Reintroducing the Goats

Since goats are not the main highlight of my blog anymore, I could probably get away with saying introduction as most of you likely don't remember any of them for me to be able to reintroduce them to you. Anywho... 

This is my new buck, Lance. I had no intention nor reason to buy a buck, but when a friend told me she was thinking about buying him and I started looking at his pedigree, I was very intrigued. Combine that with the fact that he's solid black, and I was sold. That friend and I went 50/50 on him. I have him this fall, and then she'll take him for breeding next fall. 

Eclipse, who is my favorite doe right now. She's a sweetie and is wonderful to milk. According to Valerie, her milk tastes delicious as well. (Valerie, is Chad gonna drink goat milk when you start getting it again in the spring??)

Eclipse is bred to an AI buck, Aizumi. The kids will be full siblings to Pavi, who you'll see below. It looked like twins on the ultrasound. 

Bluebelle, who is my oldest doe. She's not friendly, but she's the quietest, calmest, and when you catch her to pet her, she's the sweetest doe I have. She's a granddaughter of Desi, who several of you might remember-she has been around a long time. Sadly, all good things come to an end, and she is no longer here. Desi was the last remaining animal that has been on my blog since its genesis. This blog has chronicled a lot of change, for sure...

Bluebelle also settled via AI, and was bred to two bucks-Aizumi and Abraham. I'll have to DNA her kids. Looked like twins for her, too.

Pippa is a daughter of Eclipse and a buck named Richy. She's wild and unfriendly, but when she's caught you can do just about absolutely anything to her and she doesn't twitch a muscle, so she's not all bad. It did take her a month to learn to even come into the milk room without an around the pen chase this spring, which was really aggravating. 

She is also AI bred to Aizumi. So she's a maternal half sister to Pavi, bred to Pavi's sire. Should be some nice kids! For some reason I was not able to get the ultrasound to give me a clear picture and I didn't try counting how many kids she's gonna have.

Pavi is, as stated above, a daughter of Eclipse. I put her in the pen with Lance overnight, but he didn't act super interested so to make sure she settled I also AI'd her. I used a buck named Richy, who is Pippa's sire. So if she took to Richy, her kids will be genetic full siblings to Pippa's kids, only with the pedigree in a different order. Super easy to understand, I know. 😂 

Pavi was too early to count the number of kids on ultrasound.

I'll have to introduce these next 3 does as kids, since they are in your lap bottle babies and I wasn't able to get pictures of them. 

This is Rosa. She is a daughter of Bluebelle and Ace and is Bluebelle's first doe kid! 

She has all the sweetness of her mom, and being bottle raised, is also extremely friendly. 

She was bred to Lance and ultrasound showed triplets!

This is Penny. She is a daughter of Eclipse and a buck named Freelance. Now, I don't know how many goat friends are still reading my blog, but if you're out there, you can understand why I'm so excited to get some Freelance kids! I have high hopes for Penny and her sister! 

Penny was bred to Lance 3 weeks ago, and it's too early to ultrasound her to confirm. 

Lassie is Penny's twin sister. I personally like Penny the better of the two, but Lassie is Valerie's personal favorite. They both have the lovely temperaments that Eclipse tends to throw in the majority of her kids. 

Lassie was bred to Lance, and has been confirmed by ultrasound, but it was too early to count the number. 

I was finally able to build Ace a proper pen with the leftover panels from the old horse pen. He better not jump out of this one. 

Ha, you thought you were gonna get through a post without seeing a dog? Think again! 

 

Pavi

Lassie, Eclipse, Bluebelle, Pippa and Clare.

Lassie and Rosa. 

My kind of black Friday shopping haul. 

 

My Friend

 It's about time I introduce you to my best friend, Valerie. She hails originally from upper Michigan, and we became pen pals in, oh, 2016 or so. I visited her once in MI, and she came out here a few times, once for the time we hosted the Goat Academy, and then several other times just to visit. 

