Itty Bitty Hooves

Glutton For Punishment

I was just sitting here thinking earlier today about how suddenly we got back into the goats. Not really thinking about it with regret, but I do have to laugh at the fact that just last year I was saying, ‘no more hay eatting animals’. I wouldn’t care if hay was easy to come by, or not getting more expensive every year. Goats can be a better alternative than most hay eatting livestock as they can do quite well on weedy vegetation that would make most farm stock sick. They can’t live on it completely however, unless you have a vast acerage with year-round grazing. We have pretty good pasture areas for goats. Lots of trees and weeds which they love a lot more than grass. They’re not grazers so much as they are browsers. They like a ‘little bit of this, and a little bit of that’ and just adore posion ivy and other noxious weeds other animals wouldn’t dream of touching. After this last week of escapes and extreme heat, and worry about hay shortages and drought even though we’ve gotten a fair amount of rain this month and are no longer in drought danger, so much of the country is, and it’s such a tenuous balancing act, I think I may need drug rehabilitation myself before too long. I don’t use drugs, and I’m not much of a drinker as a rule, but these critters could really drive you to it. Certainly I’m begining to think I’m just a glutton for punishment.

Goaty Milk

With all of the commotion I almost forgot to take the morning’s milk out of the freezer. One of the problems with goat’s milk vs cow’s milk is that goat’s milk is much more delicate. It will last almost as long as cow’s milk will if it’s handled properly, but if not, it will go ‘goaty’ long before it goes ’sour’. To keep goat’s milk from tasting like you’re licking the behind of a big old buck, it must be cooled very quickly after milking. When it comes out of the goat it’s about 101 degrees. The best way I’ve found to easily cool it is to strain it into quart jars and put it in the freezer. Circulating cold air would be even better, but most of us don’t have such a contraption. You can make them. People who love wine have a machine that will chill a bottle of wine in just a few seconds using forced cold air. I’ve seen the plans to make the machine and if I had lots of milk to chill quickly I’d invest in the parts to make it, but for just a few quarts a day it is just as easy to pop it in the freezer. I just have to remember to take it out.

Frozen milk is okay to still use, it just tastes less creamy. Something about freezing the milk dilutes the cream. Some say that if the milk goes ‘goaty’ you can put it in the freezer and freeze it then thaw and the ‘taste’ will go away. I haven’t tried that yet, but it’s a good tip to try.

The Right Insurance

Finding reasonably priced insurance is tough now. Sometimes it feels like you’re spending more on the insurance than you do on the car payment itself. You can find them, but then you have to wonder if they’re really going to be there when you need them. That’s why it’s great that we have the Internet to do so much research for everything, even the most everyday type things like finding contents insurance sites that have great articles about car insurance, and even life insurance. All of the insurances we pay so much for are vital to security, and in some cases, like car insurance, even legally necessary, so make sure you are getting what you pay for, and the best value for your dollar. Check out the Thrifty Scott’s links in this post for great information on insurance, and tips to help you make the right decisions.

Smart Kids

Well, they did it again. Three of the weanling dairy goats got out of the back fence into the woods. I don’t want them back there even though the perimeter is fenced in, because there are too many wild animals that trapse through there and they’d be fair game even though they have horns. One, however didn’t get out. Maybe she wasn’t smart enough, but Amelia never gets out when the other three do. She just will not shove herself through a hole not even big enough for a goat half her size. The others will–no problem. Getting back, however is a problem for some reason. Maybe Amelia is the smart one. One things’s for sure, she’s a great tattle-tale. I was sitting in my office typing the previous post when I heard her screaming outside my window. There’s only one reason… well two reasons a goat will scream like that. She’s caught in the fence (she wasn’t) or she’s all alone. Goats hate to be seperated from their herd. Sure enough, I went out there and she was all alone, and the other three were no where to be seen. A quick investigation of the back fence found them just outside it, eating the great weeds and trees in the woods. Now, before you think I starve them, there are plenty of weeds, trees, and grass in the 1/2 acre yard they are SUPPOSED to be in. But they’re goats. The grass (weeds, trees, etc) is always greener on the other side of the fence. And if the fence is weak… well, they’ll be over there.

Thank heaven’s for little tattle-tales.

Picture This

If I had to name one piece of technology that I think has really made a huge impact on the way I do things, and that I would never want to have to go back to the old way of doing things again, besides my computer, I’d have to say it would be digital cameras. They haven’t been around all that long. It’s only been about six years or so since they really started to become commonplace, but what a difference. It’s hard to even remember having to ‘use up a roll’ of film, having to take the roll in to be developed and wait for the pictures, although towards the end of that ‘era’ it wasn’t so bad with the one-day development places around. Now though, you can even just take one picture and then download it to the computer and viola! There it is. No wasted film, and you can either save the picture to go and get it made into a hard copy for your photo album if you like, or just delete it. You can do so much more, so much easier too. Put pictures up on websites, share them with friends via email. All these things that we, or at least I, sort of take for granted now have only been around a short time.

