Annie shows us what a big girl she is. Aunt Zowie is watching too.

What a thrill and a relief. She only caused me a day of stress. Now we don’t have to spend the first half of May afraid to go too far anywhere not knowing when she might drop. I totally screwed up in remembering when we had dropped her off for breeding and when she was going to be due. We should have known when we did hooves on Saturday and saw her vulva protruding.

Annie is very advanced for her tender age. On her first day she had mastered not only nursing, but capering and peeing too. And running away, so I knew she’d be ready to mingle with the rest of the herd without getting hurt.

Beatrice loves sniffing her. “Ah I love the smell of kid in the morning.” Beatrice is her grandgoatmother. However I’m introducing everyone to her as “aunt”, e.g. “Aunt Beatrice,” “Aunt Zowie,” etc. because now we have four generations under the roof and I will get confused with who is whose grandmother.

Zowie & Columbia, the picked-on goats. These two are so close. There are goats who tolerate each other, but these two seem to love each other more than I’ve ever seen happen. I dread the day either one of them passes away. I’m sure the other would follow soon after, from a broken heart.

Ramona & Beatrice during setup Friday night. The poor things seemed really stressed this year. I remember them doing much better last year. I think we had a lot of apples for them last year.

Mohair on the hoof

Columbia, looking a bit bovine without a bit of fleece on her.

Honestly the betting pool’s 50/50 as to who will leave this earth first, Janet or Columbia. Both are 11 and both are acting pretty feeble lately.

And last weekend was the High Holydays. Beatrice and Ramona were perfect specimens of goathood.

My “baby” Ramona.

Everyone shorn! May be the earliest we’ve ever finished all the spring chores.

Like Pete Townshend/Roger Daltry: Who’s Left

Columbia, Zowie, Ramona, Beatrice, & Janet, from left to right

Like they’re posing for an album cover.

We got Florestan as a kid in 2011 from Grandview Farm in Washington, VT. They were getting out of angora goats; they’ve since become very successful with Gotland sheep. They had two buck kids for sale. His brother, I recall, had some more reasonable name, like Fern. For whatever reason, we chose Florey.

He grew into a behemoth, as you can see. Sara used to refer to him as “Buster.” He got mean. I blame Xopher for the way he socializes buck kids. 2 out of 3 times we had a long-term buck, twice they turned out mean, and those were times we got the buck as a kid. X “plays” with them and I think he teaches them to challenge us.

So it was just the way he was raised. He was mean, and he hurt us from time to time, but he was only being himself. He wasn’t a bad goat. Just smelly and ugly and mean. And I MISS him, dammit.