The above picture was taken in 2018 when she attended the church convention in Tri-Cities. At that time Valerie was not comfortable with having her face on the internet, so I didn't post this picture. 

Valerie is one of my most loyal readers, and during the time I didn't blog she got so desperate for another post that she offered herself as blog material, telling me I could post pictures of her on my blog. Well, beings people rarely make it on my blog anyway, she still hasn't made it on until now. I have been trying to encourage her to make me some monster cookies, and then she could have an "in the kitchen" post like the one Chad got a couple years back, which can be found here. Since she has thus far declined that opportunity, I have to make a post without being able to munch monster cookies while I make it. 

She moved out here in September of 2019, and has a little house in Goldendale that she calls home. As you can see from the picture, she also has a dog-or 2. 😄 She is also a fellow goat lover, and us sharing our adventures with our respective goats was what formed our original friendship. Of course she can't have goats in town now, but she comes and dotes on mine from time to time, particularly the sundgaus. 

Now, most exciting of all is this:

Yup, Chad has finally found himself a bride, and my best friend is set to become my sister in January. 

This match seems to be as perfect as anything on this broken earth can be. 

Of course, I take full responsibility in bringing them together-you're welcome, you two. 😉

Around the Farm

This is a trial post to see how it actually turns out once published, instead of just in the publisher and preview modes. Because most/all people view my blog on mobile devices, maybe the horrible quality of the images will only bug me, and not the rest of you. It just frustrates me because I put a pretty bit of effort into getting good photos, and then when I upload them it totally takes away the effort I put in to make them look nice. 

Also, to keep the publisher from deleting my pictures or just flat out crashing the page as I try to arrange the pictures and write my post, I guess I have to upload one photo at a time and write the description for it before doing the next one. Takes a bit more time, but oh well-can't let a dumb little technical update put me down, now can I??

The porch is looking nice and fall-ish...

 

...while the planter out front is looking nice and spring-y with all these gorgeous flowers. 

 The sedums are changing color for fall, too. 

After procrastinating for several years, I finally got myself some climbing roses. Brittany and Mom put a row of shrub roses, and I put my climbers behind them, right along the fence. I'm not sure how much climbers spread out at the base, so I hope there's enough room between them and the shrubs to keep them all happy. 

Four of my sheep are resident weed eaters. I was able to borrow a nice portable electric fence from Valerie so I can move them around as they graze down the patch they are in. The only drawback is trying to get those posts into our parched ground, which is nearly as solid as concrete this time of year.

Silly it may be, but one great accomplishment is to sneak up on the dogs while they are sleeping. 😆(Oh look, the emoji's are back!)

Betrayed by the sound of the shutter!

 

Who woulda thunk-I got another dog since my last post. This is Missie, aka Bat, Batmobile, Bat Ears. She's a really nice little pup so far and I LOVE the ears. I hope she turns out! 

See what creative pictures they can make?? 

I had a pretty good year selling eggs and ducklings so I've expanded my duck flock a bit for the 2021 season. I have a bit more color now than I've had the last couple years, so hopefully they'll produce less of the solid whites like I had been getting. 

And lastly, these are the two pups I kept from Jinger's last litter. The white one is Rose, and the other is Libby. 

They are really laid back and nice pups, but they just aren't very courageous at this point, and I'm not real happy with them. Jinger has been bred to 3 different, unrelated males so far, and just doesn't seem to throw the right temperaments for my wants. Though she herself is, and always has been, very confident about most everything, the majority of her pups are not that way. As far as their working ability it's harder to tell, as I've only raised one up to a good working level. I'm not sure I've really liked what I saw of the younger ones on stock either, but I can't really condemn their stockwork when they weren't at an appropriate age to judge that. I have raised 5 of her pups for long enough to know that their temperaments just weren't as solid as I'd like, besides hearing of the same timidity in 4-5 of her other pups that went to other homes. That is besides my disappointment in these two I've kept so far, bringing the number up to 10-11 of her pups that have temperaments I'm just not impressed with. With that in mind, I don't plan on keeping anymore of her puppies. 

