Happy Festivus!!!

So... look, the full water tank!



The heater makes bubbles for some weird reason.

A picture of Mister Fish before the tank was filled:



I was killing time while Brego ate his lunch (I'll get to that soon) and fluffing the hay in the goat's stalls. I just leave the hay they won't eat for bedding and every other day I fluff it to let the goatberries fall to the bottom and to let it air out. I laid the Ladies table on it's side and moved it out from the wall some, this way they have some semi-enclosed areas to curl up in, for them and for the babies. That doesn't stop them from climbing on it. Please ignore the gross blue blanket. It was Sparrow's Blankie until he got bored of playing with it, now I gave it to the goats and they toss it around. It looks horrible but they have so much fun with it that I leave it in there. In the summer I hose it down now and then. Right now it is just jammed with hay and straw.



Sage's udder is twice the size it was just two weeks ago. YAY!!



Anyway, Brego's lunch... I've spent almost 2 years now trying to perfect an easy way to feed Brego without having him share it with Mary. It wasn't until recently that some folks online were talking about feedbags and it occurred to me that a feedbag could be the perfect solution. Well, it took me a month or two to earn enough cash through doing surveys to get one, but I got one! Last night he got his first meal in it. He was confused, and so were the other two little boogers. But he very quickly figured out that meant all the food was his and he COULDN'T share.

So breakfast today was his first regular meal in the bag, since last night I stood right there and made sure he didn't freak out with the bag on his face. But this morning I put it on him, then got hay, fed the goats, checked and filled everyone's water, and by then he was done and I took the bag off. But at lunch time Brego is the only one who gets anything, so I fed him, got some pictures, then went and hung out with the goats while he munched.

PICTURES!

Hey! What 'cha doing?



Can I have some?



HEY! What are you guys doing?



DANG IT!! I can't get in there!!



HAHAHA!!! The minis were SOOO ticked off!





It looks like the bag is going to work GREAT.

Not a good day to have a bad day.

Seriously.

*sigh*

Sometimes I wonder if there is some cosmic conspiracy to make every simple thing as absolutely difficult and complicated as possible.

Simple thing: fill the water trough.

How it is complicated: The water line to the big barn (closest water faucet to the tank) broke under ground over a year ago. So I have to run the hose from the trailer to the little barn, which takes about 175/200 feet of hose. So the hose has to be hauled in to the house the night before to thaw. The hose is heavy. I can barely move it. Then the next day it has to be hauled out into the yard, run from the faucet to the tank. then once it is hooked to the faucet I have to open the skirting (which was jammed and didn't want to open) turn on the spigot underneath and hopefully fill the tank. Unless the pipes are frozen. In which case you need to find a way to thaw them before the hose freezes back up.


urgh.


You know, I have simple dreams. One of them is a faucet within 10 feet of my stock tank, well insulated with heat tape.

The horses have water, I had a massive melt down, and I totally jacked up my shoulder trying to deal with it. But hey, at least the tank is full and I won't have to deal with this again until... next week.

Oh, and all my winter clothes are soaking wet now. So me and my jacked up shoulder are going to go do laundry now so I have dry winterwear for doing chores tonight. lol. So much for handling things ok this winter! *rolls eyes*

The shortest day of the year....

Things only get brighter from here on out. I made it through to the Solstice ok, just a few bad days here and there where I could feel the S.A.D. trying to crawl in. But for the most part, so far so good. I just have the actual holiday to get through and I should be home free. I even made it through the anniversary of Jamie's death without a total melt down. GO ME!!

It's been a bit of a fight, though. After having two winters with low dose Prozac I am not sure it's worth the effort to keep mentally healthy and fight the S.A.D. without meds when the meds work so well. I've done ok but it has taken a LOT of effort. Part of the reason why I went without meds was because we had a financial crisis hit right when I would have been going to the doctor for my check up, so the money that would have gone to the copays went to keeping our lights on instead (long story, lol). By the time that was resolved I decided to just give a med-less winter a try and see if I did ok compared to how I had done pre-meds.

Well, I did ok, but I don't want to have to fight this hard to keep it together. Especially not after having two years of not having to even think about it. It's EXHAUSTING. I don't want to do it again if I don't have to.

My "Indian" name is "Smells Like Goats".

First, i woke up with this song stuck in my head:



*sings along and rocks side to side* Now THAT is music, my friends. I may love a lot of kinds of music from power metal to reggae to mariachi to 70's and 80's and classic rock... but this kind of stuff? It just still blows me away. I just have NO idea why I woke up singing it today. Drifter, Platters, Temptations, etc... just love it. On the Roof, Under the Boardwalk, Only You, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, STAND BY ME!! Looooove it.

