Things are hopping along

Just some quick news bits to share.

Easter bunnies
On Easter Sunday, we went into Austin to spend some time with family. On they way home, in the early dark under an almost full moon, it was like watching an erie Easter bunny tale. As we turned onto our private road the landscape came ALIVE with bunnies! Little cottontail bunnies. They were EVERYWHERE!!! At no other time, in the many years we have lived here, have we seen this many bunnies at one time. They were hopping down the road, bouncing across the road, sitting on the creek banks, jumping thru the pastures - the bunnies were abounding! We stopped the car, looked around, looked at each other and said "Happy Easter"! :)

Puppy recount
Okay, little wiggling puppies can be hard to count when they are safely burrowed around their mom. Greta has let us check out her pups a bit closer now, and we have confirmed there are, in fact, EIGHT puppies. They are a week old today and are really growing. Momma Greta is doing wonderful, as always. Pictures coming soon....

Where there is smoke, there is fire
Yesterday afternoon, a thick haze began to filter its way across the pastures ... coming in waves with the strong, persistent winds. A quick call to my neighbor confirmed that there was, in fact, a grass fire burning just across the highway (about 1 mile from our ranch). Soon, the helicopters and water planes arrived to drop water on it. The event went on for several hours. At times, the local deputies were concerned the fire would jump the highway, putting many more pastures and homesteads at risk. In the end, our gallant fire control crews saved the day! No one was injured and no structures appear to have been lost in the blaze. Thank the Lord!

No kids yet ...
Although I was not sure it was possible to do so, our Nubian goat, Mikki, continues to expand daily! Her bag and teats are full, her ligaments are so soft I cannot feel them, and she waddles about as she grazes. She was exposed to Trevor starting October 28, so her earliest due date SHOULD be March 31 ... will she make it that far? Never mind that we recorded her being in standing heat on November 7 ... surely there is no way she will make it until April 10! Goats, they never cease to amaze me.

Garden zone
This past weekend, between other exciting activities, we took a few hours to clear an area for a garden. Now we just need to rent/borrow a tiller, move some soil around, and get the ground prepped. Oh, and it would probably be wise to start the seeds; they probably are not going to sprout while they are sitting in my kitchen in their original packaging. :)

In conjunction with the garden, we are working on fencing in a large pen in the backyard area too. This involved clearing the line for the fence, and measuring out the distance for materials. We plan to use this pen to bring in the momma goats at night for morning milking, as well as adding to the chicken's running area. The projects are never ending. :)

Guess that is about all the news for now. Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Spring!

Things have been incredibly busy around the ranch lately...


Two weeks ago, we sent four of our six horses to a trainer. Justin and Flurry will be coming home in a month or so after they are trained under saddle. The other two, Sonny and Rita, were given in trade for training services. We are looking forward to being able to ride together this Summer!


Izzy, our large Percheron-cross mare, has been limping for the past two weeks. She was injured a few years ago when she slipped in the mud and got entangled in a small section of wire fencing (this has since been replaced with horse-safe fencing). After surgery on her ankle, and many months of rehab, Izzy has been fine - never a limp. We knew there was always a possibility of future lameness from the incident and that bone spurs were likely; unfortunately, that time has come. She is not in significant pain, more like a bothersome irritation. Her ankle is not swollen, but the flexor tendon going over the bone spur is giving her some pause. At this point, we are helping her work thru this situation and she is coming along very well. While she will never be sound to ride, she is perfectly healthy and sound to use as a broodmare or companion. We are exploring the possibility of leasing or selling her to a good home for such a use.

Spring is the time for babies, and we are expecting our share in the coming months...

First, we are very happy to announce that we have PUPPIES! Greta delivered 7 healthy little Pyrenees puppies on Wednesday, March 19 in the early morning hours - in a torrential rain storm! All the puppies, and Mom, are doing great. Pictures will be coming soon on our website... for now, we are giving Greta some privacy with her pups. Our other Pyrenees female, Emma, is also bred to Koda and we expect pups from her in mid-May.

Many of our llamas are due for babies starting in April. We have bred most of our girls to our junior herdsires, Radar and Dreamin'. Since they are not proven studs and the girls were all exposed in pasture (versus scheduled breeding), we have to do some estimating as to due dates. Probably the first of them will be one of our miniature llamas, Popo; she is sure to deliver in the next few weeks. While llamas are known to hide their pregnancies well, Popo is not hiding much - she is round as a ball!

