Four legged friends

So Joni's been living with us for a couple of weeks now.  So far, so good!  She spent the 1st week or so tethered near a big grass pile.  But I was worried that she was a little lonely there.  I know I was anthropomorphizing, but I just felt like she needed a few friends.

So on a rainy day, GB, Luka and I went down to retrieve the goats from the lower property.  

Luka did a fine job leading them up the hill

GB and I took Joni on a walk to meet her new friends.  Sometimes the walk is a bit of a struggle.  I think GB had taken over for me at this point.  There's just so much yummy food to eat along the way...

 Taking a little snack break while Luka rides up and down the driveway.

 Meeting the goats!

 Hmmm.... Joni seems a lot more interested in me than in the goats.  Loki, however is VERY curious.

 Back to the tether for one more night!  Ducks come out of their enclosure to see the large friend.

We did end up moving Joni in with the goats the next morning.  They've been together there for about a week so far.  At first, Loki maintained his status as the alpha male.  But after a few days it seemed like Joni's got the upper hand.  She stomps at the goats when she doesn't want them around and they scatter!  I suppose it's smart to respond to an animal that's several times larger than you!

Joni doesn't seem all that interested in the goats.   She's there with them, but unless they're in her way, she doesn't pay them too much attention.   Perhaps she likes other donkeys more?  Or maybe she's just a people donkey!

In any case, it's nice to see Joni in the pasture where she can run!  Tethered, she can't really exercise her legs.  Seeing her running is so nice!

Mark and Kassie just sent us some pictures of our dear donkey, dressed in a saddle, with ribbons in her hair.  Isn't she so pretty?!?

 

Typical goat play-- up in the air, butting heads

What's New

Since our last post about the goats going on a walkabout, we've had more goat issues.

They went missing from another pasture while GB was out of town. I was alone with Luka and was so worried because I had NO idea where they had gone. I started calling around to see who could help me with Luka and/or searching for the goats.

I had just dropped Luka off with Sue and was awaiting Jake to come searching thru the gulches, when my phone rang. Our neighbor, D had received a call that am from his neighbor asking if he knew of anyone missing goats. Our neighbor D had called GB's cell phone, but GB was out of the country. Fortunately his daughter was in a play with Noam and when he dropped her off for rehearsal, Noam gave him my number. The goats were safe and sound at a nursery on the scenic route!

They had followed a bicyclist for a mile before he worried they'd go to the highway, so he brought them to the nursery.

Luckily they had a place to corral them! They gave them some water and ti leaves. Jake and I came and got the naughty kids.

In the meanwhile, Noam and I set out to fix the upper pasture where they first escaped from. I figured we'd find a couple of places where they could get under the fence. What we found was 3 trees that had fallen and messed the fence up. It's a much larger job than Noam and I can fix.

This is the largest tree. You can see below that the fence post is piercing it

This is the 2nd tree. It's a MESS in there. There are all kinds of branches on top of the fence.

Needless to say, we can't put the wily goats in this pasture until the trees are chainsawed and the fence is fixed.

Naughty Kids and What's new?

I was only kind of shocked to look at the blog and see that I haven't updated it since November! It's not that there's not been land work/ progress, but more that we've been in a maintenance mood rather than a new project mode.

Naughty Kids:

We moved the goats to the upper pasture a few weeks ago. It was an easy move with good goat compliance. The goats happily munched away up there.

I went up a few days later to worm them. And they were nowhere to be found...

Now I haven't written yet here that in November we lost another goat. Tamarind was killed by a dog (neighbor's :( ). The killing took place in the upper pasture and after he died, we quickly moved the remaining goats away... and they hadn't been back in there since.

So when I called and no one came running I thought the worst. But it was hard for me to believe that ALL 4 goats would get killed or drop dead since I had seen them the day before. I walked the whole fenced in area (not easy there!) calling. Nada.

I did see one spot in the fence that they could possibly have gotten under. It was tight, but it was worth checking out.

I walked back down to the house feeling dejected and like we had lost all 4 of our precious goaties. The most accessible car to go driving and look for them was our little Honda Civic-- our other 2 cars are big. but this one was there.

So I set out on the next driveway over to look for them . And lo and behold, there they were, standing on the road like nothing was amiss.

I called the house to get Ra'am to drive over with the truck. But I tried to capture them anyways. And I got all 4 goats into the car (by picking each one up-- thank goodness we have dwarfs!).

