Ending the Drought

We have had quite a bit of rain lately.  It’s hard to believe, but we’ve even had some flooding across the state.  It started with the severe weather and we had more storms.

It made for dramatic skies when the severe weather just missed us.

Antigone and her girl

The boys were wired with the stormy weather.

Other rounds were just nice thunder showers.

another 1/2 inch of rain (Frodo in the background)

Everything is looking nice and green.

strawberry blossoms

goats in pasture

I’m grateful my trees made it through last summer’s horrible drought.

Maybeline snacking on my lilacs

We’ve had a bit of sunshine in between the rains.

Skittles in a late afternoon sun.

There was another round of horrible storms Monday night that once again, went below the severe level before reaching us.    I did make sure everyone was safely in shelter.

Antigone was outside, but she did make it in during the storm.

We have been so lucky.  It gave us another four-tenths of an inch of rain.

The kids were all playing in the barn.

Even though they do the reading for the drought monitor on Tuesday morning for release on Thursday, we’ve even had more rain since then.  Tuesday evening saw a little thundershower that had some amazing clouds and then a beautiful rainbow!

I’m thrilled to say that across the state, the drought monitor released yesterday has shown much improvement.

And with the continued rain since Tuesday morning, I’m hoping that I will at least move up from “moderate” to “abnormally dry” by next Thursday.

Just Pictures

Today it’s just some pictures from around the farm.

My boys are all doing well together: Pluto, Frodo, BJ, Herky, and Gabe

Zora and Mocha

These two (Salem and Sky) always make me laugh.

Popcorn

Pax and Pixel

Hilda

Flora

Rosie and her kids–Reba and Rupert

Pretzel

Thalia

Eastern Kingbird

Eastern Kingbird and Eastern Meadowlark

These goats do make me happy (most days)!

The Final Four

My last four girls due for this round were my girls that Frodo and Xerxes broke out and bred.  I had no idea who bred whom, but I know they were all due April 30th-May 1st.

Xerxes and Frodo

The first of my final four to kid was Venus.  She had one little girl Sunday evening.

She had her baby in the barn.

I’m definitely calling this one a Xerxes baby.  I can’t imagine Frodo and Venus giving me a baby with this coloring.

There was another round of rain coming, so I moved them to the garage.

Up next, was Hera.  My sister watched her all day while I was at work, and just about the time I got home, she had two big Frodo babies!

Hera’s buck

Hera’s doe

After a day of watching Zinnia, my sister left, and I got home.  I watched her all evening and through another round of rain.  Because Hera was being a bit difficult to everyone, I moved the last two girls into the garage.

Tansy, Cupid’s kids in the tub, and Zinnia looking for a place to have her kids.

Finally, right around midnight, Zinnia had twins–a boy and a girl.

I’m calling these Xerxes babies based on who Zinnia was hanging out with at the party last fall as well as that nice toast colored little girl.

the girl and the boy

That left only Tansy! Wednesday, at my bedtime check, I thought she might be in early labor, but she was just lying there chewing cud, so I set my alarm for 2:00.  At 2:00, she was standing and maybe had a contraction. I knew I had to check before 6:00, but I debated how long.  I finally, set my alarm for 3:00.  When it went off, I jumped up and threw on my sweat pants.  I did tell my dog to stay in the house because it was raining again.  Then I headed out to the garage.  As soon as I shut the door, the rain, thunder and lightning really picked up in intensity, so I was really glad I had shut her in the garage.  I  turned on my flashlight and immediately went into panic mode because she was standing there with just the head out.

I’m guessing she’ll get down from the pet taxi when it’s time.

Tansy is…well, difficult.  I had to catch her to help her.  She is not about to let me catch her, so I started half chasing, half following her around the garage.  Finally, I kind of lunged over Aphrodite who she was trying to hide behind and caught her around the neck.  I worked my way up to getting a firm grip on the horn.  My first thought was you have to push the head in and find feet.  That’s what the literature says, and the only time I watched the vet do a head first delivery where the head was already out, that’s how she did it (but that kid was already dead, and this one was still alive).  It didn’t work. Partly because there’s no way that kid was going backwards and partly because Penelope decided it was time for her to assert her dominance and was trying to fight with Tansy.

Spoiler alert: It’s a happy ending.

At that point, I decided to take a deep breath and realize that rushing and messing things up was not helpful.  It was better to be slow and successful.  I stopped everything and drug her to the milk room.  Once we got in there, I could put the collar on her and tie her so I didn’t have to worry about losing a hold on her, and it gave me both hands to focus on getting that baby out.

Even in my panic, I recognized how cute that head was.

Again, he had no intention of going backwards, so I did manage to slip my hand all the way in and hook a finger under his folded back leg.  Now, the physics of it tells me that there is no way to unfold that leg where he was smashed up trying to come out, but as I ran my finger forward, his leg unfolded into the birth canal, and I was able to stretch it out in front of his head.  That was all I needed.  It took a couple of hard pulls, but he came out.

Welcome to the world, Thunder!

I did a quick check to make sure there wasn’t another one in there.  Then I unfastened the collar from Tansy and let her smell him.  Then she was happy to follow me back to the garage.  I set him down and she was immediately cleaning him off.  I darted back to the house and removed my clothes and tried to wash most of the birthing fluids off of me (it was even in my hair).  Then I went back to bed.  It was 3:10 am. Oh, and with that white background, I’m going to call this one a Frodo baby.