A truly gorgeous day out today.  It was 40 F when I got up this morning, and although it’s breezy, it’s beautiful.  I wish we didn’t have erranding to do, I would much rather be working outdoors!

As I was walking in from chores, my eye was caught by this lovely volunteer that is thriving near the parsley and the dried up cucumber vines in the vegetable garden, and I just had to take a picture.

Volunteer pansies in the vegetable garden

Since I stopped to admire the pansies, my eye was caught by the other garden denizen that is looking kind of exotic and special.  John had tied one or two of these plants up as they were sprawling all over.  One of my most favorite vegetables!  (Sorry the picture isn’t a little more distinct, the little berries (?) on the plant are so eye-catching!)

Autumn view of one of the the asparagus plants

Bear and Josie footprints on the back steps yesterday morning

Snowy morning yesterday.  Day for loading up the piggles.  Usually we have them getting acquainted with the trailer for two or three days before the big day, but John was having some trouble with the wiring… so it was dark before the trailer gate was closed, but we could hear them happily sucking up the last of the evening’s milk and burrowing in the straw.  One more yearly task can be checked off of our list and, as the winter approaches, at least the chore load is diminishing!  And think of all that lovely pork in the freezer :*)

With all this talk about sheep breeding groups, I have left our poor LaMancha dairy goats out of the equation.  Even though we have very flexible fencing and paddock areas, I have been scratching my head over how to get the goats together as a group with a buck, and just let them get down to business.  That’s what we have done in the past few years and it works like a charm.

The young guns hope to be picked for the next doe!

Traditionally, instead of keeping a buck, most goat keepers get their girls to another farm and pay to have the does bred as they come into heat.  It’s problematic for us, since we both work and can’t just drop everything to get them to another farm, so we obviously need to keep a buck around. But with only a small pen inside the greenhouse available, we decided to wait until we saw signs of a doe in heat (difficult to miss with most!!!) and then put them into the pen with the chosen buck, let them have a day together, and then put them back in their usual grouping. When I wake up in the middle of the night and hear a doe calling, and come out in the morning to her plastered up against the fence, bleating and wagging her tail like a frantic flagger at the boys, it’s a pretty clear sign! This has worked for most of them, but Elf and Rhubarb may have silent heats.  I haven’t caught them yet.  So all but those two have been bred.

Elvis was extremely laid back and easy-going last year after we got him in with the does.  Like the year before, when we had Stinky Pete, everyone was happy and well-mannered.  I was able to walk amongst them with no trouble, feed them, check on them, etc., no problem.  Well that was then, and boy, this is now!  Elvis was fine until he had a visit with 2 does and then had to go back into the buck/ram pen.  His world came to an end, and he lets us know it, every time we are out there.  Oh my!  And after he went to the trouble of peeing all over his face and rubbing it in the dirt… all dressed up and nowhere to go!  He has decided that I am the cause of his frustration, so I can’t go into their paddock anymore… he jumped on me and almost knocked me down, making chortling noises the whole time.  Do I look like a doe?  After milking, I may smell like one to him maybe!  No one I know can stop laughing….

Elvis lets his son, Bud, in on the secrets of life!

It always happens when I am not looking.  It seems as though just yesterday (or the day before maybe) that this is what the tree line looked like at the bottom of the pasture field at our friend’s house:

Color in the pasture

I went down to the field yesterday to visit our little group there and this is what greeted me:

No-leaf zone

Always a surprise! No leaves already…

It’s been a long week.  A tough week.  Still not feeling on top of the lingering chest cold and then of course everything changes so quickly when it’s breeding and butcher season.  Kyra’s Boy’s departure left a big gap as he was always our meeter and greeter at the house, and then to top it off with a group of lambs and goats that needed loading to get out to the butcher (never something I look forward to as we have to catch them, and then hoist them into the back of the truck), it was a stressful one as well.  Especially since  I wrestled with and made a very tough decision about one of my original milking does, Sock Monkey, and sent her to the butcher with the two little guys.  Life in the fast farm lane.  I guess some people can make those decisions and not let it bother them, but it’s tough for me.  Necessary decisions since this is much of the food we put on the table, but tough nonetheless. Although I really think I would rather it be this way.  It wouldn’t give me such a hard time if I didn’t care so much for all of our animals, and that’s a good place to be, I think.  We really do give each other life and enjoy our time together in the process.

