In Honor of Buck

Buck, the valiant goat guard and all around good friend, died today. He was old (10), and it was hot (107). I guess his heart couldn't take it. I will miss his slobbering and hugs greatly.

Buck (the larger dog in the picture below) and Abby made a great team guarding the main goat herd and Maddy. I never worry when Maddy is with the dogs. Even after such a short acquaintance, Buck loved Maddy unconditionally.


We buried him in a place of honor in what will eventually be the Orchard. He can guard the trees. See you on the rainbow bridge, Buckers!

Barn cat?

We got a cat from a friend of Maddy's to serve as a general purpose farm cat. You know...keep the rodent population down, etc.

He's afraid to go outside because Goose honks at him. He'll be getting a bad performance review from me this quarter!

Hummingbirds

The window in the kitchen looks out over an arbor of trumpet vine in which several hummingbirds have rented a summer get-away condo.

I always thought hummingbirds were sweet and timid creatures. Not so. Do NOT walk under the arbor with a red hat on - you'll be dive-bombed.

There's one alpha-hummingbird that expends more energy making sure that none of the others take sips from his feeder than he does actually feeding himself.

Evil little thing.

When the moon hits your eye

One of the greatest things about rural living is the sky. The lack of street lights and other town output allows you to see more stars than should even be possible.

Sometimes it's almost like looking at one of the Hubble telescope photographs where you can see the Milky Way galaxy.

Last night the moon was so pretty through the trees that I couldn't resist taking a photo. Trust me, it was much more magical in person.

Head Butts

If I was a momma goat I think I'd refuse to breast feed and put those suckers on formula. When they nurse they give a powerful head butt to the udder. So powerful that sometimes it knocks the whole backend of the momma about a foot in the air. Imagine being smacked in the boob so hard you fall backwards. Forget it!

These two we affectionately call Cracker One and Cracker Two. They belong to Flag, who has a horrible udder but is a great mom. We'll probably cull her this year because I don't want to pass that udder along to any more offspring. Her boys are destined for the freezer eventually.



Here's another guy we have our eye on for the freezer. His "name" is FreezerBoy. He's really meaty. I hope like hell that we like goat meat, because we're going to have a lot of it!

It Starts....

Fitting that our journey begins on Independence Day. The main reason that we want to farm is to provide a healthy, wholesome lifestyle with a goodly measure of independence from genetically modified, pesticide treated, manure fed foods. Eventually we'll start working toward generating our own power and growing our own animal feed. Then... I'll build a wall around the whole place and flip the bird to the rest of the world. (Just kidding.. I won't really flip anyone off.)

Craig's mum and dad, Pat and Brian, are here from England for a visit. I love having them here to enjoy the serenity with us.

We set off fireworks and ooohed and aaahed appropriately. The fireworks successfully masked the smell of Mo, the resident goat stud. (Remind me to talk about billy goat stink some time.) Unfortunately, the big bam booms scared the bejeebus out of him. He got over it, though.

He's a big boy and will make us some good goat babies in March or April.