May Day

Nettle licking off one of her new born Boer mix boys

 The last day of April brought two new goat kids onto our farm.  Nettle gave birth to two Boer/Nubian bucklings at 2 pm.  We bred Nettle to EV, our Boer buck, 148 days earlier.  Our goal was to refresh Nettle, one of our best milkers, and hopefully have additional bucks to butcher for meat next spring.  Success!  Just what we wanted.  They both seem healthy, bouncing around and Nettle is being a good mother, not like last year.  Last year, her first, she didn't get it.  I had to hold her feet down to let her kids nurse, and later she killed one, slamming the kid into a wall that was trying to nurse.  I planned on turning her into sausage until I discovered how good of a milker she was.

Windy died Sunday morning about 9 am

After returning from a Beltane potluck dinner at a friend's farm, we bottle fed our little Nubian girl Wendy.  She was normal, sucking down the bottle of goat milk in two minutes.  Sunday morning when I went up to the barn to feed her I noticed something wrong - she wouldn't eat.  She has always been extremely hungry so this alarmed me.  I noticed blood and poop flowing out of her behind so we went into emergency treatment, talked to our vet, and tried to comfort her.  She died about 9 am that morning, just three hours after we noticed her problem.  So quick and sad.  Pam held her as she took her last breath, singing to her a song about passing on to the next phase of her existence.  I buried her in the raspberry patch that afternoon.

Our Cherry trees are finally blooming!

 A goat breeder friend of our told us when Windy's mother first rejected her and wouldn't let her nurse, that often goat mothers will know there is some genetic problem with a kid and reject them soon after birth.  Why waste energy and resources on a kid that won't make it?  Natures way she said.  Of course we didn't want to believe our dear little Windy had a problem.  I guess we were wrong.   Oh well, we have more milk now for the kitchen.  We have four buckling kids for our meat crop this year, and not needing any more does, we are pleased.

I took a beekeeping class on Sunday afternoon and found it interesting.  That afternoon with the outside temperature in the upper 60's I opened the hives and checked things out.  The queen is starting to lay eggs - she will lay up to 1500 per day, and I put in the first mite treatment - formic acid in the form of strips.  I'm told it's the closest thing to organic treatment but can be dangerous to humans and have to be handled very carefully.

Our apple, pear and cherry trees are now in full bloom - much later than past years.  With our new bees I'm hopeful we'll get good pollination.