That's not to say that the buyers are not happy with the pups-a lot of them seem to be-but they just aren't what I'm looking for. 

I found out after the fact, that one of her first pups made it to the stockdog finals in Wyoming this July. The trial was recorded even, so I was able to go back and watch the runs. That was pretty cool! I wasn't watching the livestream of the trial, but I was keeping an eye on the score and names that I knew. I didn't catch this pup because her name was changed, and the owner is having someone else train and trial her. This pup was Sue, if you remember her from 2 years ago on my blog. 

A Warning

Just a warning that maybe I won't be able to keep posting. Blogger has changed their interface and the new one is junk. Besides just trying to figure it all out, it evidently doesn't work properly because it crashes when I try rearranging pictures within the post. I'm also not able to change the resolution of the pictures, so they are all blurry and nasty. We'll see what pans out. If I can't get these issues figured out, I will either not be able to blog, or would have to switch to another platform. All other platforms I know of charge you for the pleasure of having a blog. Just letting you know in advance that I've looked at the stats, and I will need roughly 300% more comments than I normally on each post to be able to support having to pay for a blog. (Oh, and just found out that I can't do emojis anymore either, apparently. *insert rolling eyes emoji*)

Massive Kennel Revamp: Part 2-New Faces, New Hopes, Possible Last Attempt

Soooo, we can buy as many as we sell, right? I think I was told it works that way. 😉

When I knew Jasper wasn't gonna work out, I started looking for another male. I got on the list for an extremely nice cross, with a lot of signs pointing that it was the correct next step. That dog had one deformed pup and it died. 

I got on another list in January, and could have gotten one of those pups but found out that a buddy in The Dalles was getting a male from that litter. I decided I should probably just get a different cross, because I can use that buddy's male for breeding if he turns out working wise.

I moved to a different litter from the same breeder, and that female had her pups prematurely and they died. 

I decided I wanted a pup from a certain male whom I really like, so I got on that guy's list, back in April. That dog had 1 dead puppy.  Ugh!

I got on a different breeder's list, who had used the above male on one of his females-everything finally went well, and I brought that pup home. 

Meet Clark. My first rough coat since the days of Kate! I’m also quite hopeful that he will be a gorgeous prick eared dog, too. He is an absolute gem, I daresay the best pup I've ever raised. Plenty of spice, but plenty ready to sit in your lap for a cuddle, too. I've never seen him actually scared, and he loooves everyone. If he doesn't turn out, I am very seriously considering giving up in my quest for a nice working male for breeding, and just keep him as a pet. 

Not quite in chronological order, but I'd kind of forgotten about Dice. Back in the beginning of March when I was looking for another male, a buddy of mine had a really nice breeding planned. I asked her if I could get on the list, but she said it was full. However, a week or so later, she contacted again and said someone had an older pup out of the same female that they were needing to sell. I saw some videos of him and really liked him, and bought him. He was in SD so I arranged with Uncle Mark to board him for me until I could find transport. I quickly found a ride for him, but they canceled at the last second, leaving Dice stranded. I couldn't find other transport for him so I didn't get him until the middle of April when my cousin brought him for me. In the meantime, I'd kinda forgotten I owned him and reserved Clark, too. In the unlikely event that they both turn out, I guess I'll just have to decide who I like better.

Dice seems to be a really nice dog, but has some quirks about him which is making him a bit hard to train so far. I am finally making some progress though, just having to learn new ways to get into his head. Every time I work him I get more hopeful that he is going to be “the one.”

When I ended up selling both Sara and Liz, I started wondering if maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to bring in a different bloodline of females and see if I like what they produce for pups better. Dice's dam line seems to be a very good producing line, so I decided to try my luck on that one. 