OK, so... on to the goats. Yeah, I'm allll about the goats these days. The closer we get to kidding day the more obsessed I am getting. Rosemary is actually getting an udder now, too. SO CUTE! Yes, I'm "awwwwww"-ing over goat mammaries. So I made a run to Tractor Supply and got some iodine for dipping navels, CDT vaccine, some free choice minerals (I ran out), and a few other things. I also picked up some cheap pet clippers from Walmart to clip back the hair on the Ladies tails and udders for hygiene reasons. Yesterday my big project was to update their shots and give them their mommy makeovers. Thanks to Thyme, I got a little CDT vaccine myself. *sigh*

I think the clipped tail looks stupid, but it will be much simpler to keep clean during birth and the week after. Look how round and bulging Sage looks:



Rosemary and Thyme are getting a tad bit portly themselves:



Since it is pretty cold out there and likely will be when the babies are born I am knitting sweaters for them. No this isn't some crazy idea I came up with, google "baby goat sweaters" and you will see it isn't entirely uncommon.I made my own pattern and I am still tweaking it, I'll post the pattern when I finish it. I made the first two out of scraps of left overs so they are super gaudy. Here is Nigel modeling the first test baby goat sweater:



Brego modeling them both:



obviously they would work ok for dog sweaters, too.



I plan to have 4 of them ready in slightly different sizes and the Ladies due dates are spaced out enough that the first set of babies won't need them any more by the time the second set get here.

Parsley seems to be enjoying having his own bachelor pad and not getting beat up trying to munch his hay.



Gratuitous pony pictures:



nomnomnom

Parsley's Bachelor Pad, Wet Horses, and Topless Shots of Sage.

Parsley is now a swingin' bachelor, chilling out in his hip cool bachelor pad. The last time I tried to make him spend some time away from the ladies he cried. A lot. All day. Until i finally took pity on the poor sod and put him back. But at that point I had no reason to think the girls were expecting and I was just kind of toying with the idea. But now I am pretty sure we have at least two ladies in a family way and they need to not have a randy dandy buck pestering them while they try to grow the future of my herd in their bellies.

So Parsley got his own place, and moved to it yesterday. He fussed for about 10 minutes then seemed to notice that, oh my gosh, I don't have a herd queen kicking my butt and stealing my hay, but I can still talk to them all I want! They weren't putting out anyway, so I guess this gig isn't so bad after all!

He really enjoys not having to scuffle for his place at the hay pile:



He begs for attention every chance he gets, which isn't so bad now that the stink of rut is gone and he doesn't reek. he stands up on his hind legs and does this tiny hophophop where his feet come off the floor like 2 inches, max, haha!!! It's so cute.



We are in the midst of a snow storm, I made sure the horses had a ton of hay in the run in and what do they do? stand outside in the wet sticky snowy crap.










*shakes head* goofy ponies.

So, I needed to get indecent photos of my girls so i could show them to the folks at the goat forum and get opinions on the likelyhood of their impending motherhood. Since they are all set up in their winter digs it made it nice. In out of the wind and snow, I was glad I had them in the barn.



Anyway, I was looking at the pictures of their girlie bits and found a pair of pictures that show how Sage's udder is filling in. I cropped out the more inappropriate of parts to just show the udder. I got pictures of her boobies, and didn;t even have the decency to give her a string of beads.

This is her udder in september of this year:



and this is her udder this morning, hehehe:

Sage has an udder!!!!!

As in, like, enough of an udder that it is about two good handfuls and soft and squishy!

Looks like maybe Parsley got the deed done with at least one of the girls after all.





Sage and Thyme both have bellies that are larger than normal and feel decidedly round and squishy in the udder area. Rosemary seems thicker around the waist but no sign of udder development.

But Sage's udder is like the size of two grapefruits.

I'm so totally stoked about it. Man I hope it isn't just some weird hormonal thing, and she is actually pregnant. I REALLLLY want a doe out of her and Parsley. It would be 3/4 dairy breed.

*jumps up and down*

Tomorrow I will get pictures of their poochies (girlie bits) to post on The Goat Spot and see if anyone thinks they look like they have babies on the way.

I need some cheap clippers to clip their little udders. Is it really weird that I think their udders are CUTE?

I seriously have gone crazy about goats. It's scary.

I can see a time in my life where i could be happy just having a goat instead of my minis. and I think, when I am old and grey and can't or won't be able to take care of a horse that a small goat could keep me sane.

I always thought some day I would be a crazy cat lady, but I think I am going to be a crazy goat lady instead.

It is ice cold and pitch dark out there and i seriously just want to go out and hang out with my goats. lol. I think I am going to load up my pockets with stale froot loops and go see my goaties.

Tit for tat....

Tatting is my newest skill I am learning.

There are two kinds of tatting, shuttle tatting and needle tatting. Shuttle tatting is the original method, needle tatting is a more recent development in the art. I am needle tatting because it looks easier to me, hehe. tatting is a type of knotted lace work, if you had a grandma who made doilies or put fancy borders on pillow cases she might have done it with tatting.

I got some tatting needles and have made things with thread and with yarn. It's fairly simple but makes a complicated looking finished product. I think next year for Christmas folks will be getting tatted snowflakes in their Christmas cards, hehe!

