Happy Fall!

You know, I hate when one of my favorite bloggers drops off the edge of the planet and stops posting. That always makes me so frustrated. Well, you can put me in the "lame-O blogger" category now because I dropped off the edge of the planet this summer. I am apparently not alone because when I checked in on some of my favorite blogs, most of them have not been updated in months either. Sounds like it was a busy summer for everyone then.

Updates on the farm:
The goats are all good. I have 5 right now.
1. Lucy, the 7 year old Alpine, had a buckling this spring. She did great and I just recently dried her off for the year. I probably won't breed her again this fall due to having a lot of younger girls to breed.

2. Figaro, the fluffy Angora wether, is doing well. He is ready for a shearing but I am too lazy to do it. He may not get shorn this fall. It sounds like a good idea now since the weather is pretty cold already and I am super lazy busy. I will probably curse his lack of shearing in a few months when he is a filthy fuzzball in the middle of winter.

3. Daisy, the 2 year old Saanen, is great too. She had twins this spring as a first freshener. Her udder was very nice but her teats are a little short. I dried her off early to save the hassle of working with small teats. I hope by her next freshening her udder will grown and she will have longer teats. She will be bred this fall to an Alpine buck.

4. Fiona, the 1 year old Alpine, is fine. She has stopped growing and is about half the size of a full-sized Alpine, even though her mom is a full-blooded Alpine and her dad was a purebred Oberhasli. Neither of them are small. I don't know if her lack of size is due to stunting from parasites (a common problem on my farm) or due to some genetic issue. She put on one heck of a nice looking precocious udder this summer, so I would like to breed her this fall and see how she does. I have a Nigerian Dwarf buck in mind for her. Hopefully the smaller size of Nigerian kids will be easy on her for birthing with her size issues.

5. Alice, the 6 month old Alpine, is well.... Alice. She's noisy and not very smart but endearing, none the less. She's a huge 6 month old and I am contemplating breeding her to a Nigerian buck to see how she does. She's bigger now than Fiona, who is 1 year older than her. Alice also put on a nice precocious udder this summer. In spite of precocious udders being a weird phenomenon, it is kind of nice to see what a  goat's udder will look like before going through the hassle of breeding and kidding.

Winter is coming and we are all hoping for a long fall to ease us into the snow and cold.