Goings on Around the Barnyard

Hi there blogging world. This is Angel Osboer here. I am one of Cutie's twins. I thought I'd take a turn at writing today. I have a lot to say. My twin sister, Vixen, and I used to be the top kids here. The human and her mom would come and give us bottles and treat us so well. Now, we're nothing. We've been replaced by those kids of Mabel's.

Look at that. They get all the attention now. I haven't even gotten my bottle in two days. The human says we're so big that we don't need a bottle anymore. But I WANT my bottle. It's not fair. We're still cute. We holler and holler. I know the human can hear us because we inherited our grandpa Ozzy Osboer's giant yell. You can hear it all over the farm. I just don't get why she's ignoring us.

Not only do we have Mabel's babies to put up with, but more goslings hatched. The two moms and two dads with the five babies are not happy that the third mom hatched three more babies.

The big babies and other parents are not very nice to the little babies. The human says they need to go on Craig's List, whatever that is. I just hope it means there are going to be fewer geese. They try to eat our corn. I don't know why the human doesn't put all of our food in the pans instead of throwing some of it on the ground. We have to sort through the grass and fight with the geese to find it.

Oh, look at me up on the top of the world. Well, it feels like the top of the world when I play up there. I can see the happenings all around the farm, even in the yard. The human spent a lot of time in there today. She was planting a garden. I hope we get all the good stuff she was planting: peppers and tomatoes and zucchini.

What do you suppose will grow from that big black seed? I bet it isn't a green bean.

Does he look like he's ready to move and let them finish planting my yummy munchies? I don't think so.

There's Mushu. At least he was helping from the fence row, not the garden row. I like it when he isn't barking at us. I run when he gets close. You'd think he was actually trying to scare us and make us run. Well, my mom says it's bed time, so good night. Thanks to my half-aunt Millie for letting me talk tonight.

Jack Blackboer

I smell girls! Oh, I can't wait to go back to work this fall. I love my job!

Does anybody have work for me. I'm on call 24/7. Just give me a call because I LOVE my job!

Kizzy Kay Street on Horns

Pebbles got mad because she didn't get any extra corn for writing a blog post for her mom, Millie. Now she doesn't want to do it again. I volunteered! I am Kizzy Kay Street.

The human calls me her Hereford. I think that's silly. I am way more cute than any old bovine. Speaking of beef, Christi at Life on our Iowa Farm is having a BBQ themed giveaway for beef month. I think that's great. Everyone should eat beef, not chevon. If you don't know what that is, good. Don't eat chevon. It is evil.

I thought since Millie likes her horns so much and is always talking about her own horns, I thought I'd let you see some of the other horns around here. As you can see, my horns are perfect boer horns. Here's Millie's horns in all their glory with cast and all.

Millie's half sister Cutie also has perfect Saanen horns--narrow, white, straight back. Those dairy horns grow so fast they get those ridges.

Marley's horns are a perfect combination of his dad's Saanen horns and his mom's boer horns. The shape is Boer but the color is Saanen.

Dolly's horns are a mystery. Her dad had horns a lot like Marley's, and her mom has Boer horns. Her grandparents have Boer horns and Saanen horns. Then her other grandmother is Mabel. Mabel has no horns, but she does carry a gene. The gene she has for horns must make these straight back, narrow, dark black horns. She is the first one born here that was ever born with this type of horn. When we were little, they looked like little devil horns.

Pam has one nice little horn and one weird thing. When she was little, she got her head stuck in the fence. Instead of waiting for the human like everyone else, she freaked out and pulled and bucked and twisted until she ripped her horn off. Now me, I'm smart enough not to get my head stuck in the first place. You have to have fence smarts if you want to survive in the pasture.

Well, this was kind of fun. Maybe I'll write for Millie again, or maybe I'll let someone else take a turn.

Pebbles Sue Street

Hey all, Pebbles Sue Street here. My mom is Millie, and she says she's too pregnant to bother blogging. So I volunteered to write for her tonight. Maybe she'll feel like writing again before the baby(ies) get here. Who knows?

I know she's told you all about me and my two girls, Sugar and Spice. That's Spice on the log and Sugar in front of me.