Taz is a full sister to Dice's mom. She's nice, but not overly friendly, and is more timid than I want. She seems to really want to work so far, so we'll see how she turns out. She's bit of a hard nut to crack, in the same way that Dice is. Dice and Taz kinda have their own minds, and I have to find a way to convince them that what I want them to do is either in their best interest, or as it relates to Dice working stock, a more efficient path to accomplishing the end goal. I do kind of like am trying to come to terms with the fact that they are thinkers though, and not impulsive-kinda like me, they have to be shown the "why" of things, instead of just blindly doing them because someone says so. 

And then, Jinger had puppies again. She had 4 girls and 3 boys this time around. As always, she is a great mom and the pups are *ahem,* plump.  All of the pups are sold, besides who I’m keeping.

Meg

I still haven't decided on a name for this one, but leaning strongly towards Pepper.

Rose. She is my favorite female.

Winston is my favorite pup of the entire litter.

Rocket

 Marco. 

 Libby. 

Massive Kennel Revamp: Part 1-Who and Why Of Dogs I Sold

I thought about just publishing a post, pretending like I never left, but I decided that would not go unnoticed at all. But I'm not gonna make any ado about it either: I'm back!

I have a lot of catching up to do, particularly on the dogs, so there'll be a few posts just of what's happened in the last 10-11 months. 

When I left, I still have all Jinger's puppies, besides Jasper, Liz and Jinger. Of those dogs, the only one I currently still have is Jinger.

We'll start with Ty. I mentioned in my last post that Ty was not doing all that great, with a massive infection of some sort. After 4-6 weeks of a few different antibiotics and blood testing, it just kept flaring back up and the only thing the vet could recommend was taking him to the university for ultrasounds and CT scans. As callous as it sounds it is a reality that that was not something I could justify spending so much money on for a little pup. He was PTS in October.

I was going through quite a bit of other stuff at that time besides besides the stress of not being home, and losing probably the most special pup I've raised was quite hard to deal with for a little while.

I was finally able to practically give away Griz at somewhere around 4 months old to a buddy of Aaron and Chad's.

I had already told you that I planned to sell Jasper. He finally sold in February. One of my biggest disappointments in dogs to date was caused by Jasper. He had everything but bite, and without bite he had nothing to offer me. To the right sheep person he would have become their right hand, but that right person did not come across him. 

I was planning to start Lee before selling him, but when I finally started to get down to it, he was absolutely not cut out for the work. He went to a really nice pet home, with a deaf person. I mention the deafness just because it was a whole new experience to try and communicate in person with someone who is deaf. Time to learn sign language!

 

I sold the dog that, at one time I thought I'd never sell. Liz is an extremely nice dog and went to a cattle ranch in Oregon where her owner likes to brag about her. He's very happy with her so that should be good enough for me, but at times I wish things had turned out differently. 

Liz was a bit nervy, and wasn't trustworthy around kids. I need something that can put up with anything I throw at it, and especially kids.

In regards to working ability, she was nearly 100% of everything I wanted from that cross, but she ended up with more of the temperament from the sire's line than Jinger's. 

 

Sara. Oh Sara. 

In the last post I said about how she is so friendly, confident, calm... Calm? That must be the last time I ever used that word in regards to Sara! She became an absolute nut case that I absolutely couldn't stand. I seriously think she had a screw loose. Now the problem is, I'm still not clean of that whole deal as her new owners are having 10xs the trouble I was having and ask me for advice occasionally. I'm half expecting them to ask me to take her back soon. Serves me right-I sold her to the first person who happened along, even though I knew it might not be the best idea to sell a dog like Sara to first time dog owners.

The most recent one I sold is Mifflin/Latch. I had sold Mifflin back in December to a cowboy in ID. The fellow lost both of his cowboying jobs back in March and wanted me to take Mifflin back. He had changed his name to Latch during that time, so Latch he has stayed. I got him started on cattle and someone from TN bought him-he headed for his new home just last Saturday. I really, really like how he works, but working is the only time he acts like he has a brain in his head, LOL. He wasn't nearly as crazy as Sara, but that craziness was definitely the theme of that Jinger/Bear cross. I'm not sure why, as neither Jinger nor Bear are like that-some genes just didn't match up right, I guess. 

