Windy, stormy and cold weather

First I should back up a week…Venus was definitely in heat last Saturday, December 8th. She was excited to be around her mom, making lots of interesting sounds, running a little extra than normal and her tail was fluttering quite a bit.  The next day she was more calm but definitely seemed to still be excited.  Now onto today….

Typically, Tilly and Venus are patiently waiting for me at the gate to see what goodies I may be bringing that day for their morning feeding. Today the girls were in their house when I arrived, keeping themselves away from the windy morning..  “Girls, Tilly, Venus” I call out to them each day.  Running, quickly responding to my voice they greeted me with what I’d like to call ‘smiles’.  Today I walked into the gate with a full 30-gallon lime green barrel of new alfalfa-grass mixed hay to fill their feeding area.  They seemed pleased with this, though there was still some left in their feeder.  Following me closely to see my next move, Venus looked into the bucket and started eating.

Tilly looked at the oyster-white two-fold recycled closet door, waiting for me to reach inside to open the latch so she could go in and jump up on her stanchion for her morning milking.  “Thanks Tilly” I said to her as I gave her a hug before I began milking.

A few weeks ago the county maintenance road crew used a heavy-duty mowing machine to mow the sides of trees, bushes, shrubs, anything that was within the 40’ road maintenance codes on along the roadsides.  You might be able to imagine how it looked at first.  Luckily though, I saw one of the guys come back for a few days and use a hand tool to trim things up so they didn’t look so messy.

From these trimmings were quite a few branches from the evergreen trees by our farm.  So each morning on my way to feed the girls I’ve been stopping along the roadside and picking up a few branches to add to their morning mix of salal  branches that Nick usually cuts for them.  Boy they sure seem to love the salal, and now that winter is close, the fir and pine needles and branches are a favorite for them.

Today when I had to run into the village to grab a few things and drop off an herbal product order to our local natural foods store, I stopped by to bring them another treat.  I remembered that we have lots of dried hops flowers on-hand.  I thought, if they liked it, it would be a good snack that could help keep them calm through this windy day.  Sure enough, they liked it.  It’s also a bitter; goats naturally like bitters because they help their digestive system.