Serenity

Time for boating! Whitt, Maddie, & I took a Sunday trip down to Kinsale, Va to get Whitt's sail boat up and running for the season. We've been so busy the sail boat has been put on the back burner.

Serenity is a 26' sail boat. We were able to get a brand new motor and needed to test it! So we motored out to an island close to the harbor, threw out the anchor, and cleaned the boat just off shore.

Anchored!

The happy captain!

Scrubbing the decks!

Weird shrine to American freedom on the island.

After scrubbing down the decks and cabin we headed out to the bay for a little joy ride. It was a gorgeous day and the ospreys were out in full force fishing. The only thing that would have made the day better is if there was enough wind to set the sails. But at least we now know the new motor works!

A view from the bow.

Land-ho!

Nat Geo shot.

If you look closely you can see the baby in the nest to the right!

Named and Walking

Since Samuel and Eva are so cute (YES! We've settled on a name for each!), here's some videos of their first steps. They were up on there feet trying to walk within an hour after being born. So, these videos were taken that same day. It's amazing to see them exploring each other and the rest of their pen while Kikki is still working on cleaning them up. Now the kids are running all over the place, climbing onto the milking stands and leaping off, headbutting and wrestling with Aslan, exploring the pond in the barn yard, and chasing grasshoppers in the fields. They're growing so fast!

Millions of Peaches

Well, not quite millions...yet! Our old faithful peach tree in the lower orchard has yielded tons of gorgeous and delicious peaches. Let's hear it for cobbler!

Wonderful Time for Gardening

Summer is a great season for gardening. The plants are well underway, and many of them don't mature or blossom until mid to late summer. Here are some pictures below with descriptions by the garden planner herself, Martha.

This is the second year for the delphiniums.
The blossom spikes have reached at least six feet!

It is amazing how varied the colors and petals are-

Strawberry foxglove made an early show- I let it go to seed so I can
propagate more and fill in the borders of the Cottage Garden.

Many of the hollyhocks planted last year have deep purple- nearly black blossoms,
tho we do have some white and pin. Unfortunately with the wet spring they
have been stricken with hollyhock rust and have been cut back to nubbins. You can
see the rust forming on the leaves to the right. It looks like large scale. Looking in
Wymans I found out that this can be combated with laying down
ground cornmeal prior to emergence- otherwise it is best to destroy the plants.

We got four unique perennial onion sets from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange in
the fall. Unfortunately my labels disappeared during the winter!

The early lettuce has gone to seed. Not the most attractive but
the seed has to come from somewhere.

Hollyhocks prior to the rust explosion-

Bib and redleaf going to seed-

The Cottage Garden was created last spring (2010). The asparagus was
moved from the raised beds it occupied to the inner and outer aspects of
the garden border setting it back a yer. I expect that in the following years it
will be lush. I read in Field and Forest that I can put oyster mushroom
spawn under the asparagus in the straw mulch and plan to
try that next year...or maybe this fall.

This magnificent mass is an Autumn Joy Clematis combined with a Jackmanii.
It has totally covered the birdhouse we constructed during the snows of 2009-2010.
In the hidden garden of the foliage a hummingbird has nested. It is fun to see the
tiny bird zip in and out the huge jungle.

Bronze fennel obscures one of the bird baths in the raised beds
making a protected spot for some of the shy birds.

Red leaf lettuce- yumm salads

Salvia and lavender share the bed with climbing roses. The wet spring was
hard on the roses. Continual dampness allowed black spot to flourish-

We have had a bumper crop of cilantro-

Another view of the bronze fennel with baby's breath in the foreground.

Kikki & Her Kids: Part II

As the contractions came closer together, Kikki started to work a lot harder to cope with the pain. She would lie down and contort her body raising her head up high and moaning, then drop her head and close her eyes and try to power through it. The number one thing to remember when assisting a goat giving birth is that even animals need to be comforted!

After a heavy wave of contractions, Kikki walked over to me
as if she were trying to ask, "What the heck is going on!?"


"Really!! What's happening!?"

A little scratch to let her know we were there for her.

Despite Kikki's best efforts to fool us into thinking she's never given birth before, we know better than that. This is her third time giving birth, and both times before she had triplets! Triplets is less common, but a great thing! After a couple minutes of down time from the contractions, the last wave comes and lands Kikki on here side. At this time Whitt has taken over the comforting and our first signs of the first born can be seen.

This is the goat version of lamaze.

Here's a great clip of Kikki moments before the first kid is born!
Keep an eye on her hind quarters. You can see a "bubble" at one point.
The "bubble" is actually the amniotic sac which, of course, contains the amniotic fluid.
That is the go ahead sign that the kid is ready and well on it's way out!