I thought I'd tell you what our human did. She let us out in a new area. It has all kinds of tall munchy things for us to browse on. I just love these thistles.

You just have to know how to use your horn to get them out of the grass.

Oh, how embarrassing. I have my mouth open and full of thistle. You do have to chew carefully, you know.

This is Annie. She followed me out here. I know it goes farther than the lane, but I'm not sure I want to go too far away from my barn and barnyard and the pasture I know.

Well, I'm bored, so I'm going to see if I can get my reward from the human. Whenever she has corn, she's my BFF!!

Treats and Babies

Oh, it worked. Suzanne from Window on the Prairie passed on the Versatile Blogger Award to my human at Eden Hills. Even better, she suggested I deserved a special treat. I knew I liked that lady. Tonight, my human brought me that treat-apples.

It was such a hot day. I was just lying there trying to stay cool when she brought out a bowl of apple. It was so sweet and juicy and tasted so good.

We had exciting event today. Mabel had her babies today. They are a little early and weak. She is exhausted. The human's mom had to help her and get the vet. She almost had troubles from the rooster. She was trying to shoo him out of the door. He didn't like that. After all, it is where he sleeps. He just wanted to check things out. After all, he's little and could check things out. After both babies arrived, the rooster came outside and crowed like crazy to announce their births.

Oh lucky day, that makes me the next one due. I hope the apple a day will keep the vet away.

Versatile Blogger

I received a wonderful award from Melodie. It is the Versatile Blogger Award. Check out her interesting comments at Laughing Duck Farm. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now I feel like I need to write a poem, so I really deserve this award.

My Kids

Pebbles is my girl,

Her horns are white as a pearl.

My kid Joe is not a boy,

As a baby she looked like a stuffed toy.

Oh who will I have this year;

We'll know soon as my time is near.

-Millie

Now the rules for this award are as follows. Thank the person who gave it to you, share some things about yourself, pass along the award to other bloggers and contact them about their award.

I thought a really long time before I could come up with something interesting that people might not already know about me. I've talked a lot about my horn playing. After today, it's obvious I'm a good poet.

I guess, I could tell you about the time I almost died. After the human brought home Scarlet, Grace and Annie we had worms. Don't get me wrong, the human wormed them before they were taken off the truck. They spent their first month locked away from anyone else, but when they joined us, we all got roundworms. The human wormed us and wormed us again. My boy, Bam Bam and I were horribly sick. In fact, the vet told her it might be too late to do anything to help us. To her credit, she didn't give up. She immediately put all of us except Bam Bam (he was so very sick) on herbal wormer. We all got better. Bam Bam kept getting worse. Finally, she just gave him the herbal wormer figuring the worst it could do was kill him faster. Instead, he grew to be a very big handsome guy. We now get herbal wormer every Saturday. We like Hoegger's herbal wormer. Some day I'll have to tell you more about it.

I guess the only other thing I might share is that, well, the human thinks that my udder, when it's full, looks like...Well, you figure it out.

Now, to whom shall I pass this award to? There is a new blog out there called Window on the Prairie written by Suzanne. My human wanted me to nominate her, and since her blog has pictures of lots of yummy flowers I agreed.

I want to pass the award on to Belle at This Goat's Life. She is a delightful little goat who makes me laugh.

The human wants me to pass the award on to Polly at Polly's Path. I'm not sure I want to do that. I decided to look at her blog, and much to my surprise, she allowed some fainting goat to write on her blog today. I wasn't too happy with what she said about my breed. Other than that insult, she does have a wonderful blog. Since the human is the one that gives me food, I guess I'll go with her suggestion. Just see how much milk she gets from me if this continues.

Finally, if the human gets to pick two people to pass my award on to (she is getting a bit jealous of my blogging success), I get to pick another one also. So, I would also like to pass this on to Michelle at Goat Berries. She's crazy about her goats, so that means she must be wonderful.

T Minus 17 Days

My baby(ies) is/are due on June 7. That means I have about seventeen days to go. I confess, I am really anxious to get this over with. I am hot. I can't even reach all the way around to scratch my own backside. Luckily, the human helps with that too.

