Look Out World - Here We Come!!

 

Fairly nice day today so we took all of the kids outside! Boy did they all have fun playing! We turned the backyard into a play ground and they romped and bounced and played for an hour or so! Now, like true kids, they are conked out napping away!

Graduating to the Garage!

 

We have the first batch of kids going on the lambar and they have graduated to the garage! They love the extra space to play in. We have had a pretty mild winter and they will be ready to go out to the barn in a couple of weeks.

BaBiEs!!!

 

We have had a very busy two weeks here! Seven does fresh with 15 kids!! The first set of twins were born February 1st. These are Nigerian Dwarves - the tan is a doe kid and the buckskin is a buck (and is for sale). They love playing in the cat house and on the dog steps! But then the cats like to climb in the play pens with the kids too!

Num, Num, We LOVE Christmas!

 

This was the first time, since I have been married, that we had a live Christmas tree. I just could not get excited about digging through the shed to get the artificial tree out and the thought of having to haul it out and put it away was even worse! The bred girls and wether in the front field just devoured the tree in a matter of minutes - and then asked for more!

THANK YOU!!!

 

Our market livestock kids get their photos taken at the fairs and then they give them to their buyers and supporters. So, this year, we made up a photo collage for Aaron to give the owner of our feed store and dairy goats are now proudly displayed right along with all of the market animals =)

Faerytail Goats Milkyway

 

We lost the foundation doe of our mini-Alpine herd on July 22nd at just six years old. Candy had milk fever shortly after kidding this year and though she recovered, she stayed thin. She happily wandered the front field of lucious grass until a couple weeks before she died - then she wandered the barn yard with free choice hay and grain to get her ready for winter. She passed away during her morning nap.

She produced ten awesome kids for us: Hugz, Kissez, Snickers, Dotz, Skittlez, Starburst, Hershey, Almond Joy, Taffy and Heavenly and also has several fantastic grand-daughters a couple of whom are Romantz and Snickerdoodle.

She is resting under a tree in the backyard where she can watch over her granddaughters and furture realatives.

Western Idaho Fair 2011

 

We just spent 11 straight days at the fair! With temperatures hovering right around 100 the entire time, it really took alot out of ALL of us but we did have a very good fair!

The 4-H shows were first and it was a MUCH better experience than county fair (after a small snafu with showmanship anyway). Aaron was once again Champion Jr. Showman and again went to large animal round robin. All of his entries got BLUE ribbons! He finished the dairy goat portion with 6 championships, 3 reserves, 3 best udder of breed awards and his showmanship doe Snickerdoodle was named Jr. Best Doe in Show!!

For the first time we stayed for the open ADGA show with our Nigerians, a couple of Nubian babies and our grade Saanen. We were amazed to have both the Champion and Reserve Champion Jr. Nigerian does!! So, Cherry Butte Arista has her dry leg toward her ADGA championship! Her dam, Arianna was 3rd in a very competitive 2 year old in milk class and the Saanen won her 4 year old milk in class and was first place udder!

It was sure an experience but I think we have decided to stick with just the 4-H shows for now =)