First practice project following a pattern... it's edging for a collar made with crochet thread:



second project using a pattern, a snowflake using cheap worseted weight yarn:



The two together so you can see the difference in size:



I fiddled around with stuff to try making my own patterns and made some stuff for Tiff:





I am finishing up my holiday knitting, I have just one snood to finish, assuming I didn't totally screw it up (in which case i may just rip it all out and use the yarn for something else blarg!) then I have to finish the woven reins on my loom, then I can do more attempts at making tatting patterns.

I totally need a job at a yarn store, lol.

FILTHY!!!

How is it that when the ground freezes and the mud is completely gone Brego gets the filthiest ever? Seriously?? And it's impossible to get him clean. And he STINKS. It was the same thing last winter. He turns one spot in the run in area into a sewage swamp of urine and such then lays in it. Rolls in it. REVELS in it.

Seriously dude??



UGH! This isn't mud... I wouldn't mind mud so much.



He is so lovely and graceful *cough* and noble *cough* and elegant *cough*laugh*cough*. "Fairytale horse" my butt!



Not only that but he must hang with a rough crowd of fairies or witches. Because they go wicked mad on his mane.

It's hard to see, but he had three massively knatty "creatures of the supernatural world" braids. I've heard them called witch braid, fairy braids, fairy knots, etc. but i just call them "those *&%#@@%&%$ rat's nests in your &^$@@!#$^^$ mane!!" They are usually underneath a lovely lock of untangled hair, so you can't see how horribly knotted it is until you see him shake his head OR go to brush it out. I wish you could see how ratty it really is but it actually looks pretty good here. DON'T BE FOOLED!!!



I bedded his usual "pee and play" area and what did he do? just picked a different spot to pee and roll. *slaps forehead* I groomed him all up right after taking these pictures, ended up reeking of barn stench, and within an hour he looked the same, only now he was wet and stinky instead of dry and stinky. What a doofus.

He is just SUCH a boy! Ah well, I love him anyway. It's just not as nice to hug on him when he smells like a porta-john. lol.

The fanciest goat pen this side of the Mississippi.

So, the goats have DeStRoYeD the little hoop hut. It served it's purpose but now we need something more solid and permanent. We have plans for it, but I also needed a goat-safe stall in the barn to keep them in when weather is really bad, when babies are being birthed, when I need to keep some goats apart from other goats and to keep them in while we work on their outside pen.

I had this "stud stall" I built for Sparrow when i got Mary and I tried to put the goats in there but Rosemary The Climber got out within 20 minutes. So I requested help from the guys to make a goatproof stall. After brainstorming we came up with the idea to use the left over lattice from our wedding decorations (HAHAHA!!!) to extend the walls up.

It only took a couple of hours. They managed to get it all done between taking our first doe of the firearm gun season and heading back out to hunt for the evening. It works and the stinkers can't get out.



It looks like it needs climbing vines with flowers growing on it. *rolls eyes and laughs*


The goats, resigned to their fate and chilling out.




Now I need to tear down the hut before the ground freezes and make my second goat stall in the little barn with the cattle panels from that, get the new shelter put up in there, and get some toys for the goats to climb on in the back corners of their stalls to help keep them entertained. I have a couple of old woodenshop tables I may use for that.

Today I set them up with their free choice minerals and baking soda, and while I can't say they are THRILLED they do really seem to enjoy being in out of the wind and sprinkles.

Brego comes dashing out of the barn every time one of them stands up against the door and looks out. It's quite funny. I left them a space over the door so they can look out but not get out.

Once I get the other little pen in the barn done I'll have more room than I have goats. Hm. maybe that means I should get more goats. *raises eyebrown*

NaNoWriMo...

I am almost half way done with my "novel". As I write this I am at 23,147 words on my word document. Honestly? It sucks, and I have no clue where I am going with it. Which, thankfully, is fine for NaNoWriMo!! It's about quantity, not quality, thank goodness.

Thank you for the thoughts over the last few weeks... those who have posted here or sent private words. I appreciate it. It's all good, I'm still not terribly talkative as far as blogging but i do feel the urge coming back.

Until it is all the way back, here are some pictures:

Tough.

I've had a rough two weeks or so. So, as usual, when I have difficulties that involve stuff and things and stuff... I don't talk about it publicly. So, no offense, but "things is private". And since things and stuff that are private have been really foremost in my mind... I have not had much to say.

And now I am starting NaNoWriMo so I am going to try and put all my words into making my 50k words in a month. I may make a few picture posts here and there, but expect a lot of nothing here until I am back in a proper frame of mind to be blogging and NaNoWriMo is over.

And please don't worry. Everything will be fine. I'm just worried, very disappointed and more than a little bit pissed off. But things have a way of working out.

The Gourd-ucopia....

This is the gift I made for grandma's 90th birthday. After I got the pictures we found some baby "Native American" corn to put in with the little gourds.