Goats & Trainings

Part of our wanting to move out here was to become more self sufficient; we've got our little garden plot & later this month we're going towards phase II; the goats. Mike & I don't know a whole bunch about goats other than what we've read & that they've got weird sideways eyes. We do know we'd like a dairy/ meat mix & as it happens God has graciously moved my brother & sister in law to just outright give us 2 of their newest nanny kids.

They are some kind of Boer/Nubian mix. Their dam had 4 kids in all, which she is having a hard time nursing & one of the females is the runt so even if not alot of milk comes out of it, we feel blessed to have practice goats. We hope to get a billy next year for breeding & brush. I named the smallest Abigail (I love that name!) & Mike followed up w/ Annie for her sister. Abigail will take the bottle from me & is the runtiest, though the most lively. Annie would have nothing from me except my hair. They both tried to eat my hair & Mike's beard. I'll have picures when they come over to stay.

Apparently we'll have to babysit them quite closely initially. From what I've read they'll break out of anything, eat my garden, laundry, flowers & jump on our vehicles. But they are trainable. (Please correct me, anybody who knows anything about goats!) We hope to train Victor to be the goat master & turn the feeding & watering over to him by the time he's 5 in Jan. He's been so faithful in feeding the cat since he started 2 years ago, I've taken that job from him & am helping Charlotte to do that one. She takes forever to do it w/ her tiny scoops, but she's diligent in picking up each piece that might fall.

Victor's new job is the compost pail. A little red pail sits on our counter & it holds our kitchen scraps to go into the outside pile. Since he's older he gets to choose when to do this chore which pleases him to no end. I was suprised at how jealous he was over keeping his position as cat feeder; I read the story of the 3 servants & the talents to them & he got to it much more cheerfully & dare I say eagerly? He checks it sometime during the day, empties it if it's close to full & rinses it out in the stream so I don't have eggshell bits or coffee grounds in my sink when I wash it.

He is older after his road trip, but a lot more fun. The connections he makes & the way he jokes is just funny. He's alot of fun to just hang out w/. As a bonus he didn't have a single accident at night over at Grandma's & has continued to stay dry all night. I can say HE HAS COMPLETED HIS POTTY-TRAINING, HOORAY! Charlotte since our concentrated training time is also doing much better w/ only 1 or 2 at the most panty changes during the day. I've been able to switch to diaper washing every 2-3 days instead of every night.