Are you kidding? Why yes, yes we are.

Rule #1 of living on a farm: Things rarely, if ever, go as planned.

You would think that by now I would know this but, to be quite honest, I think there is something in my brain that just completely ignores it and goes on a coffee break. The arbitrary "plan" was that we really wouldn't expect any baby action in the goat world until Friday or Saturday, but...

So my Monday morning started off like every work day morning: I'm a semi-early riser by default, I stumble down the stairs toting mini blind dog Marla in one arm and a water bottle in the other, trailed by my 100 pound white fluffy Pyrenees sidekick Casey (who would sleep until noon if left to her own devices), to greet my earlier rising husband who has been up for at least an hour. And Seife. Oh, bouncy bouncy getupinyourbusiness soap dog Seife. He's always that way too cheery one in the morning.

Fast forward a few minutes and I have coffee in hand, mini dog has been walked, slippers have been traded in for barn shoes and I'm off (still in my pajamas) across the yard to the barn to deliver breakfast to the non-house gang. Horses are pacing in their stalls baby chicks are bouncing around, goats are screaming for room service.

Normal stuff.

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Team Greta

Friday, February 9th started off as a normal day in the barn, but as I was doing chores and feeding the horses and goats, I quickly suspected that Greta, one of our La Mancha goats, was showing early signs of labor. It was her due day, so I wasn't surprised. I removed her from the herd and placed her into one of the three kidding stalls in our barn so that she could have some peace and quiet. Four hours later at 10:46am, she delivered two beautiful big twin boys. As per her normal (this is her third year with babies), she was quite proud of herself and insisted on showing them off to me nonstop. The twins were up and wobbling around in no time and Greta was a busy mom fussing over them. Saturday morning was uneventful and Greta and her twins were comfortable in their kidding stall, but by early afternoon, something wasn't right. Greta wasn't finishing her meals and she just seemed tired. I took her temperature at 3pm and it was normal -- 101.9 -- even though she...

Barn Improvements

I've been putting off a much needed barn improvement project for a while in hopes of catching the necessary materials on sale. Specifically, high grade rubber mats for the stalls and aisle way. The heavy stall mats I needed finally went on sale today so Seife & I headed into town. We will need to remove the old mats in the stalls and do some leveling of the clay floor before we put the new ones in place, as well as have some sand brought in to raise the floor level in the aisle way because we occasionally have flooding problems when it rains a lot. Project benefits: Reduce bedding costs (which are at an all time high) because rubber mats keep the bedding from being ground into the dirt/clay floor. Reduce flooding problems by allowing us to raise the floor level and then protect it with the mats Reduce dust issues... our barn is very, very old and the aisle way is made up of very, very old fine dusty dirt that gets on everything. This will also help keep our milking stat...

Heated Buckets

We recently installed heated water buckets in the barn, one in each stall for the horses and one for the goats. I probably should have done this years ago but I think I've finally had enough of busting ice in the morning only to have it refreeze a couple hours later. The buckets have cords, so you have to put some thought into where you are going to hang them. The cords are wrapped in a protective metal spring to deter chewing, but especially with goats, the cords need to be completely out of sight of them. I don't trust their wandering mouths. I placed the goat bucket pretty much on the ground (still attached to the wall by a bracket) so that it is low enough for the chickens to access it also if needed. They frequently come in the goat stall for water, especially if all of their drip waterers are frozen. The cord goes through the slats in the wall so they can't reach it. I also put a bungee cord around the bucket to keep them from moving it at all (and possibly exposing...

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