I use a Kodak Easyshare camera. The one I use isn’t even made anymore. It’s obsolete. That happens pretty fast, doesn’t it? A friend of mine just got a new Kodak Easyshare though and it is even nicer than the one I own. Still, the old (2 year old) camera I have takes fantastic pictures and the program it came with that I put on my computer lets me crop parts of a picture, or adjust lighting, or fix red-eye, all kinds of things you couldn’t even dream of doing on an old film camera. I remember having to make sure the backgrounds were just the way I wanted them to be before taking a film shot, or that every piece of the subject matter was exactly where it should be. Whatever was in the view finder of the film camera was going to be on the final shot–period. Not anymore. If there’s something in the corner of a shot you don’t like–crop it out. If there’s a pole in the background of a shot that kind of clutters up the picture–take it out. Here’s a favorite shot of mine taken with my digital camera a year ago. I posted it a little while ago. It’s a picture of a beloved pet that passed away last year.

Don’t want hubby in the shot since he was just supposed to be there to get her attention, along with holding her big stick? And maybe bring the dog into the clear subject matter of the shot? Easy, just crop the part you want:

Don’t want that ugly post in the background? Easy, just take it out:

Now we have a fantastic keepsake picture of our beloved ‘Justice’ with no background clutter, or anything. We made a hard copy, as well as having a copy on line.

There are so many fantastic things you can do with digital photography that you couldn’t even imagine doing with film. Cropping images completely out of the backgrounds like this:

You can even take moving video pictures on most digital cameras. I’ve done several videos with mine. They are short though. I use a film program to edit them into longer segments. I’d love to get a real digital camcorder though. Think of all the fun I could have then.

Finally some Nice Weather

Wow what a wonderful day yesterday was! It was actually a bit cool. Today is even nicer with a little bit of warmth but not much humidity. What a break from all those 87% humidity days in the 90’s. It’s supposed to be wonderful all weekend. I was hoping to get to the farm swap on Sunday, but I forgot our trailer license needs to be renewed and I don’t think I’ll get it in time. Figures. I really would like to sell the two stallions in the barn. I have too much horsey testosterone running around here still. It helped a lot selling the two 2-year-old colts in May finally.

Pure Heaven

Between all the escapes this week, and the extreme heat and humidity I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than go on a cruise. As vacations go cruises have to be the most relaxing, and complete way to unwind and forget all about the troubles left behind at home, or work. You don’t have to do anything, just lay back on a deck chair and enjoy the breezes, listen to the lapping water hitting the hull, stare at the bright blue sky, and eat. If you WANT to do things there are always various forms of entertainment going on at any given moment, but for me it would be pure heaven just to lay on the deck and let the sounds of the ocean sweep all the aches and headaches away.

Fences And Water

Well I now believe the old adage that if a fence will hold water it will hold a goat. It’s obvious that there are several ‘leaks’ in our fencing. This morning I rescued one goat that got her head caught in the fence–no big thing, happens all the time since most of our goats have horns, but, one of the young dairy girls got outside again into the wooded area of our property. By the time I got back around to that pasture after releasing the stuck girl the escapee had gotten back into the pasture she was supposed to be in and I couldn’t find where she’d gotten out at. Not good. You can’t fix what you can’t find. I’ve been looking to get a fullblood doe addition to the herd, but thankfully the one I was looking at seriously was taking some time to get back to me and during this week I’ve found just how escapable some of our areas are. I need to work on that first before adding any more.

Good Investments

I’ve always wanted to learn more about how to play the stock market. I remember a class I had in high school (don’t laugh, yes I do) where we had to pretend to buy a stock and follow it to see if we made a profit at the end of the semester, or a loss. It was very interesting. Ever since then I’ve thought about what it would be like to really invest. Never having any real ‘expendable’ income to play with as the kids were growing up all thoughts of playing the market were just passing fantasies. Now, however I have a little money every now and then that I think it would be nice to use as an investment. People do make money on the stock market, why not me? It just seems so scary. We’re not talking play money in high school, we’re talking about the real thing that you have to sweat to earn. There are ways to learn the tricks and secrets of playing the stock market though. How to index stock options daily trading and make good choices. The Internet makes playing the stock market much easier than it would have been back when I first started dreaming of investing in the market too. Much easier than it would have been in my high school days as well. You don’t even need someone to do it for you like you used to. You can do it all yourself online. I think what really came as a surprise to me was that you don’t need a lot of money to start out either. One, two, three hundred dollars will give you enough investment to start things off and make some money. It would be nice to have a better retirement savings than we do. With those days closing in fast I think even more about getting some good investments going.

Fences and Barns, neverending work

I’m keeping all the goats in their pens again today. Just one more day of relaxing without having to worry about checking them every hour or so, and retrieving them from escape. I think I have all the holes fixed except one and I know what I have to do to fix that. It won’t really be hard but it is slow going in the heat we’ve been having. It did rain a bit yesterday. Not long though and once it was over the humidity was deadly. I also put the fence by the milking barn back the way it was last week. I’d tried pulling it out and letting them have access to the inside of the barn but that just wasn’t working out. The feed and hay, and the actual milking stanchion was blocked off in a stall by itself so they couldn’t get in there, but the problem was, neither could I with fifteen goats all crowded around it. Not without a hassle anyway. So I pulled the fence line back again and it’s much easier to feed and milk that way. I think the cat’s happy about it too. One of our barn cats had her kittens in that barn and she wasn’t all that happy about all the goats milling about in there.