No kidding?

It's that time of year kidding time. As I've mentioned in the last post, we are having issues when it comes to goat kids. The first two mothers lost their babies. However, since then, we had one of our angora goats deliver twins. Twins! Frankie Blue (that's right, we have a female goat named Frankie and a male cat named Alice - we don't play the typical gender roles here when it comes to naming animals) gave birth, completely unassisted to two bucks. They are so cute. One was good to go, right from the start. The other, which I believe was the first one born, had a little tougher go around. He was cold when we went out there. We brought him inside, snuggled him against me with a heating pad covering him up. Mark brewed a cup of coffee and gave the goat a bit, mixed with sugar, to get him some much needed energy. Mark also milked Frankie and we were able to get some colostrum into little Bandit (named for the black circles around his eyes). He perked up and was able to get back to momma quickly. This year, Frankie was able to get both boys cleaned off and was interested in getting them nursed, unlike last year, where she basically ignored Sweet Pea for the first few days.
Here we are, nearly 5 days later and the boys are doing great. They spend some supervised time in the farm yard with their aunts and uncles. They are playing and hopping around - it's really a fun time for baby goats.
Now, Sweet Pea and Itty are supposed to be delivering. Sweet Pea has a full bag, sunken sides, loose vulva, and as of my last check (about an hour ago) a little goo coming out of her who ha - all the signs of pending delivery (in fact, I assumed that last night around midnight we'd be dealing with new kids in the barn) - but we are still waiting. I'll keep making barn checks and hopefully we will have a couple more healthy deliveries soon. So I thought I'd share some animal pictures with you...

Jester

Bandit and Decaf, playing in the pasture

Decaf - sweet boy with blue eyes, just like momma.

Bandit - he's smaller than his brother, but more independent

I just think this is cute - this is Itty (on the far side) with her son from last year, Coffee. You can generally find them together, snuggled up like this.

Jester stays real still when the babies come near him - like he's afraid he will crush them or something. I love the sweet smile on Bandit's face, as he snuggles his nose into Jester.

In other news - we were able to get a bunch of seeds started! 322 of them to be exact (50 tomatoes (3 varieties), 54 asparagus, 34 cauliflower, 36 broccoli, 36 cabbage, 36 celery, 36 Brussels sprouts, 16 jalapeno, 24 green pepper) - WOOT! 

Above is the rack that we built to start our seeds on - we need to grab another 4 ft. shop light to go for the bottom shelf. I thought the window would be enough light for the top shelf - but I worry it won't be enough - we could probably just put shade tolerant veggies up there.  We need to get some thing in the ground, once it warm just a touch more. Just things that like cold feet :-)
Ok - time to go check on a goat!