Goats, Thanksgiving and Black Friday

I find most holidays hectic. While I love having family over, I don't often get the chance to visit because I'm busy putting the meal together. This year I decided to do things differently.

First, I wasn't using my best dishes (they can't go in the dishwasher). Instead I got nice plastic throw-aways.  Also, I wasn't cooking the Thanksgiving turkey on Thanksgiving. For the past few years our homegrown turkeys have been much bigger than most cooking charts cover, so I've guessed the timing and we've had to wait for the turkey to finish while the potatoes got cold and the stuffing got mushy. This year I cooked the turkey the day before Thanksgiving- it took 6 hours. I also carved it up and laid it out on a steaming rack, ready to heat up quickly when needed.

Thanksgiving morning I woke up with the delusion that everything was done and I was ready to enjoy the holiday. This was going to be the first year I would actually have time to talk to people while sitting in the living room. I was in the midst of enjoying my quiet kitchen and smiling over this thought when Joe came in from the barn and changed everything. A doe - a very big, pregnant doe carrying kids we'd been anticipating arriving for the past two weeks decided to kid - now.

I guess I should have known this doe would pick this day.  There she is in the picture. Her name is Valentine. As her name implies she was born on Valentine's Day. Last year she had her kids on Christmas Eve. Since Thanksgiving is a holiday, she'd clearly decided it was the perfect time for her to have her kids.

After 4+ hours of labor she presented us with two great kids - black bucklings. They are wonderful, but the time she took to have them ruined my dream of a casual Thanksgiving Dinner with the family. Instead, I was wearing barn grubbies and up to my wrists in goat goo, pulling kids from their tired mom. Once the kids arrived we figured we'd retreat to the house for our Thanksgiving feast, but Valentine hadn't appreciated the holiday guests who wanted to see the new babies. They made her so nervous she fumbled around the kidding pen stepping on baby toes and almost laying on her kids in an attempt to protect them from people she didn't know. We had to ban the guests back to the house while we stayed behind to keep her from accidentally injuring her babies.

I spent the next hour running back and forth between the house and barn taking care of goats and finishing dinner while Joe stayed with Valentine. Once  everyone settled into the meal, I took Joe's Thanksgiving dinner to him in the barn and went back to eat dinner hurriedly with the family.

I didn't get time for nice conversations with anyone as I gave Joe a needed break. By the time I finally made it to my living room to sit down everyone was gone.

Joe and I ate leftovers for supper in the house and even put our feet up for a few minutes to watch TV. Then he went back out to check on the Valentine and her kids. When he came back it was with the news that another doe was in labor and about to deliver.

We went back to the barn for a couple more hours. Dulcie gave us two beautiful does. Being as there was no longer any company around, we lingered in the barn. Joe fed the goats and I took pictures of the new kids to share on Facebook and put on our webpage.

It had been dark for awhile by the time we closed up the barn and went back to the house. Having yummy apple pie late went a long way to making the entire day feel so much better. It also kept awake. I stayed up way too late Thanksgiving night putting kid pictures up on Facebook and revamping the farm webpage to announce their births.

The pictures above are Valentine's boys and here is one of Dulcie with her doelings.

After going to bed late - very late - I woke up the next morning and was was lazily enjoying the idea of sleeping in when Joe (who always gets up early) broke into my happy thoughts to tell me there were  more kids in the barn. Three more kids to be exact.

After a mad rush to dress and race bleary-eyed to the barn, I was presented with a set of triplets by Suzy-Q. She had spared us hours of waiting by handling their birth all by herself. Her babies were clean and fed and ready for us to admire. She had two bucks and a gorgeous doe. They were Our Black Friday deals delivered to the barn.

Here's Suzy-Q surrounded by her lovely kids. They all have spots and are the most colorful group of kids we've had born on the farm.

After taking more pictures and doing all the things that needed to be done to make sure they were on the right track to staying healthy, we went in the house - but not back to bed.

Our twice a month housekeeper arrived within minutes to noisily clean the house and we had errands to run.

Its a new day now, almost 2 am Saturday morning. It's been a long day, but my kidding pens are full of moms and babies. My email and Facebook friends have kindly offered congratulations and nice comments about the new additions to our herd. Who could ask for more? But I did get more. When I ran through the rain to visit the barn this afternoon to see that everyone was doing well, it was quiet. It was kid nap time, no more fuss, no more needs, just happy moms and sleeping kids. Peace at last and enough quiet time to feel thankful.

Time to Catch Up

It's been too long since I've updated this blog!  Sorry to all of you who have been watching and waiting. I will try to do better.

2012 has been a year of changes and lots of new things. Mostly for the good and some very sad.

We started the year making a commitment to host our first ever Boer Goat show here in Chehalis, WA. We set the date for July and called it The Big Top Boer Goat Show. Many shows have several buildings or areas assigned for the goat pens and the show ring. Communicating between these buildings during the show can be challenging. The Big Top was all under one roof.

Here is a picture of the goats in the show ring. We brought an IBGA show in, maybe a first for WA state, and many great farms agreed to show with them. The feedback says they liked it so we'll repeat that again next year.

Our farm was also invited to the Four Star Boer Goat Production Sale this year. We brought seven goats to the sale - 6 does and 1 buck. All but one doe was sold! It worked out well for us and gave us a new perspective on production sales. Every experience is a good when you can learn something.

The doe we brought home as unsold happened to be the one that Joe didn't want to sell. I think Someone was looking out for him. Her name is Snowdrop. She is sweet and definitely one of his favorites. Her sire is a beautiful spotted buck we owned for awhile this year so she should give us colorful kids in 2013.

We got out to a few shows this year. We showed at the Wild West Show in Yakima, WA; Red, White and Boer in Ridgefield, WA; The Big Top Boer Goat Show here in Chehalis, WA; and Joe hauled our Jr. buck and his sister to Walla Walla, WA for the Octoboer Fall Finale.

Overall our biggest winner was a buck born here in January, Kindlehope Mojo Blitz.

This picture is of him at the Octoboer Fall Finale at 9 months old. He placed 4th at the first show and 3rd at the second show in a class of 15 competitive bucks.

Earlier in the year, he placed 2nd in a class of 18 great bucks and earned his first ABGA points.

We're pretty happy with this boy.

We filled our pastures again this year with 60 jumbo Cornish Cross meat chickens, 16 holiday turkeys and 2 Hereford steers. We have many repeat customers and selling the poultry and beef is easier these days.

On the sad side of the year, we lost a very dear friend in October. Valerie Witt was my farm Mentor, especially when it came to the goats. When I first started buying Boer goats we joined forces. She was putting her herd together at the same time. Spending hours in the truck driving up north past Seattle or down south into Oregon in search of our starter herds gave us time to talk and share and form a valuable friendship.

In all honesty, she felt as close to me as a sister. To say I am going to miss her is a huge understatement. Valerie was a very special woman and friend to many people. Her family is dear to us. It feels tough to move on without her and hard to think I can't pick up the phone and call her. She is and will always be deeply missed.

This picture is one of those times when we were goat shopping. She bought this little doe and I bought my first buck. My grounding in farm life came mostly from her gentle guidance and long phone calls.