Be Good

On a rare event, I had a friend over for a visit! Since I was gabbing away in Gator's Xing, Rob had to tuck all the animals in for the night. They all did so well for him!

Normally, I'm the one who gets most of the animals in their stalls. I say most because Sundae likes to hang out with me as I handle all the others. She's just like a puppy dog! Anyway, I'm so glad they did well and I had a great visit. 

I unfortunately didn't take a pic of the work the guys did today and Saturday. Yes Saturday! I'll rectify that tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy a random animal pic. 

Cottage Chic

Welcome to all the new readers! I look forward to telling you all about Fur Real Farms in my Sunday through Thursday night blogs. Ok, sometimes I forget to write it and sometimes I break my phone and can't, but usually it's Sunday through Thursday nights. 

Anyway, spring is just around the corner, and that means gardening. Last year, between my black thumb, weird temperatures and the drought, nothing I planted survived. Some night say to try yet again without changing anything, but where's the fun in that? Instead, let's buy a super cute greenhouse from Clifton Visions and try it that way!

We went small with an 8x10 because really, the smallest size looked too dang cute! Plus, I couldn't really convince Rob to go bigger as I haven't proven myself to grow anything yet. But, if this works, we can always get another. A whole village of them!

Carrot and Stick

With training my livestock, I use a modified carrot and stick routine. The carrot is sometimes really carrots and the stick is a broken shovel handle. I never use the stick as a punishment, but rather as protection. When Nutty first got into his rut cycle, he head butted me a lot. It hurt especially when he rammed into my knees! But then the stick came along. Anytime he tried to head butt me, the stick blocked him. He didn't like the sound his horns make on the stick and that's all it took. Fiona has also seen the stick, but as she's never tried to ram me, get horns have never butted against it. But, she knows the stick exists. 

Anyway, most of the time I use treats. Do you know that every single one of my furry animals know their names? They might not all come to me, Sugar is still the holdout, but even she knows her name. This afternoon, I called all of them individually and each got pettings for coming to me. No treats were used and yet they came!

During my time with them this afternoon though, I realized I need to start playing on their strengths to get them more bold. Example: Fancy loves to run and race me on my mule. She's my first goal, this weekend I'm going to start racing with her and rewarding her when she breaks out of her shell!

I still have chickens. 7-8 eggs a day with my ten girls!

More Socialization

This morning, our septic guys came out and they wanted to see the cows while they were here. They went in the pasture and pen with Rob, and the animals ran out the back of the barn. Sigh, I see that we need to work on socialization. They're great with Rob and I, they tolerate Senior, but I guess anyone else is a threat. 

But how does one socialize them? I know how to socialize dogs, but there isn't a livestock park around where they can all pee on the same fire hydrant. There are people on the land daily, but I guess they know the pasture is theirs? It's not like I want to bring strangers out and then Fiona gets rowdy. I guess I'll have to research it. Hey Google, Alexa, Siri et al, how do you socialize livestock?

More work done on the house!

Gentle Fiona

It's taken a long time, but I've finally tamed Fiona. Today, I was able to walk up to her in the pasture and pet her like it's no big deal. She then followed me calmly all the way to her stall. Absolutely no hesitation from her anymore that I'm going to do something to her. She must have had a rough start, but she knows she's safe now and very much loved. 

As for the barndo, my metal guy told me some excellent news. He said it's going so smoothly that by the end of the week, it's going to look a lot more like a house. I have been extremely impressed with how great those guys have been working. I'll recommend them by name once I'm done with them. 😉

Packed To The Rafters

The guys were motivated today! Essentially, the rafters are done. The front part of the house still needs a cross beam and then the rafters added to that, but that's all and that part is getting done tomorrow. Just awesome to watch!

Also tomorrow, the windows are going to be marked for their placement. This will allow the metal guys to start working on the walls. It's all going great right now. 

I know I already talked about Cocoa yesterday, but I wanted to mention today she started to bag up. This means her milk is starting to work it's way in the udders. Very exciting!

Happy New Year 2023!

This is going to be a fantastic year! Our barndo is going to finish, our land is going to be cleared of mesquite, and we'll have our first goat kidding season!

In fact, Cocoa has started to show discharge. From my reading of goat books and research online, this means she's about three weeks to four weeks away from kidding! Kidding watch should start on the twentieth, so that's about right. Exciting!!! You can tell she's done carrying around extra weight, she's so big. 

I wish everyone a great start to the new year!

Cocoa, more wide than she is tall now