Kidding is done, on to grazing!

Kidding season is no doubt one of the busiest times of our year here at Sunny Acres, and leaves little or no time for blogging, even though it does give us plenty of things to talk about!  But now most of the kids have been weaned, and we're into the second busiest time.....rotational grazing season!

Rotational grazing is beneficial for both the goats, for parasite management and growth, and for the land, as it helps replenish the soil nutrients and promotes regrowth of the pastures.  However, it does entail many trips across the fields, setting up, taking down, moving the temporary electric fences we mostly rely on.  In a perfect farm world, we'd have permanent boundary fences on all the pastures, and would only need to set up cross fences for each day's paddocks.  But time and money come into play, and so, we manage with what we're able to do!  The photos below show the goats in a new paddock, and you can see the edge of the paddock from the day before.  It is ideal to move the goats daily, which leaves lots of trampled residue, protecting the soil from the heat of the sun, and adding organic matter to the soil surface.  This organic matter feeds the soil's micro-flora and earthworms, which in turn bring nutrients up to the roots of the plants.

One of the challenges of rotational grazing is deciding which pasture is the best feed for which herd (does with kids? weaned kids? breeding bucks?) and then moving each herd through that pasture.  The cold spring here had a drastic impact on some of the types of forage we have available, so we find ourselves moving the herds through the pastures in a different sequence from other years.  However, the goats are happy to go wherever the shepherd takes them, and fill their bellies until they return to the secure paddock just before dark each day.  Most of our pastures offer little shelter in the way of brush or trees, necessitating the return to the pole barn shelter at night.  Soon the dry does will be moved to the hedge rows between the mowed hay fields, and will stay out day and night, sheltering under the trees. 

And, when it rains too often, or there just isn't time to mow the lawn, the goats are happy to do it for us, as seen below!   Too bad they can't be trusted not to eat the lilacs and other intentional plantings around the yard, or I'd keep some on around the yard every day! 

Saying goodbye to an old friend.....

"Why do we do this to ourselves?", our daughter asked through her tears.  We do it, because those four-legged friends give us back so much in return for the care and love we give them.....anyone who has ever loved and lost a pet of any size can relate to this.

Today we had to say goodbye to Applejack, our daughter's 27 year old gelding.  He'd been struggling with a health issue for the past seven years, and today he lost the battle.

Applejack was born on our farm on May 18, 1987.   It was a school day and oh, how difficult it was to head off to school and work with a new foal in the pasture!

 Sent for training when he was three years old, the trainer pronounced him "too smart for his own good."  He learned his lessons quickly, and our daughter learned right along with him.  As her riding lessons and his training progressed, they spent many an hour developing their skills.

Applejack quickly decided that this riding thing was definitely not his favorite past time.   A pleasant ride could very suddenly turn into a contest to see who was the more determined, horse or rider.  Over time, it soon became evident why our daughter and Applejack shared such a close bond, one that continued throughout his life....  They shared many of the same traits!    Smart.  Determined to do things his/her own way.  Lively sense of humor......oh, yes, don't try to tell me otherwise!  Applejack could play up the tired, hard-worked horse routine at the end of another ride, only to kick up his heels and race full speed ahead when turned back out into the pasture.  Other days, if the saddle was brought out before Apple was already in the stall, the ride was cancelled, as he would not be approached no matter how tempting the treat being offered.  No matter how many times he battled the ride, nor how frustrated she got with him, he never failed to bring the girl to gales of laughter at his antics.  Even over the past few years, when the vet deemed that his health issue would make it too hard on him if he were to be ridden, he got the last laugh.  Given "maybe a year" by the vet, he lasted seven.  Told the effort of being ridden would make it too hard for him to breathe well, he continued to race around and kick up his heels, enjoying his retirement, eating his special diet, and knowing full well that he won the "I hate being ridden" contest! 

  

But even the best-fought battle is sometimes lost in the end.  The past winter took a terrible toll on him, and his ability to fight just ran out.  There was time during the past few days for teary-eyed visits to him in the pasture, and "remembering when", but today we told him good bye..

As is often the case, even in this extreme sadness, there is a lesson to be remembered.   Love always comes at a price, but it is a price we will continue to pay because of the great rewards we receive.

