestock for sale or barter; and invites us to school plays, concerts, farmers markets. Around elections, they bustle with political opinions. And at the hinge of each season, they announce signs of change.

Children returning to school. Geese leaving town. First snowflakes and dicey roads. First robin sighted.

A couple weeks ago, a message on our town email list warned that a bear had been seen on a nearby deck, checking out the empty bird feeders. It’s a bit early for bears to wake up, but the mild winter and the quick snow melt have us on high alert. Bears waking up right now are looking for food, and nothing’s growing yet.

We’ve nothing at all against bears. They belong on the land more than we do. But we don’t really want them to eat our bees, especially since we’ve managed to somehow keep them alive through the winter.*

Every morning since that email posting, we woke up nervously, stopping to peer out the bedroom window even while still half asleep to make sure the hives were still standing.

Once bitten, twice shy.

Of course, we now have the hives protected by electric fence, but last year’s bear knows there were bees here last year and may come sniffing.

So we decided to add one more level of protection by building an “unwelcome mat,” which is essentially a bed of nails. You place the mat on the approach to the hives and hope that any bear who steps on it will be unpleasantly surprised and turn right around (the nails protrude enough to feel uncomfortable, but not enough to permanently hurt the bear).

We built two mats to extend along the length of the eastern side of the bee yard fencing, which we figure is the direction the bear is most likely to come from (the north and south fences are more protected because of the goat pasture and pen, and the west side is protected by the extra gate, our presence, and the road).

When I say “we” I mean that M pounded all those nails (two nails, every two inches, on 10 boards, 12 feet long). He’s the one who set up the clever jig on the deck railing. But I did help him assemble the mats and I used a power tool without harming myself or the mats, so there’s that.

We still check the hives from the bedroom window every morning, but with a little less anxiety. They’ve got their fondant, their fence, and their unwelcome mat. I think we’ve done all we can, and now we just need to wait for spring to bloom.

* Let’s face it: they kept themselves alive through the winter. The only thing we did was not get in their way.

Domestic tranquility

But get to the important stuff! I hear you shout.

What about the new little buck? How is he settling in? Do the girls like him?

What is his NAME?

He’s been here nearly three weeks and he feels like part of the family. He’s sweet but shy. I don’t think he had a lot of direct human contact before, which is often normal for bucks; they hang out with other males and are only handled when their special skills are required. But he’s coming around.

Every time I visit him, I make sure to have a little treat (carrot ends, apple peels, an animal cracker) and now he comes right over to sniff my hand and gently take the treat. Yesterday, when I lowered my head to his and offered to sniff noses, not only did he not run away, he sniffed, then licked, then nibbled my nose.

Shy doesn’t enter the story when it comes to him and the girls. They’re separated by a fence and he’s mostly got his head through it, trying to get a good whiff of them. They’re curious about him and come visiting—we put a hay feeder on the fence so they can share a meal together—and, when it’s their heat cycle, they show intense interest.

This interest takes the form of loitering near his pen all day, sniffing noses with him, and rapidly wagging (flagging) their tails. When we see a doe asking for a solo audience with his majesty, we let her in with him and then they start their dance. Much sniffing, circling.

He talks a lot, sticks out his tongue, makes a pathetic bleating that sounds remarkably like one of those old toys that looks like a can and you tip it over and out comes a noise that sounds nothing like a cow. Apparently it’s the sound of a lovesick goat. She keeps still for him, then circles around. Sometimes there’s running and chasing. Sometimes they just get down to business, which is a bit tricky because he’s quite small and they are mostly quite not.

Poor guy could use some stilts.

Still, where there’s a will there’s a way.

When we let Willow in with him, I tried to coax her out of the pen after about an hour and she said, “Why? I’ve got everything I need right here.” So I left her overnight. That’s the two of them at the top of the post the next morning, as content as any settled couple. He’s inside reading the newspaper. She’s gone out for a snack on the porch.

The same thing happened with Westwind. They spent the day together, then the night. She was lounging on the porch when I came to ask her if she wanted out. She said, “I’m just fine right here, thank you.”

Wellesley, Doris, and Darcy weren’t quite so placid, but they’ve each had some time with him. Doris has since gone to her new home in upstate, New York. Our hooves are crossed that she’ll have some kids for her new owner in the spring.

We won’t know for sure sure if any of the rest of the girls are pregnant until the spring, but it’ll be a good sign if none of them come into heat again next month. Maybe you could cross your hooves along with us, for caramel-colored kids in the spring?

And his name? Nope. We’ve thought of 50, and nothing’s stuck yet. So we call him “GG” (Golden Guernsey) and “Bucky” and “Little Guy” and he answers to anything because he’s a darling, and he’s fond of the attention, and as long as we keep delivering him food and pretty ladies, he’s a happy goat.

He’s here!

Baby face

At his home farm, with his (golden) daddy and another friend

Checking out his new space

Accepting a welcome home gift

Meeting Westwind

House move 2.0

This move was a whole lot simpler than the last one, particularly as most of it happened while I was out of town.

And we didn’t have to empty the contents into a shipping container.

And we didn’t have to live in a rental house with no oven for six months.

And we didn’t have to take out a loan.

But, in its way, it’s nearly as exciting and nearly as significant feeling because it means we’re stepping up to the next level of micro farming. A buck on the property means more complications (separate housing, fencing, etc.), but it greatly simplifies breeding. And a Golden Guernsey buck on site means we can move up the Guernsey breeding ladder much more quickly.

And, besides, he’s really cute.

So, a week ago, we scouted around the property and decided the best place to put the buck pen was within the main goat pen. This has a few advantages: we can use the existing fence for two sides of the pen, and the buck can be near the girls even when he needs to be separated from this. Goats need company.

Over the weekend, Chip came by and leveled off the little hill he’d built in the goat pen a couple years ago, and then put down a layer of crushed stone for good drainage. And then lifted the little house, carried it across the yard, and planted it with its front porch facing the barn.

(And here’s where I remember back to a photo I took of a very little H, sitting on the front porch of that same house just after we built it for her, and I get that little lump in my throat and the dizziness from the whizzing years, and I have to pull myself back from that nostalgiac brink and remind myself about baby goats.)

This morning, Gordon the fence guy came with his crew and, in the matter of an hour-and-a-half, pounded in the new posts and put the fence in.

Westwind watched from her tower room.

This afternoon, I painted the house’s floor with a whey-based polyurethane to help protect it from, um, fluids. When that dries, we’ll put down some thick stall mats for more protection, then a layer of bedding, and the house will be ready for its new occupant.

Tomorrow morning, we drive south to pick up GG (still unnamed) and bring him home, to our home, and his.

Oh, and the spot where that little house used to live? We have plans for that, too, come spring.