Monday, October 4, 2010

Been too Long!

I realized just recently it's been waaaay too long since I post last. I guess I've been busier than I've ever wanted to be. A good busy but still busy. So I guess I'll just hit some highlights of what's been going on here. First of all - harvesting. Yep - harvesting and canning and cooking all the yummy foods from the garden has been a priority. Still not done but winding down - finally! We have harvested and canned or frozen: pesto, chile, jalapenos, cucumbers, zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, peaches, etc. Secondly I've been critter sitting almost nonstop for about 4 or so weeks. I enjoy it but it does take it's toll and I'm tired - really tired.
I have a break for a few weeks now which is good.
We also had a bout of soremouth. NOT a fun thing to go through, especially the pen cleaning and care of the "sick" animals. Thankfully this was an extremely mild case, we are done and still in the process of cleaning pens (burning and bleaching and resanding the floors of the stalls) between rains. Hard to burn things that need burning when they are soaking wet! See the picture above - that was the morning after a 2 1/4 inch rainfall in one evening. In NM that is 40% of our annual rainfall - in one night. I had a bunch of NOT happy goats. I wasn't exactly excited either having to wade thru muck and mud to feed.

Now that we are done with that, we have turned our attention to breeding or at least attempting to breed. I like my babies in feb/march so we are now in full swing.
Assuming all is going according to plan (does it EVER???)
we have Stars bred to Intrigue and hopefully due Feb 21st, Hope bred to Intrigue and due March 1st, Next to go is Tirzah who is going back to Piddlin Acres H Calm the Storm for babies due around March 6 - 8th and lastly will be Cleo who is going to visit Dragonfly USH Ten Zen for babies on or about the 20th of March. She will be it until fall. We would like to show in March and then again for the Quad show in June. We are also planning on going on the 305 day testing as long as the folks who agreed to get certified do. Looking forward to some great Nigie milking next year.

I know that's not all that's been going on but it's late, I'm tired and have my usual early morning schedule. Will also post an update on Alyssa soon as I know some of you who follow are probably wondering how things are going with her as well.