From Dawnland: Phoebe, Doe #6

This is really not a great picture, but that on the right is Phoebe, the buck on the left is her brother. Phoebe's mom is Dotty, whose main claim to fame is a goofy ole' picture of her "smiling". Dotty is a great dam with a mixture of Goodwood on her pa's side and some crazy milking standards on her ma's side.

Phoebe's dad is Tabby L.

From Dawnland: Jonquil, Doe #5

Jonquil is SweetPea's newest daughter - we loved Sweetpea from the get-go and when we saw that the doeling that was born and retained by the breeder we did the sad "cross another name off the list" face to each other.

But when Dawnland offered Jonquil to make room for does coming in from another herd, we jumped at the offer. This pic shows Jonquil about four or five days old. She takes after her mom in color and conformation. Bit early to say much about what she will be when she grows up. Maybe an astronaut. Capronaut?

Doesn't matter, she is cute enough!

From Dawnland: Luna, Doe #4

Luna is a cross between Mona Lisa and Water Tabby - two amazing lines - we wanted a baby from this same cross this year, but couldn't get anywhere near. So we got the next best thing, one of their does from last year.

She is long and well-proportioned, the line of her back is also pretty nice. And best of all, she is very 'dairy', which means her skin has this certain pliability which goat people like.

Won't know that b/c she hasn't breed yet, but when she does her milking should be awesome

From Dawnland: Erica, Doe #3

Erica is amazing - she has another great lineage from Caesar's Villa, a NC Nigerian farm that has some nice milkers and show goats too.

Her mom is a 7*D, which means she comes from 7 generations of recognized milkers. Woof.

She is nice and wide with awesome bones up front, good for easy birthing and with her dam's milking, she should be a great doe.

From Moonspinner Farms: Nekoda (Cody), Buck #2

This is our second buck, Nekoda or Cody, who is scary cute looking here. One of the things we were told to watch out for was "don't fall for a cute buck with nice coloration, look for a good buck and then look for cute".
Cody is both - he has an impressively high judged score of his conformation and his up-and-down black just is too cute for words. He passes his coloring on to his kids easily too. Very nice.

Like Amador, he has an impressive lineage. But compared to the others, he is an "outcross", which is bafflingly some of the breeders we are buying from, but we are biologists and inbreeding is not the goal.

From Dawnland: Amador, Buck #1

Here is Amador, this pic is when he is a few months old, today he is just 2 yrs old. He is our "Rosasharn" buck, which means he is in the line/style of Rosasharn (which is the most famous and oldest of the New England Nigerian Dwarf farms). Rosasharn bucks are smaller-boned and leans towards being longer but more compact than a typical buck.

Apparently, tho, he is a super-sweet buck and his lineage is crazy-good.

From SM3Pines: Chambray, Doe #2

Chambray is a three year old doe who doesn't quite fit into SM3Pines future breedings, so Stacy offered us Chambray too. She has a pretty cool background - look at her pedigree, the letters in red are good things.

Chambray is a little more timid than Stacy's other does and misses out a bit at the feed trough, but from this pic of her preggers, you can see she does put on the weight pretty well. For some reason, we are both drawn to her.

We are going to go out to SM3Pines in late May to pick up Chambray and Mina and bring them home.

Wait until you hear about our options with Dawnland Farms' babies. Instant herd, just add cash and it can be yours! :D

From SM3Pines: Mina, Doe #1

A doe was born!

This is a picture of Wilhemina, Mina for short, born at the SM3Pines farm in Canandaigua. Little thing, isn't she, just a couple of pounds and Stacy tells us she was born yesterday morning. Still a little wobbly on her feet but Stacy said that sorts itself out in a few days.

Love those moonspots, don'tcha? We do too.

Our two other crosses we were following didn't work out this spring - one doe had twin bucks and the other is a yearling that will breed this spring for the fall. And we need at least one other doe at home to keep Mina company.

Stacy is willing to part with another of her 3-yr old does, Chambray, who just isn't quite show quality. A good milker, but not perfect looking. We are going to work it out and bring Chambray home too. Should be right after Bri's b-day in early June! Time to finish our rearranging of Barn Thing, v7.0 and get the fencing up for the close paddocks.

Now, we just have seven more crosses to watch over the next three months :D

Time to put some seeds in soil

It is still about 8 weeks from our last frost, but that means it is time to start those tomatoes and peppers.

So, here at Weathertop it is a family affair, some of us make the soil blocks, some sort seeds and some decorate the trays with stickers!

Here is Carol and Eiley sorting out which stickers mark the tray (this is how we map each of the five trays, but the kids think we are just down with stickers too).

 

This is what it looked like to begin with:

And this is how it looks now

And here is Muppet - curly hair and all. Did we mentin she is saucy and manipulative... someday she will turn 2 and it will get worse. Ai!

 

Remember when she didn't have any hair at all for the longest time. Now we need a weed-wacker just to find her eyes. I think she might need to visit a hair salon :D

 

Extreme Closeup on Brianna "chirpy" Chickadee-dee-dee 

Eiley says, "Cheeezzzittts....Cheeezzzittts, please"! Now make it whinier in your head and you have the situation.

We got about 6 inches of the nicest snowman-making snow you could ask for. A bit too much for the road-crews so we had a nice family day b/c Jamey was not willing to drive in this sticky slop.

But it was awesome sticky snow for snowmen. And unlike last year, the wind wasn't howling, just sheets of sticky snow (as Eiley's curl will attest). 

Chickens and Rooster, oh my...

Cuddle Time - Cute Cute Cute

HMMM - Are they dangerous or just cute in jammies?

Why, o why, do I put up with these yammering humans?
Shove that stuffed animal in my face again and I may just... lean back and ignore you more.

 

Taking a page from the Beatles songbook, here is "A Day in the Life Of Eiley"

Yow, Sister is a monkey! (with a toy warthog in her hand) We played hard, good thing the Romper Room has lots of cushy things to bounce off.
It was a nice day, so I went outside and ate a plastic animal while Mom and Dad cleaned and cleaned and cleaned the romper room.

And then Sister and I both decided to set up our "beds" outside
on the lawn while Mom and Dad finished up lunch

It was a good day. Bad nap after that, but a good day :D

Kids and Cats: Or How Pancho/Fellini Learned to Love the Kid-Bomb

He left for 2 days and then returned: the prodigal (spayed) son. Now, he has to face the combined affectionate wrath of two kids under the age of four. He may survive.


Percy looks away - "the horror... the horror"