With the first kid moments away, I handed the camera over and got ready to catch! Kikki is ready for these kids to be out and into the world.

The first kid is born! Whitt and I assist in pulling the baby up to
Kikki's head so she can start cleaning him of right away.


A quick step back to help remind Kikki of her duty and let the new bond take effect.
It's incredible how Kikki knows just what to do.


Now it's time to tie off the umbilical chord and dip the chord into iodine
to help sanitize as well as aid in the shrinking and drying out of the chord.


The first kid is a little buck! There's just enough time to take a quick family
photo before the second kid is born.

Goats are typically born in pairs. The sex of the kids is never definite, but ideally two does are what goat farmers look for. The tricky part about a buck is that he is limited to which goat he is able to breed with within the herd. (i.e.- Cannot breed with his mother, or sister.) Typically only one unrelated male goat is necessary to act as herd sire. That is why typically male goats are rented by large scale goateries for the time needed to breed with all of the does. With a doe, their milk is very useful and pretty much trumps any other use the buck may have. It's a sign of a healthy goat to give birth to twins, and helps build up the herd a lot faster. A doe who only bears one kid more than once are generally undesirable for most goat farmers. Kikki has proven to be a great doe! We were able to get the second kid on video! Be warned: it's a bit graphic, so if you're susceptible to becoming squeamish -- maybe this video below isn't for you.

You can see in the video that I had a hard time cleaning the kids mouth and nostrils.
It's head became trapped inside the amniotic sac when I popped it and the kid was having
a hard time taking it's first breaths. Convinced the kid was extremely fragile I was terrified
first of hurting it, and second not being able to clean the kid off well enough causing it
to asphyxiate.The amniotic sac is extremely slippery! Thank goodness Ashley was there. She's
a nurse and was able to clean off the kid and allow it to get its first breaths easily.


Here's Kikki meeting her little doe for the first time!



The two beautiful kids resting with Momma after
a long day for all three of them!

Now...

...................for a name........Hm...

Kikki & Her Kids: Part I

Kikki has done it! She's given birth to two incredible kids! One little buck and one doe! The twins are a great new addition to our herd. Given that the birthing process is such an ordeal, I'll be splitting the whole event into a few different blog posts so you can really get a good idea of what it was like to be there. There's just no way to put it all in one entry!

Kikki was in labor for nine hours and fifteen minutes before the kids arrived. That meant a LOT of waiting around. As mentioned in a prior post, her due date was on the 4th. So beginning the 3rd we put her in our birthing pen and began a regular routine of checking up on Kikki every two to three hours looking for signs of labor. This went on for three days and eight hours. Needless to say, we were all quite relieved when Martha reported the morning of the sixth that Kikki had begun having contractions. Whitt and I were out running errands when we got the call, so we finished up as quickly as possible and raced home to the barn...

...and ended up waiting.......







..and waiting...










...........................................................and waiting.

This being my first experience with goat birthing (or any birthing, for that matter) I did a lot of research. I learned:

- What to look for when a kid is about to be born
- What orientation the kid should be in when exiting the womb
- How to recognize when to assist the birthing
- How to assist if necessary
- What to look out for when the kid is born regarding defects or health problems
- How to tie off the umbilical chord
- How to use iodine to help eliminate the chance for infection while aiding in the shrinking and drying out of the chord, and so on.

I even watched videos of births, the longest of which was 5 min 33sec long. I was prepared for everything BUT the "anxiously waiting" part. I could tell that Whitt and Martha were just as anxious as I was. We all ended up doing barn chores and taking turns with who watched Kikki. After all, if we were going to spend that much time down there, we may as well clean up!

Whitt and Martha tag-teamed trimming the hoofs on our goats of the NON-pregnant variety.

Whitt taking care of Egglentine's hoofs.

The Damon looking on wondering, "I hope I'm not next."

Martha telling The Damon, "Yes, you are next!"

Kikki looking on.

Then I decided it was time to hang out with the goslings and baby chics.

Cute how they follow each other everywhere.

These little guys are coming along well!

..and Kikki still isn't quite ready.

At this point I noticed one of the barn swallows being particularly bothered by our presence. It kept swooping passed chirping loudly in an attempt to protect it's nest. There were previously four fledglings inhabiting the nest, but have since been gone flying around our fields forging on berries and insects. It was getting closer to there bed time, so I'm sure it wasn't ideal for us to be around Kikki in labor directly under their nest.

We're happy to see swallows in our barn. They help with
insect control and are a great sign of a healthy barn.

In the middle of my photo-op, The Damon catches
my attention by showing a lot more interest in Kikki.

And Kikki is really feeling it now! The contractions are really coming closer
together as she pulls her head back in pain. The kids are at last tangibly closer!


To Be Continued...