Cute Calf

Even though I’ve been very focused on the goats lately, I haven’t forgotten my other animals.  Just the other day, I hiked out to the top of the big hill in the Back Forty just to see my cute calf, Norma Jean.

She was being naughty eating the big round bales.

Don’t worry, it wasn’t just her.  Maxine and MJ were snacking also.  I’d guess they were being a bad influence on her.  I warned them it was that much less they’d have to eat this winter when they didn’t have a nice lush pasture either.

As soon as I got closer, Norma Jean hid behind her mom.

Even though we helped her to nurse for the first few days of her life, she is now afraid of humans.  She just hides and stares or runs away from me.

Maybe when she wants to try a taste of corn this fall, she’ll decide I’m not so bad.  Before I made her even more fearful, I turned and walked back towards the house.  It didn’t take them long to ignore my warning of a lean winter and go back to snacking on the bale.

Luckily, my nephew came and took the bales out the next day.  Now they won’t have to starve this winter.

Linking to Jenny Matlock’s Alphabe-Thursday.  This week the featured letter is C.

Linking to Rural Thursday hosted by Nancy at A Rural Journal and Lisa at Two Bears Farm.

The Second Round Bale is Gone

The goats have been working hard on eating that second round bale.  We’ve had rain several days this past week, so they weren’t quite as happy with the bale, and I didn’t do quite as good a job of tightening the panel around the bale with the soggy hay at the bottom.

I kind of left a gap at the bottom that some goats seemed to think was put there for their convenience.

It started with the small goats.

Then it was the big goats.  One at first.

Then there were two.

Minnie wasn’t very happy with them being in her way.

Finally, we had some of the biggest goats on the farm in there.  Helen seems to be quite happy to be eating all the hay she wants in the sunshine!

Nothing to do with the bale of hay, but does Litha look huge?  She’s not due until mid-June.  Triplets?

Back to the round bale.  I finally gave up and took the panel off because it was getting crowded in there.

Some goats seemed to think that was an invitation to use it as a bed.  Flower really liked the panel being removed.  She was the undisputed queen of the hay pile.

Finally, they finished it off.

Jeremy brought me the third and final round bale tonight.  It’s not likely that the fence will be done by the time it’s gone, so my new Plan B is buying a haystack from my ex-brother-in-law.  I’m good as long as I have food to feed them.

Linking to You Capture where this week’s them is sunshine.  I’m just going to say, sunshine was hard this past wee, but I’m not complaining.  We’ve really had good rains to end our drought conditions.

A Lazy Day

We’re finally getting some spring showers.  This rainy weather has me feeling lazy.  Instead of working outside or cleaning house, I’ve spent the entire day putting my family tree on Ancestry.com.  It’s going to take me a long time with the thousands of names I have.  It will take way longer than our spring showers I think.

Of course, there are a few things I have to do no matter what the weather is like.  My two bottle kids want fed.  If you’ve been reading for a while, you know my Millie goat gifted me one of her babies, Myson.  I’m also giving Pam’s kid, Maisie, supplemental bottles.

Maisie

Whenever they hear me, they come on the run.  This is also why you hardly ever see them.  They are constantly bouncing on me and trying to find a bottle.

Maisie

With the threat of severe storms, I also took pity on the llama and let him back into the barnyard on Thursday evening.

Djali Llama

He’s enjoying the round bale again, but he did want out this afternoon.  I’ll wait until the severe storms are past tonight.  I also got all of my boys put together~Marley, Boeris and the little buck, Fionn.  Now they all have a good shelter to get into.

Marley and Boeris

Surprisingly, when Boeris would start to push and fight with Fionn, Marley would step in and protect his kid.  I was really surprised that a buck would have that protective instinct for a year old kid.

You can see we brought in the second round bale.

This side of the bale (below) was on the ground and drew moisture, so they didn’t want to eat it.  I spent a bit of time after doing chores pulling the icky hay out.  Again even if I’m feeling lazy, I have to feed the animals.

Now they are enjoying it too.  I had thought about taking Casey and Cookie to the sale barn today.

Casey

I really do need to sell them.  I hadn’t planned on keeping them, but I never got them down there, and now I’m kind of used to them.

Cookie

The threat of severe storms was all it took to convince me to postpone that trip.  Maybe next weekend, unless I can find another excuse.

Well, I think I’m going to finish my lazy day with more genealogy.  No, wait.  I’ll be holding the dog’s paw all night because of the thunder.  Hope you all have a chance to do something you enjoy this weekend.

Linking to SOOC Sunday.

Linking to Skywatch Friday.

Linking to Your Sunday Best.