You can see in the above picture that Floyd had a little poop incident in the car (floor on paper).
Loki and Neo "enjoy" the ride. That's Gandhi's tail there and the way top of Floyd's head.

Needless to say, they have NOT been back in the upper pasture and the fence line needs some work!

Garden:

Ra'am and I cleared out the garden in the last couple of weeks. Today I planted eggplant starts (that sat too long here- we'll see how they do), okra starts from Heather, started bush and long beans, and planted some lettuce mixes in the pots.

Palms:

Planted 4 lanceolatas along the side of the driveway near the water tank this weekend. They are about 4-5' tall now.

Hopefully the next post will be full of garden veggie goodness!

New Kid on the Block

Meet Loki

He's a young (not sure his exact age) Nigerian Dwarf goat who looks like he fits right in with the rest of the gang. He's got horns and a sweet high pitched baa.

We got him 3 days ago and so far he's at the low end of the totem pole of goats here. But I suspect that the horns will give him an advantage in the future. in fact, Noam told me he saw Loki butt back one of the other goats yesterday.

Here's Gandhi, Neo and Floyd checking out the new guy

This maneuver was happening over and over from all goats. Maybe it means "hi, howzit?"

He fits right in with the gang

Cutie

And for my own record keeping.... started some seeds (straight in ground). Salad mix (in pots). Kales (in with chard), tomatoes, peppers, corn (why not?), sunflowers, and some papayas

Palms and TIMBER!

Saturday we got 4 palms in the ground!!!! It's such a big deal because our nursery is filled with palms right now and what I really want to plant is AVOCADO trees. So we're slowly making it thru the palms so we can get on to some food producing trees.

We got 2
Carpoxylon macrospermum in the ground. GB did 99% of the work on these, but I got the glory with the photo. We had to attach some chicken wire to the fencing there behind me because the goats were so interested in this new plant and were eating it thru the fence. They've all scattered here, except for Tamarind.

After this, GB and I moved down to near the pool and after much much difficult work, we managed to get 2 Metroxylon vitiense into the ground.
We planted them on the side of the hill down from the pool. It's steep there and very very jungley. I weed whacked with the blade, and GB chainsawed.


Sunday we worked up on the newer property, near the goats.
GB decided that this tree had to go. It was crowding 2 avocados (see above), and if/when we put a structure/office/house here, the tree is right in the way.

Cutting

It's starting to tip

On the way down

Job completed!

Looks like an octopus!

New Kids on the Block

Meet Tamarind and Thorn. Born December 10, 2009. They're Nubian Goat kids.

Gandhi, Floyd and Neo knew something was up

Come and meet your new brothers!

This is Tamarind. He's smaller than his brother Thorn. They were from a litter (?) of quadruplets. The other 2 were females

Luka feeds all goats

A natural born leader

After settling the goats (and taking tons of photos), I picked up Ra'am and Noam. I showed them the photos on the camera but neither thought they were that cute.... until we got home. The oohs and ahhs were so loud!

Ra'am and Thorn

Noam and Tamarind

Me and Thorn

The following morning I decided to take the 5 goats for a walk. They were very docile and easy to manage. We had to make a quick detour at the house for me to get something, and they all waited patiently downstairs.
While here, they made tons of noise, and GB started referring to me as his Crazy Goat Lady wife.... hmmm.....

Day 3 am, Luka and I took the goats to the upper pasture

Tamarind gets very excited sometimes. I caught him mid air here

And in other animal news....

Pippi is now acting like a peacock.... flashing up her big tail.

Best family work day EVAH

Goats need a shelter in the new pasture. Family comes out in full force to help!

The 5 of us started out on a nice Sunday morning and brought the goats along to "help".

Ra'am dug and dug and we placed the footings in the ground. Then came the easy part- building up.

GB looks like he's explaining something important to us.

Noam learned to use the drill

Brothers help each other

Luka helped all day-- one of his more important roles was decorating. He embellished several 2x4s with a sharpie- and one made it on to the shed- and we clear coated it so we can enjoy his artwork

The shed is complete!

twins! (and a new pasture)

New Pasture is done! Given time issues.... we hired Darrel to fence in a new pasture on the upper property.

GB and Damien are discussing the specifics

2 giant albezia trees are DOWNsee how dense it is in there?

Fenceline complete!

Yesterday we adopted twin goats, Thorn and Tamarind. They are 3 week old nubians from a litter of 4. They need a few more weeks to get more mamas milk and then they'll come home with us. They're going in the new pasture, but we need to make them a shelter. We're "pros" at that!