Well, first there's the baby goats. Last Friday, we collected our foster goat, Tayish. He belongs to a friend from our synagogue who won him in a raffle, believe it or not. He's a 10 week old wether, and the kids have made a pet of him. Here's Simon holding him:
Then, on Sunday, Bast gave us our first birth and our first doe of the season, Calliope. It was nice for Bast that she just had the one little one - last year in her first season she had triplets!
Each season's babies name choices have a "theme" - this year is Greek mythology. Calliope was a (probably hopeless) expression of the hope we'll get enough doelings to make a full set of nine muses (and a way of avoiding Simon's fantasy that we'll have triplet does he can name Alecto, Magaera and Tisiphone - that's just a little ominous ;-)). On a completely geekily irrelevant note, we already have a cat named Mnemosyne.
Arava was next in line and gave us twin bucklings on Wednesday, Orpheus was tiny and loud:
And his brother Daedalus was big and quiet, at least by baby goat standards.
Here are all three kids with their kids!
There are lots of other signs of spring here - seedlings taking the air:
Hazel catkins:
Angelica Emergent:
Lungwort, Ramps and Bloodroot coming up in the woodland garden:
But let's be honest, around here, it is all about the cuteness!
Time for Orpheus's nap!
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And my sister said I'm weird because I named my piglets Hamlet and Ophelia...
Would you talk to my husband about why backyard goats are a good thing? I've tried to tell him, but he thinks I'm just enraptured with cute baby goats. That has some truth to it, but all that and goat cheese too? How could he possibly say no?
Hi Sharon,
Great to see the pictures! As a newbie goat person (at 63!) we managed to survive the Hungarian Winter - me, the two dogs and one buck and two does. Suzy, the younger but larger doe presented me with a fine buck kid four weeks ago as tomorrow. Sadly he is now a wether, but one buck on my place is enough. I offered him to a family in the village that have three does, no buck and no milk. Also sadly declined. I think the other doe is pregnant too.
I have a question if you have time for a brief answer - I know you are a busy person. I have a ground cover weed that is speading, mainly because the goats won't touch it. Should I just use Roundup upon it and keep the goats off (goes against the grain), or should I take the mattock to it, bury it in the compost heap and broadcast clover seed instead?
Regards from a regular reader in Hungary,
Steve
Steve, what you do with the weed depends on what it is! If the roots will survive and grow in your compost heap, then don't bury them. If it'll regrow from tiny root-fragments, a mattock may well make things worse (zillions of little plants instead of a few big ones). Equally, if it's bindweed, you'll need to keep Roundup-ing again and again to actually weaken it significantly. If you have the labour to spare, handweeding repeatedly may help (you need to then actually kill the roots - I stick mine in a bucket of water until they rot, then tip the stinky mess onto the compost), but is impractical for a large field. Repeatedly topping the meadow with a mechanical mower or just with a scythe will weaken some weeds quite nicely, but you won't be able to get a hay-crop off it.
Thought you'd appreciate our silly story of how our 450 lb cow got stuck in our doghouse!
http://furlinedtoiletseats.blogspot.com/2011/04/it-was-dark-and-stormy-…
:)
I'm bitter. we just had another snowfall. I want my garden!!!
Also, I asked the boyfriend if I could have a goat. He asked me if I wanted the goat to eat my schoolbooks. Unfortunately, I think he might have a point...
Steve, what Stripey Cat said. What's the weed? How to deal with it best depends on what it is and how it grows.
Teresa, sure - I was just thinking that a goat-related marriage counseling business was my next step ;-).
Sharon