The First Snowfall

We had our first winter weather event overnight Monday and all the way through Wednesday morning.

Yes, that is my corn still standing and waiting to be harvested.  It’s been a rough fall for anything to get done, but it will happen and all will be good.

The goats were a bit unhappy.  It was a shock to their systems to go from record high overnight temperatures to a record low high temperature on Friday.  The old record was a high of 24° set in 1880.  Our high on Friday was only 22°.

the herd on the bottom

Heidi

Cutie and Perdita

Dolly

Victoria

The llamas were cranky.  Who can blame them?

Maybeline and Odie

Odie

Maybeline

I’m not in disagreement.  Although, I think the cold weather should help my allergies.

Miss Goose

Except now I’m feeding more hay.  Sigh… But I’m also glad we didn’t get six feet of snow.  And it’s supposed to be a much more normal week coming up.

Bratty and Nice

I’ve never decided what makes a goat bratty or nice.  I’m kind of sure there’s some genetics to it because of the large number of babies from Xerxes who are absolutely terrified and certain I’m going to kill them. Luckily, not all of them are that way, but there are a lot of them.

Onyx is one of the nice ones.

But, some are not afraid of me, but they choose not to let me touch them.  Like Ostara.  If I catch her in the right mood, oh, she loves to have her but scratched.  But most times, she bounces away and won’t let me near her.

Ostara getting butt scrubbies (Myson licking the salt block)

Her big sister Tansy is even worse.  I can’t ever touch her, but she’s thrilled to come into the milk room and eat sweet feed.  When she’s in there, I can pet her, milk her, trim her hooves.  She doesn’t care.

Tansy at the cattle tank

And Trace.  She used to take bottles from me and like to be petted when she was a baby.  Now, I can’t hardly catch her to do basic care with her.  For some reason, the other day when I opened the milk room after milking, she was there and decided to come on in.  She let me pet her and trim her hooves.

Trace

Then there’s Daisy.  She is just like her maa, Bambi was.  Most days I can’t touch her.  Some days she’s fine with it.  And her girl, Zora won’t let me touch her, but she’s awfully bouncy and thinks it’s fun to stay away from me.

Daisy and Zora

I really need fewer bratty goats.

Heidi

Pretzel

Victoria

Give me the sweet ones.

sweet Maybeline and snooty Odie

I might have a similar situation with the llamas.

In the Pasture

We had really beautiful weather this weekend.  I took advantage of that do go spend some time in pasture and through my corn field.

Odie

Perdita

red-bellied woodpecker

goats on the bottom

There’s no water in the ditch (Maisie and Venus)

eating in the rough (Reva, Athena and Sidney)

Dolly

Tree swallow on the electric line–I don’t usually see them.

But there were three of them!

Maybelind

walking by the corn

corn–the ears are small this year

I saw a hawk!

taking off from the tree

the neighboring field getting combined

It really was beautiful!