Ah well, the weekend is here and full of promise…  it’s not raining!  And I can hardly wait to see the grandbabies all dressed up for Halloween :*)

Aside from having been really sick with this blasted chest cold, today turned out to be a beautiful day.  The sun was shining and the leaves are looking gorgeous, and it was so warm that I traded my turtleneck and my vest for a t-shirt.  We decided that it was time to harvest all of our root vegetables, which did beautifully.  We have been eating some of our beets in the last month, but today we harvested 5.5 lbs. of golden beets, 13.75 lbs of red beets, 6 lbs. carrots, and we didn’t have time to pull the leeks.  And even though we have eaten at least 10 lbs. of our Kennebec potatoes,

Some of the Kennebec potatoes we harvested

we still harvested another 23.5 lbs. today.  Beautiful!   We are very lucky that the blight didn’t hit us here. So we took the opportunity to roast up some golden and red beets, onions and garlic.

Pan of roasting veggies ready for the oven

It was totally delicious.

And on another front, we finally made the decision to put Kyra’s Boy down.  Our dear ram just kept regenerating infection around his knee; it leaked, we dealt with it, he got better, and it started all over again.  He’s been living in his own pen for so long, it began to feel like the norm for us.  I really didn’t dare let him back in with the rambunctious boys as he might have leaked infectious stuff all over the place, so he remained all by his lonesome.  There weren’t many choices to be had, so a friend of ours came and put him down and took him to another friend who will use his carcass.  I got as much fleece off him as I could, which I will use and remember him by.  He had a good life here, and that’s about all we can ask of our animal friends.  He made a lot of great market lambs for a few years there, so he didn’t owe us anything.  Good bye Kyra’s Boy.  We are all going to miss you.

We finally were able to get the field breeding group coated yesterday!  Yay!  Now we can get our little Hamish in there with them in the hopes that the breeding will go smoothly and quickly.  The girls and Jingle the donkey have been busy eating the last of the grass down there, and will probably be there until Thanksgiving if the weather holds.

Chloe with the newly coated girls

Norma is on the right giving me the eye, and HoneyBea is on the left.  No one gave us too hard a time, even though we only had an extra flexnet holding them in a small group.  Getting the coats on them usually needs a nice solid corner so we can get those back legs into those straps!

And I guess that Fuzzy Lumpkin was happy with her coat: She gave Chloe an opportunity to get a little air kiss!

Chloe gets a thank you kiss from Fuzzy

The natives are restless.

Elvis is thinking that he knows the girls are somewhere around here...

Elvis the buck is smelling so odiferous that you know he’s there long before you even catch sight of him (a sure sign of the onset of breeding time) and

Mr. Big watching and waiting

Mr. Big the ram is constantly peering pensively over the fence.  It won’t be long now… we have the ewes at the starting gate, but haven’t had time to trim their hooves and get their coats on them.  5 are going to be joining Mr. Big up in one of the paddocks at the house, and 5 are down in the field waiting for Hamish, one of our ram lambs.  And poor Elvis is going to have to wait until Mr. Big and his group have had their first 16-day fling so that he may meet his does for their breeding rendezvous!

Hamish who? We thought you had some grain!

Sat. morning 30 F and frosty had visited!

Yesterday morning it was 30 F. at our house.  Luckily, John had taken some of our shearing sheets and covered as much of the garden as he could… so we came through the first frost of the season quite well.  We didn’t cover the potatoes and the leeks, but there are a couple of trees in that area that I think may have acted as enough of a buffer and protected them.  Phew!  Not long now, though.  The pasture where the ewes are was a blanket of sparkly white.  That’s definitely a done deal.  One more pass for the girls and it’s hay for the duration!

Bear, 11, enjoys her new freedom, without the cone!

We have finally crossed another milestone:  Bear is  free of her cone of shame!  It’s been a long summer with this poor girl.  Our house wasn’t set up (is anyone’s?) to accomodate a 93 lb. dog with an enormous plastic cone (12″ high and 19″ diameter) on her head.  Her leg operation back in July was necessary, but it was so long in mending that it seems like forever.  Two months did feel like forever!

But here she is, yesterday, just after the removal of her cone, relaxing comfortably.  Looking pretty good, Bear!  Now she can have all the hugs she wants, without knocking our lights out :*)

Bear's scarry patch is almost faded into hairiness