Peaceful Day on the Farm

The animals are more quiet than usual today. The weather is perfect, not to hot but not at all cool and a thin, thin layer of clouds that lay more like a thin blanket in the sky than the cottonball formations, cumulus clouds, whatever you call them and now this is a terribly structured sentence.

Anyhow, it is peaceful, quiet and laid back here today. If I didn’t have to work I’d be laying in the sun on my zero-gravity chair, dozing in and out of the early stages of sleep. But I have to work.

It is so quiet today, in fact, that not even George, the donkey, has made a sound. He is not a fan of the heat or the bugs that bug him as long as the sun is out. Every hour or so I see him saunter out of his lean-to and walk his patrol – he really takes his job, as guardian, very seriously.

Louise and her kid bucks shift between fierce dining sessions and equally fierce naps. I envy them. Louise is eating her cud during her slumber (I am grateful I do not eat and cannot eat in my sleep). As ruminants, goats have four stomachs and it is best for them to lay and rechew their food for about four hours a day. I think she hit four hours of said activity by noon today!

Anyhow, this is what it’s all about. Embracing days like this, when I can say, write, feel and enjoy a peaceful day on the farm.

And Then Angel Entered My Life

Tuesday evening when JP and I were leaving the farm we both concluded that Symphony was very much in heat, very out of season and that I should take advantage of it (for lack of better terms) and try to breed her. So the next evening I made plans to and did the following:

1). Load up Symphony and take her to be bred.

2). Pick up Angel, the new milking doe, along the way.

Now mind you, a few weeks ago when I moved the goats to OC Acres they broke the back window out of the truck. Now I have to resort to tying them into the  back of the truck, which I did.

This is what happened while each were tied to a corner of the truck: headbutting and biting. At one point I looked back and Symphony was just staring at Angel then plowed her head first until the tie stopped her dead in her own tracks. Kinda comical.

Anyhow I set them up in neighboring stalls for the night and put them to pasture this morning. The dominance challenge begins between the four does. Even my sweet girl Louise is in on it, don’t let this picture fool you.