I built some kidding stalls last weekend with my cousin Aaron's help.
They are already in use as stalls for our Jersey bottle calves which
should be weaned by the time we need the stalls for goat kidding.

I was able to scrounge for most if the material, the posts where left
over from a friends projects, I bought a bundle of surplus lumber for
some of it, and the slats are from the pallets I deconstructed last
year.

More horse photography

I did a photoshoot for a local horse owner recently.  Picture here is "Rusty" of Noblewood Farms.  Rusty is a

5 year old, 15 hand, ABCR Registered Bashkir curly with Mead bloodlines. Rusty is the only leopard appaloosa ABCR stallion in North America, and the only appaloosa marked curly stallion to offer shipped semen.

I liked the indoor photos the best based on the lighting, but of course the people who know horses like the movement shots.

Butter churnin'

Dazey Churn
Originally uploaded by duanekeys

The neighbors to the south of us raise Red Poll beef cattle and recently had a cow lose a calf during birth. They asked Jennifer if we could use the milk knowing that we're raising baby goats. Of course my ever enterprising and ambitious wife agreed. She's been helping to milk her for the past couple of weeks. Our fridge and freezer were getting pretty full of milk, as was the neighbor's.

One evening they pulled out the butter churn that belonged to their parents. They told us stories of passing the turn around the room to take turns churning. We hadn't the slightest idea what we were doing, so we hopped on the internet for some directions.

We did eventually get butter from this old churn, though it would have went much faster had we read some instructions first (letting the cream sit out until it's room temp is important).

We've made a couple batches at home using the blender, very effective and much easier on the wrists!

Lessons

Jiminy
Originally uploaded by duanekeys

Pictured here is Jiminy and his twin sister (in the background) Cricket bouncing towards the camera. Baby goats are so cute when they're playing.

Sadly we lost Jiminy yesterday to what we believe was CDT. It was pretty traumatic for Jennifer and me. We were confident that we were doing everything right: vaccinating, controlling food intake, etc. We've been told we have to expect some losses even with vaccines and vigilant care, but that doesn't stop the guilt and "what ifs."

Brief polictal rant

I couldn't help but respond to this blog post:

Well I said it, Obama, sounds like Osama, is now telling the Muslim world that we are not their enemy. Well I guess he has forgotten September 11, 2001, the USS Cole, the Kobi Towers, the attacks on US Embassy's in Africa, and the 93' bombing of the World Trade Center. In an AP article Obama used his first official address on a TV network to tell the Muslims we are their friends, he picked an Arab TV station to be his first public TV address as so called President. How American is that? Not very, he is the most un-American person besides Michael Moore that I can think of and he is suppose to the the President. Obama didn't want to talk about how his dad was a Muslim and the stupid liberals would get mad at anyone who mentioned that fact during the campain. You liberals get so mad and belligerent at anyone who disagrees with you, the first thing you liberals do is yell 'racist' when that has nothing to do with hating Obama's polices. Those polices I mean are trying to be friends with those who kill Americans, Just like Bill Clinton had a chance to take out Osama Bin Landen because he was with a Saudi Prince. Polices like sending American Tax Payers dollars overseas to provide abortions. I guess Obama is killing foreigners by using our money to pay for abortions in other countries, maybe if they used guns to kill un-born babies it would bother the liberals even more.

You can tell the writer of the AP article is biased, saying that George Bush "launched wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan, well how about this, we were attacked by Muslims, people who believe in killing those who they consider infidels, their religion is more important to them than their alliance to a country, that's why it doesn't matter what country they are a citizen of, they are a Muslim first, they attacked us first, we finally retaliated, something Bill Clinton should have done in 1993.

Oh, and one more thing, Obama's name always comes up as a misspelled word, it isn't even in the dictionary on MS Word or Firefox.

I commented on the post but thought I should use my own space for a rant:

Seriously?

The Muslim world isn't our enemy. Muslim extremists and intolerance are our enemy. There are good Muslims in the world just as there are bad Christians. There are Muslim Americans that love this country as much as you and I! Are they enemies of ours as well?

Is US Army Captain Humayun Khan your enemy? Captain Khan "lured a suicide car bomb away from the men in his charge, joining other Muslim soldiers in giving their life for a country that increasingly bases its opinion of Islam on the sensational and horrific beheading videos that have clogged the Net recently." (article)

Should we put Muslim Americans in internment camps? Surely history has taught us better.

Intolerance works both ways.

As for the man who is "supposed to be" our president...

Obama was elected within our system. He is our president and implying or stating otherwise is as bad as when people claimed Bush "stole" the election. Just as I told those folks then: get over it.

I've been republican all my life but I will support the president of our country, and as a matter of fact, I voted for him. I may not agree with all his policies, as I did not agree with all of Bush's, but that doesn't change the fact that our system has worked and we have again had a peaceful transfer of power.

And I sure hope you're joking about the MS Word and Firefox dictionary... I'm going to assume that was laced with sarcasm. As a matter of fact, I'll assume the entire post was sarcastic...

Ghost says cheese

Ghost says cheese
Originally uploaded by duanekeys

I couldn't resist posting this one!

DIY Goat Feeder

I built this nifty little hay feeder from plans on goatworld.com. I modified it slightly to include a roof that's hinged. It seems to work really well, and the goats only tip it over when it's empty, ha!

You can see Snowflake and Sampson along with their mother, Ghost in the background. Stocky little ones aren't they!?

Technorati tags: Geek Acres, farm, goat feeder

Bouncing Baby Goats

Things have been crazy busy on the farm the last few months. Our journey into the world of goats continues on. Pictured here are some of our bouncing baby goat kids running towards Jennifer. They're just so dang adorable! Princess, Jiminy, Cricket, Bella, and Stella have a great time bouncing off over turned buckets and bales of straw. Soon our two newest arrivals, Bugsy and Gander, will be doing the same. I can't help but smile when I call "Baby goats!" and they all "baaaaa!" back in unison. Jennifer and I can actually pick out their individual voices!

We just finished up ice storm preparation, hopefully it's for nothing:

• all water tanks are topped off
• extra bedding has been applied to all three goat barns
• all feeders are full of hay
• some slight rearranging of kid warmers and heat lamps is complete
• wood hauled in and fire going
  

Should we loose power I should be able pull the generator out of the garage (it was test started last weekend) up next to the well house and plug in the well and run a cord in to the house for the furnace blower, as well as plug in minimum necessary kid warmers in the barns.

I hope everyone fares well during mother nature's latest. How do you prepare?


Technorati tags: Geek Acres, farm, goats

Buh Bye Wild Blue

I can hardly believe it, but I have DSL service now on the farm!

Overall, the WildBlue experience has been tolerable. It's better than dial-up, but that's not saying much! The latency and inconsistent performance was frustrating. Perhaps not having to wait on pages to load will encourage me to blog once again...

Hoops

The greenhouse hoops are up. My
buddy Timmo came out last weekend with the welder... these hoops
aren't going anywhere. Next up is to build the ends and attach the
plastic. I considered straw bale construction but the learning curve
is probably too long for the time that I need to get the greenhouse up
and usable.

Any one have any tips? I think 2x4s treated will work for the ends to
hold a door, fans, and chimney...

Kids!

Ghost had a buckling and a doe kid this morning.

SWMOBoer.com

As previously mentioned a few local goat ranchers have gotten together to start swmoboer.com to combine marketing efforts. We're still adding content and getting the site set up, so check back often!