The human is nice though, and she brought me a nice little pad of hay. I didn't want to go down to pasture and eat. I hate to think of how hot it will feel with temperatures in the upper eighties this weekend. Do you see Angel and Vixen in the background begging for bottles? The human gave me my hay first.

Darn helicopters scared everyone else back up from pasture. It's too much work to push them out of the way. Must be something about those girls with wattles: Minnie on the left, Meg and daughter Fancy on the right.

Well, I guess laying under the shade of the oak tree is good too.

Seventeen days. Oh, my.

Next Up

Obviously, Angel and Vixen are getting something from their mom. They had pretty much given up trying to nurse her for quite a while. I'm not sure when they started again. Between that and the bottles the human brings each night, it's no wonder they are such big girls.

Mabel is the next goat due to have babies. Her due date is May 29th. She is such an over-achiever. Her first year of having babies, Mabel had three girls. The next year she had two boys and a girl. After that was three boys. Are you seeing a pattern? Following them was two girls and a boy. Last year she had two boys, a girl, and a mummy baby.

How many do you think she'll have this year?

Pam, Mason, and Giveaway

Look at Pam and Mason. Her little boy isn't so little anymore. He is just two months old. Do you think she's going to be able to keep up with feeding herself and her boy for another month.

It's even more obvious in the picture below. He's getting to be such a huge boy. What would she do if she had twins? I can feed my kids, and sometimes even more (yes, Kizzy, I mean you).

On a totally different note, my human wanted me to tell you about the giveaway she is hosting. I was excited to do this for her, but then she told me I couldn't win because I was affiliated with Eden Hills.

It's not like I really wanted the cat. It doesn't look like it would taste very good, but it would be nice to at least get something for this favor. She agreed and brought me some hay so I didn't have to go eat in the pasture. I must say it's warm, and I'm getting very pregnant. So, click here to visit her blog and enter the giveaway.

Dancing

I'm not sure if Annie was doing the vogue or not when she had her picture taken showing off her fancy new collar. Some of us here are great dancers. Angel is a hip hop dancer. I think I've seen Pistol practicing the jitterbug. It's hard to capture dancing in a picture, especially some of those fast dances.

We do have one dancer here that has just started his dancing. For the last week, he has been hiding in the corner practicing his moves. Really, he's off by himself just dancing up a storm.

He's got the wing action and the fancy footwork, but those tail feathers are pretty short. They don't even reach past the tallest part of the support tail feathers. I don't know who he thinks that is going to impress.

I guess he does have some nice colors, but he's not even dancing for anyone. All the girls are on the other side of the pen. If one of the chickens is unfortunate enough to look for bugs near him, he's on the offensive chasing her away.

Poor girls don't even notice him; they just want to find a good bug. Does she look like she's about to swoon with infatuation? I don't think so.

It's easy to imagine he will be a very handsome guy when he has the long feathers to go with his fancy dance moves. Today, he finally decided that his moves were perfected, and he actually came out of the corner to dance for one of the peahens. She still didn't look too impressed.

Annie

When the human came home and started doing chores, this is what she found.

It did not belong on the ground in the mud. This is where it belonged, on Annie Belle O'Boera.

This is the collar that Annie had been wearing since she first came to Eden Hills long before it was Eden Hills when she was only a few months old. She, Scarlet and Grace were not very friendly, so the human had to lock them in and put whatever collar she could find on them. They never had a new collar, just the leftover whatever was lying around collars.

Now Annie has lived here for for almost four years and become very nice. Last year, she had Sallie, who is standing behind her in the picture.

Isn't this much better? This year she'll have a Marley baby. You can see she is getting fairly close to having her baby. Anyhow, after four years, she lost that icky old collar.

Here Annie shows off not only her pretty new collar but also her flexibility.

Jungle Gym

All kids like to play. Here at Eden Hills, we are lucky enough to have a jungle gym for our kids to play on.

Sugar, Spice and Rover are the kids on the three big stumps in front. This tree was the victim of a storm two years ago. While we miss the shade, its leaves did taste good, and it is fun to play on.

