And so it begins

Cinnamon had twins, a buck and a doe at 9:35am. Perfect timing, I'd just finished the morning chores and milking. This is her first time, but she did very well and is making an excellent mother.

So for the next month I will be making 2am trips to the barn to check on everyone. It's actually really pleasant at that time of night when there isn't lots of snow. There is a stillness in the air that you don't feel any other time. But a little scary, you have to watch for skunks, foxes, coyotes and mountain lions ( although we've never actually had them on our property).

We're just waiting around .....

...... for our turns in the maternity ward.

 Cinnamon

 Mandy

 Charlette

 Molly and Rosie

 Robin

 Tulip

 Strawberry

Marika

Kids due soon

Expecting the first goat kids this weekend.
Iona and Cinnamon  are due on Sunday, however I think Cinnamon will be a couple days early.

What do you do when it's really muddy?

You stand in a bucket.

Fun photos

New soap on the way

I spent all weekend making soap. Several batches of the traditional favorites, but also a couple new ones and brought back some I hadn't made in a while. Some of the exciting new ones are Plumeria, Jasmine and Margarita Lime. Also made a batch of Chocolate Chunk (contains real cocoa powder).
The soap will be ready for sale about the 1st of March. I did make vanilla lime shamrocks for St Patrick's Day and the Margarita Lime large eggs and Rosemary Lemongrass small eggs for Easter.

Tough (and lucky) rooster

New Year's Day was about 45 degrees and sunny, so I let the chickens out to run in the pasture about 2:00. That would give them a couple of hours of "play time" before dark.

When I went out to do chores about 4:00, I found Slim Jim, my Black Australorp rooster and a Rhode Island Red hen in the lower corral by the hay storage. It's not unusual for the hens to be in this area, but I'd never seen the roosters in there. As I focused on Slim Jim, I thought, what happened to your tail feathers? It seemed odd that one of the other roosters would have pulled them all out. I picked him up to exam him further as there was a bloody spot on this tail. Under the wing feathers, he'd had a whole bunch pulled out of his body and there were some bloody scratches (not deep).
After searching the area better, I found a pile of tail feathers and then another pile of body feathers.
It appears that something tried to get Slim Jim - most likely a fox. But Slim Jim is a tough old guy and managed to get away and I think give all the hens time to escape. No hens appear to be missing (although when you have 70+ of them, it's a bit hard to tell).

The next morning a dusting of snow revealed fox tracks (possibly more than one). So I won't be letting the chickens out to pasture for awhile. But with the coming cold and snow they won't want to be out anyway.