In addition to the llamas, three of our dairy goats, Ophillia, Mikki and Tassie, are due to kid in the next few weeks. Mikki is the only experienced Mom in the bunch, and looks like she will deliver in the next week or so. Ophillia and Tassie are both "making bag" and starting to expand by the minute! Surely they will kid before they explode!?! :)

Looking to the future ... and other ponderings ...

This morning, we moved our buck, Oliver, into the pasture with our three junior does, Valentine, Stoney and Surprise. We hope to have kids from them in late August, or early September. They should be some pretty fancy babies if all goes as planned!

Now, let me tell you about Oliver and his dog, Emma.... Since the day Oliver arrived on the ranch, Emma decided he was HER goat. She has bathed him, slept with him, watched over him, and just in general bonded with him. Where Oliver goes, Emma goes. Well, when we took Oliver out of the upper pasture this morning and Emma was aghast (no, she was not allowed out the gate too). As we put him into the lower pasture, Emma was right there waiting. (Where there is a will, there is a way - Half of our pastures have an adjoining gate system the dogs can go thru to guard all the pastures while the goats and llamas stay where they belong). Emma watched as Oliver was busy greeting all the does and exploring the "new" pasture. Now, as it is approaching nap time, him and his canine companion are snuggling up together for a nap in the warm sunshine ... what a sappy scene this is. Some days watching the happenings in our pastures are like watching a soap opera ... "As the Pasture Turns". :)

I think I finally have the answer to the long-time question of "which came first, the chicken or the egg"... it is undoubtedly THE CHICKEN ... a LONG time before the egg did apparently. Why do I make this conclusion you might ask ... because our young hens are still not laying - at least not regularly. We have put in "fake eggs" in the nests for them, they are fed very well (layer feed), and are all growing well. One positive change we see is that their combs are starting to fill in now. (This is a sign of maturity in chickens). We are averaging about 3 eggs from the flock every day; we suspect these are primarily from the older hens we got last month. No complaints here - even those few eggs help keep us fed breakfast every morning. :) We just continue to look forward to the young hens getting into "the groove".

Well, I think that about brings everything up to date a bit. We will try to post more reliably in the future. :)

Adventures at the Vet - February 23

Our Scottish Highland bull, Casper, came home from his visit with the vet on Wednesday. We are happy to report he is all fine and healthy. :) When we went to pick him up, we dropped off two of our heifers that we had scheduled for dehorning surgery. Saturday came, and what was supposed to be a quick "pickup" at the vet turned into a real rodeo!

We arrived at the vet to find only one trailer ahead of us in the vet barn. Yippee! We thought. Little did we know how things would go from there. The two gentlemen with the trailer ahead of us were in their senior years ... a very nice father (90's) and son (70's). As they went to unload their cattle from the trailer, they errantly left one of the chute gates open, so the cattle ran down the unloading chute and out into the open barn. Okay, so this, in itself, is not really a big deal since there are gates closing in the whole barn. The problem came when the Dad decided to go into the barn to help move the cows back into the working chute ... and left the gate open!

Rob was standing about 80' away and saw him walk in and not shut the big gate. Before Rob could run over and catch the gate, out ran one of the big cows. Off she goes! Running to the hay lean-to, running all around the loading yard, running thru the now lined up trailers and trucks. She did NOT want to go back in the gate, or into any enclosure she was offered. She wanted to stomp her feet and snort. She wanted to charge. The more she was encouraged to go into one of the pens, the madder she got! Ever seen a cow herded by a Bobcat before?! She even trotted all the way up to the main vet building and went inside the new office area they are just closing in. After taking a brief look around, out she trotted... back down to the loading area. On the way, she passed the main entry gate protected by a cattle guard. You'd think she would keep going right... nope. She passed it by, then turned around and went back. "Hmmm..." she seems to think. Then, to all of our shock and dismay, she jumped feet first INTO the cattle guard. A cumulative moan rises from the crowd that has gathered. Amazingly, this mad cow looks around, climbs back out of the cattle guard, and trots back down the fenceline. She proceeds to eye all the trailers with great content before retreating to the hay area and standing there snorting.

While all of us were trying very hard to keep her calm and stay out of her way, she was obviously rather pissed about visiting the vet. The gentlemen finally got the rest of their cows thru the vet chute and back in the trailer (with a little help from their new friends). When we backed up to load our two heifers, the vet opened the gate to the pen they were in (they had been watching this all transpire) and simply told them to go get in the trailer. Off they trotted without any problem... up the ramp, into the trailer without a single "moo". As he walked behind them and shut our trailer gate, the vet was heard to utter "Now, this is more like it!". Merrily we went on our way that day, glad to have provided less entertainment for once! :)