Mothers and Daughters

One month from breeding time and look at Avalon (white), she is almost as big as her mother Kia.

Here is first time mother Gardenia (left) and Jeepers. Jeepers gave birth to twins last year. Since the weather was nice recently I broke out the electric netting again and let the girls graze on the grass and leaves in the yard.

Azalia is Gardenia's daughter, she is a plump one and is bigger than all the other ewes except for her mother.

Alma is a product of Jeepers and Kilarney, she is the smallest of all our sheep.

Kia and Ava, these two are smart and wary. All the sheep just love leaves, unfortunately I think I'm still going to have to rake.

Horny Boys

Just like most boys these fellows have their faces buried in their food.

Alder and Albion are in the middle. Alder has beautifully wide horns.

He is a handsome fellow with his wide horns, white wool, badger face, and an orange mane. He is a magnificent specimen and an excellent example of a Cascade Ram.

Killarney may not have as nice horns as Alder, but his aren't too shabby and he is the leader of the flock.

Fall Colors

Don't the goats just blend in with the various Fall colors that the leaves are showing? I love how my goats all display unique color patterns.

I really like this picture of the goats with the last rays of a twilight sun at their backs. I just missed Addison sneezing, the air all around the goats showed a slight fog. If you look closely you can still notice a bit of mist in the air.

Garden, What Garden?

Last year we planted potatoes and when we harvested them they were tiny! We never got around to planting the garden this year.....

Guess what we found growing in the garden this year?

Turns out that the Commander probably missed harvesting a few potatoes last year. At least this years accidental crop of potatoes was above normal size!

Determination

Guinea girl somehow survived the night terrors, cold, and broken eggs to hatch out a clutch of eggs earlier this summer. The odds were against the little ones so I took the survivors and gave them to a broody chicken, those lucky 8 are still alive. The 4 that stayed with Juliet were taken by a fox.

It is late in the year but I found Juliet sitting on a new nest of 18 eggs!

It is way too late in the year and getting too cold at night for her to have any chance of hatching them out so one day while she was out foraging I took up her eggs and now they are on their way to International Falls. A woman I know there lost all her chickens to a dog attack and she wanted some eggs to hatch. She knows she will be getting guineas but I'm not sure she realizes how loud they can be. I did add 4 chicken eggs that were laid on the day she visited so hopefully she can have a mix emerge from the incubator.

Juliet is back spending her nights in the coop but she still disappears during the day, I hope she hasn't started another nest!

Prey at Night

I went out to the coop the other morning and saw guinea feathers on the ground and in the pine tree. I thought for sure one of the guinea boys were "taken".

Turns out the Diablo somehow survived the attack. I think he fell out of the tree into the coop, and whatever was after him couldn't get in. Note the big bare spot in the middle of his back where there used to be feathers.  The bare spot is a lot bigger than it looks in this picture, you can see bare skin!

The two guinea boys spend more nights outside than they do in the coop. The are teaching the little guineas to stay out with them...much to momma chickens chagrin. I hope whatever it was that attacked them has moved on. I have to pray for them every night.

Brrrrr!

This is what I saw this morning......Oct 1st it is too way too early in the year for the outside water to be freezing!