Helen is a bit big to be playing with this year's kids. She doesn't play fair either. Ask Sugar if you don't believe me.

It doesn't take two nips of the tail to get Sugar to give up her top log. Is it me, or is Helen starting to get a baby tummy?

Now she's trying to get her first stump back from Sugar and her twin Spice. Oh, it's fun to see who is top goat!

Maggie, in the back, is a year old. Rover, white and red, and his twin Big Red, on the log, are two months old now. They are truly big handsome boys. Our human thinks they should find their own forever farm. She's even thinking of keeping one or both for a year.

I hope you all have as nice a place for your kids to play.

Life is Good

Thank you to Crystal Rainbow at Sparkle and Shine for this award. I must say these questions were quite fun to think about. Usually, I only have kids to watch and grass to munch.

1. What would your prefect day consist of?

Truly, I just had my perfect day--flowers to eat, a good rump scratching, and spending the day with my kids. Of course, it will be better when my new kid(s) arrive and I can scratch my back by myself.

2. How would you describe yourself if you were an item of clothing?

I think I would be a nice wooly sweater--warm and comfortable, surrounding you with love.

3. What hobbies are you currently working on?

I'm not sure it's a hobby; it's more of a passion. Music is my happiness. I can play my horns for hours on end. I just love tapping and scraping and banging. I must admit the cast on my horn does slow down the banging music.

4. Walking in the woods in wellies or bare foot on the beach?

I much prefer the woods. At least, I know I like climbing around the woods, playing on fallen trees and munching woodland flowers. I've never been to the beach, but I'd go visit if my human would take me.

5. Have you ever hugged or sang to a tree?

I always tap my beautiful music for the whole natural world--all creatures that will listen to me.

6. Growing your own veggies or nipping to the supermarket?

The human brings us corn from the mill. She does have a nice pasture for us and makes hay for the winter. She even brings us bread or veggies from her garden occasionally. I personally like when she gives us strawberries the best.

7. Have you found anyone exciting in your family tree?

Alas, I do not know my parents. As a dairy goat, I was taken from my nanny when I was very young. The only parent I know is my human. I'm certain my kids are destined for great things though.

8. Slap up meal in a posh restaurant or fish 'n' chips from the wrapper?

For some reason, goats are not allowed in restaurants. If we were, I don't think I'd like going to a posh one. I'm much more a homebody. As an herbivore, I don't eat fish, but I would like to try the chips.

9. Which element do you most resonate with, Earth, Air, Fire or water?

As an animal, I am very much in tune with all the elements; however, if I must pick one, I am definitely an Earth animal. I live solidly on the land and connect with it.

10. Do you believe in fairy's?

Of course! We share a pasture with all kinds of creatures. Well, the fairies spend more time in the yard where we don't eat the flowers.

I thought it might be hard to answer some of these questions, but it was really quite fun. I'll pass the award and questions on to:

my human Teresa at Eden Hills

my goat friend Pricilla at The Maaaaa of Pricilla

another goat friend at Isobelle Golightly the Beautiful Goat

I hope you all have as much fun as me!

Day at the Spa

Maybe it's because it was Mother's Day and my daughters, Joe and Pebbles, wanted to treat me special. Maybe it's because I am so wonderful and the human just couldn't live without me.

It started with a treat of dandelion.

They are so bright yellow and they taste just as sunny. Yummy, yummy. We don't have any of these left in the pasture. The kids eat them just as soon as they start to open, so we adults never get them.

After the delicious snack, it was on to the next event. I'm not quite as thrilled, but I decided to go along for the ride.

It was a pedicure. She started in the front and worked her way around to the back.

I am graceful, but it's kind of hard to balance on the other three feet when you are four months pregnant. That darn Pistol tried to butt in on my special spa treatment.

Oops, I went along with the pedicure because the Boy was straddling my neck. How humiliating! I must admit, I feel much better with the hooves nicely trimmed. What a day, and it wasn't over yet. Look at what came after the pedicure!

A good rump scratch! What a perfect way to end the day.

With the baby belly I'm growing, it's starting to get hard to reach back there with my horns, so it feels really good. I am a lucky goat!