When Applejack was born, our daughter was not quite 8 years old, and I was a young mother.  Today, she and I stood together with her not quite 8 year old son, as we all cried and said good bye.

The circle of life continues.................    Good bye, old friend.  Rest in peace!

Invincible Spring

To be fair, as I sit here writing this, a gale-force, bitter wind is howling across the flats and shredding the night air with icy talons.  An accretion of ice makes walking an extreme sport.  Wind chills have plummeted to -3.  But this is a blog about spring, according to the title...  if even just to remind ourselves that spring will come, despite the frozen grip winter seems to have on us this year.

Spring is tucked into the expectant mothers filling our "maternity ward" with a sound we like to desribe as "wildebeast crossing the plains," grunting with largeness, ready to burst with young.  Once a year, the does put on a fantastic display of late-pregnancy chatter.  It only happens in spring, and last time I walked through the barn, the wildebeast were in full conversation.  Welcome, spring! (Let me tie my hat down tighter, though... this wind-driven ice hurts my ears...)

Spring is also quickly revealing itself with the promise of another busy kidding season.  Not wanting to count the ... um..... chickens before they hatch (kids before they hop?)... expectant mothers are not enough to prove spring is rallying for a wonderful reveal.  Let's find it in the soft, downy quiet of a newborn kid.

Or in the daily excitement of saying, "how many?"  and, "what colors?" that we ask anyone who has been to the barn more recently that the others.

(It's also in wondering how two beautiful bucklings will stay in the barn, and not be smuggled out under jackets of the grandchildren for pets...)

Spring is in unpacking the kid scale and weighing in newborns during evening hours, while neighbors watch The Bachelor season finale, and not minding one bit that we have no idea what people are talking about in television land.  This is so much more real than reality TV!

Spring is in the tender hands that cradle newborn kids for shots, 

or simply because, sometimes, there is nothing sweeter than a baby snuggle.

Spring is in fastidious record-keeping as the kids arrive as quickly as they can be counted, some days, and in junior farmers practicing this important job, too.

Spring is in the sun having strength again when the wind quiets down.  It's in watching over the does while basking in the sun, only to have the chair occupied by spring-fever goats the moment the spot is vacated.

(That white stuff behind the frolicking goats?  That's just another climbing hill for them....  and..... Nitrogen..... this is a blog about spring, remember?)

Finally, spring is in the fact that there are 40+ kids tucked away in the barns tonight, including many beautiful new doelings yet to be caught on camera, and more on the way.  It's in the fact that this blog will be filled with "Kidding 2014" photos before you know it. 

Winter was hard, sometimes.  It has left its mark on the to-do list that didn't get completed because snow removal was a frequent chore. 

 It left a dent in the wood pile, the ice-covered equipment, and the pot holes in the roadway that could swallow a tractor.  Winter's relentless cold dug deep.  We said goodbye to a favorite doe, and see the edges of winter-weary on a few other animals here.  But it also meant moments of bird-watching with grandchildren, catching up on reading, and the shrieks of laughter ringing over the clover field quietly resting beneath a blanket of snow. 

 Despite the cold, the dark, and the snow, the seeds of spring have been planted.  

Albert Camus spoke this poetically when he wrote, "In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer." It isn't about the cold relenting, the harsh windy ice storms of winter being replaced by gentle spring rains, or even the fields once again greening in the warm days ahead.  No, the shift in seasons is about something much deeper- the thing that gives a famer the strength to face difficult days, long, cold, hours, and even winter's losses:  spring is a quiet well of hope that must be ever-present- And it is the promise that we never work this land alone; that light will return on the horizon.

  It always has.

The winter that doesn't want to quit.....

Here's the view we've been looking out at the past week or so.....no doubt pretty familiar to anyone living in the Northeast this year!  Yet, within the next two weeks, we'll begin to welcome a fresh crop of goat kids, which can only mean spring IS coming!  Kidding in March is always a bit questionable, since it seems to be a month that doesn't know if it belongs to winter or spring.  But kidding then also means that the youngsters will be heading out to pasture with the does at an age when they are just becoming able to utilize all that new spring pasture.  Regardless of the current weather, we are all looking forward anxiously to kidding season here at Sunny Acres.  Hopefully the next pictures posted will be of lots of new Kiko babies, rather than snowbanks!  Stay tuned!