Baaaad Chicken!

If you know, you know. 😉 

New Boarders & a Little Of Everything

With the note I left at the conclusion of my last post you may have thought there would be less/no dogs in the next post I had coming. Ha! You misjudged me! My life is mainly dogs these days, so to leave them out of a blog post just isn't possible! 😆

But we'll get them over with first and get into the rest of the post.

I brought the pups up to the sheep pasture for pictures last week, since they run all over now and I wanted a fence to contain them a little bit. 

Jinger had to keep a close eye on those sheepies.

 

Ty. We've been having a rough time with Ty. He has always been super lazy and not a very great eater, but about 3 weeks ago I suddenly realized that he was dropping weight. I chalked it up to being picky, didn't worry too much, and just waited to see if he'd start eating better again. He got worse, but when I started offering him different foods he inhaled them-for a day. Then, though he would eat still, he became very slow and picky again. He got really bad and finally bloodwork showed that he had a massive infection. He's been on massive doses of two different antibiotics and is doing much better now. There is still no clue as to what caused it. 

Supposedly he is spoken for. I say supposedly because I'm always skeptical until I have the money and the pup is gone.

Knox went to CA last Saturday, and Carlos went to Yakima.

Lee is a huge cutie.

Griz is one of my favorite pups.

The sheep were hiding in the back corner of the pasture and I didn't want to pups to find them as I didn't think the sheep were wary enough of dog to run from a pack of pups instead of fight. The pups eventually found them anyway, and those sheep didn't fight, to say the least, LOL. 

Jailbirds.

I've been up in the air about Jasper for quite some time now, because he will almost never bite. I'd seen him bite sheep and goats if they attacked him, but never otherwise and never a cow. After spending the day working with a cowdog breeder and introducing Jasper to a challenging cow, I've made my decision with him. Long story short, though he is really bold and confident, after that cow tossed him a couple times, he wouldn't go closer than he is in this picture and wouldn't bite her. He isn't listed for sale yet, but I do have someone extremely interested in him.

A local Golden Retriever breeder I worked for last summer asked me to take on one of her females and raise the pups that she was due to have. This is Stella, and she had 3 girls and 6 boys night before last. Stella is a really nice, gentle, well behaved dog. 

Brittany is babysitting Piper for Aaron, as Aaron is away hunting most of the fall. 

One of my chickens hatched a bunch of chicks last week. 

One of Mom's pretty, Golden Laced Wyandottes.

Some of our other chickens. I took these pictures so I could list the chickens as we have too many. 

I have quite a large flock of ducks, too. I've always been able to sell all of ducklings I hatch and a few fertile eggs as well, so I'm trying to expand the duck business for next spring. 

Sara might be my favorite pup to raise yet. She is so friendly, calm, confident, and sweet. She hasn't really shown a lot of interest in working anything yet, but as long as she's not scared the rest will likely come. None of my dogs have been very keen to work at a super young age like some of the videos I see. I usually don't see much of anything until they are 4 months old or so.

Right now she just seems to adore all the other animals, big and small, running up to them with her tail spinning frantically and licking their faces.

 

Most of the goats. 

 

 Bunny and Sultan's two doe kids, Caddie and Hetty. I guess we are keeping both pretty girls for now.

Eclipse's two doe kids, Carmelita and Pavlova-I am keeping both for now, but greatly prefer Pavlova over Carmelita.

 

Pretty Eclipse girl. She has really grown and matured this year and is my best doe.

Our buck, Ace. He's still a friendly bottle baby, but he reeks now so I don't pet him.

Some of our dairy calves that we raise on goat's milk. 

My sheep tested negative for all the disease I was concerned about them possibly giving to the goats, so they are now down in the barn for the winter. Aubrey named them Starlight and Dazzle.

Polly had more kittens. This time she decided to have near copies of herself.

Unlike my sad old garden, Dad's did great this year, and he was a lot of large pumpkins for fall carving!