There's More!

It's so very, very cold here in Southeast MO! I don't like it and am so ready for late Springtime to arrive.

Hubby goes to barn yesterday morning and then calls the house. "Hey, Honey, you need to bring molasses water to the barn for Fawn." "Why, did she already have her babies?" "Yep, but she's only got a single." No wonder she didn't get as huge as the other does and made us think she wouldn't deliver for a while yet. So I fix a pan of warm molasses water for Fawn, put on my insulated overalls, hat, scarf, hooded barn coat (my daughter's), and gloves and head for the barn. The new baby is up and moving, nice and dry and Fawn almost inhales her sweet water. After we finish all the chores and eat breakfast, I call the doctor to make an appointment for our son later in the morning. He's been sick most of the week and now has a really bad cough and was still having fever off and on. Our younger daughter stayed home to feed the baby goats at lunchtime and take warm water to all the animals.

A few hours later, we are back home. I take hot water out to the animals and get bottles ready for the babies' next feeding. When I get to the barn, I can't find the oldest baby goat and the brand new baby is laying down and shivering. Bring the newest baby goat to the house and tell hubby I can't find the oldest one. So he gets dressed for the cold and goes out to the barn. He found the little goat outside, not too far from the barn, cold and shivering; so he brings him back to the house. We lay them both on towels with hot water bottles to get them warm. Both of the little goats' ear tips were frozen. Now today, the youngest goat's ears are fine, but we're not sure about the other one's. He may lose the ear tips. After another night of having baby goats in the house, they are back at the barn. Hubby shut all the new babies in one stable, so the other goats don't bother them and they can't escape under the sliding barn door.

I made a batch of mozzarella cheese last night. Yum, yum! I have yogurt incubating this morning. Next time I order milk filters, I'm also going to order some lipase powder and try my hand at making a strong feta cheese. I've made lots of the mild, but want to try a new recipe. Now it's lunchtime, but afterwards I'm going to make some more mozzarella. Too late to do cottage cheese now. Should have started it first thing this morning, as it has to sit for several hours.

First Snow Day of 2010

Today is my kids' first snow day of the year and they are glad. We have a little over 2 inches of snow here today and the weatherman says it's going to turn bitterly cold by this afternoon and will be through the weekend.

Ended up bringing another goat kid to the house to get dry and warm. He wasn't eating much, but now he is. He went back to the barn yesterday afternoon. Keep the oldest one in the house overnight, but this morning I asked hubby to take him back as well. He's not eating as much as I'd like, but he is doing fine and I'm tired of cleaning up goat pee and poop. His mama had "adopted" the other does' baby that remained at the barn. How funny for the baby goat to have 2 mamas fussing over him. Hubby rubbed the kid on his mama so he'd smell like her, but if she doesn't take care of him it's okay. We always bottle feed all the baby goats anyway.

I have sourdough rising to make a loaf of sourdough bread and sourdough pretzels. Promised hubby I'd make pretzels over the Christmas break and haven't done that yet.

Because of caring for the new baby goats, I only made 2 batches of soap this week. So much for that New Year's Resolution! I made Castile soap on Monday and coffee soap yesterday. This afternoon I will wrap the Oatmeal & Honey, after I bake the bread and pretzels.

But first, it's time to heat up goat milk for the goat babies and take warm water to the rest of the animals and gather eggs. We aren't getting many eggs right now and hopefully they haven't frozen.

Baby Goats!!!!

Lots of excitement at Patchwork Acres today! First of all, it's my eldest daughter's 23rd birthday. Next, one of the mama goats had twin babies to show my husband when he went to the barn for morning milking chores, in the COLD! The high for today was the low 20's. Anyway, by the time I went to the barn 2 hours later to do my morning chores, one baby had died. The other didn't seem to be doing very well and wasn't up and walking around yet. So I brought him up to the house and put him in the laundry room with a baby gate across the doorway to keep our Scotty dog from bothering him. I laid him on a towel and dried him off more, then covered him with another towel. I sat with him thinking about what I could do to try warm him up and a light bulb went off......hot water bottles! So I filled a 2 liter soda bottle and two 20 oz. bottles with hot water and laid them next to him under the towel. I also was trying to get him to suck on a bottle of his mama's colostrum. In the meantime, after lunch I had to go out and take hot water out to the rabbits and goats and replace the chickens' water bottles, which were all frozen. I heard a baby goat cry and I thought, oh, more babies! Another mama goat had twins babies, dry and moving around! Yeah!!! By late this afternoon, the first baby goat was wobbly, but finally on his feet!!! He's peed a few times and pooped, which is a mess I have to clean up, but good news that everything is working properly. And after supper, he finally drank 4 oz. of colostrum. I am hopeful that he will go back to the barn tomorrow. Before hubby and I go to bed tonight, we will feed all three babies another bottle and they should be good until the morning, where it's 4 times a day bottle feeding for the first week. After that it's 3 times a day until weaning time. We have three more does to kid, but I think it will be a while yet before they arrive.