Four Legged Exercise vs Two

I am feeling under the weather today and the skies are cloudy and wet with rain. Lon nor I am moving very fast this morning. He had a sleepless nite after drinking coffee too late in the day yesterday. He also has his own physical aches to deal with today as well.

It appears that Amber, our milker is in heat and with Samson's "moves on her" we are unsure if he will be able to get the job done. Samson is 7 months old and this is his first breeding rut of his short life, though bucks are fertile as early as 3 months. So we decided to travel down a nearby road where we had been told that a family raised Nubian goats. We hoped to find a "buck for hire" for our girls. Had a wonderful ride down back country dirt roads but never found anybody that appeared to have goats at least from the roadside. We will have to keep searching and/or pray that Samson steps up for duty. As we want all of them to be bred and in milk next year. Plans are to use the extra for making goat cheeses, yogurt and soap besides all that we can drink.

Sassie gave me my exercise this morning by getting loose from her tether and going to visit the neighbor's horse. Hiking up the driveway to retrieve her only led to the other horse following us home. Second trip up the LONG driveway to walk it back to it's home resulted in it promptly returning to ours. Third trip up the LONG, LONG driveway (did I mention we live way off of the road?) involved Lon and I both with a roped horse in tow. Taking her all the way to her owner's front porch steps, we learned that her name is Spirit. Guess that speaks of her persistence and drive to be with Sassie. Throughout the day she would appear in our upper pasture intently watching Sassie graze out in the front yard. Who by the way I had to convince twice that it was not a good idea to return to the top of our drive.

Lon was able to sow the grass seed and clover over her future home today with high hopes of getting a good stand for next year's grazing. With all the rain we've been getting it should be a good time to plant. A load or two of chicken manure would help it along as well.

Catching my breath,

Deborah