Goats!

I don't believe I have ever shared pictures of our goats on this blog other than the header photo.  We had mini-LaManchas for a while and absolutely loved them.  I have a thing for goats in general, but specifically for LaManchas.  I even have an "I Love LaManchas" sticker on my car (which gets a lot of odd looks since we are smack dab in the middle of the suburbs where most people only see goats at the county fair and certainly don't know what a LaMancha is.)  We loved having the goats and loved the milk we got but we finally decided that our property just isn't suited to goats.  They spent almost all of their time hanging out on our patio, which meant that almost all their poop and peep ended up on our patio.  Not to mention, I lived in constant fear of upsetting neighbors with the noise they made.

Before they left us, both of our lovely does had kids and that was undoubtedly the best part of having goats.  The kids loved us and we loved them.  They climbed in our laps to nap, they chewed our hair, and left little goaty footprints on all our clothes.  The ran and jumped and hopped and in general were just adorable.  When I went out to do milking, I had to braid my hair, put it down the back of my shirt, and then put on sweatshirt with the hood up to keep them from eating all of my hair while I was busy with milking.  I would love to live where we could again have goats and hope to get that chance someday.

Bella was the queen of the herd and the mother (or grandmother) of all the goats we had.  She definitely had the queen attitude.  She made sure everyone knew their place; dogs, the other goats, even us.  She was always the one who woke me up in the morning telling me as loudly as she could that it was time for me to get up, let her out into the yard, and get her some grain.  She had the most evil stare I have ever seen on a goat when things weren't going her way.  The first picture is an awful one but gives a good impression of that intimidating stare.






Fleur was one of Bella's kids and wasn't nearly as trusting of people.  Bella knew exactly what people were for, to provide her with food and back scratches.  Fleur had to be convinced that we weren't actually trying to eat her.  Once we gained her trust, however, she was just as demanding of treats but could still do without most of the back scratches.  When she thought we were up to something nefarious, she would scream like the devil was biting her butt.  She was a fantastic milker, however.




Bella had three kids while she was with us.  Triplets that were just the cutest little goats in existence.  Lupin was the first one born and was the pig of the group.  He was constantly whining that he was hungry and was always the first one to try and steal grain when I was concentrating on milking.




Sirius was the second-born and had only one thing on his mind from the moment he was born.  Girls.  All he ever thought about was trying to impress the girls, and since they were the only ones around, he concentrated that attention on his sisters Fleur and Tonks.  When he went to a new home, no one was more glad than Fleur who had certainly had enough of him.






Tonks was the only girl born to our does and was secretly our favorite.  She had a great personality, was very out-going and definitely the most attention-seeking of all the kids.  She was probably the most active of all the kids and constantly entertained us with her antics.




Dobby was Fleur's first and only kid.  He was cute but somewhat reserved like his mother.  He certainly preferred to spend his time with the other goats rather than with the humans.








Goats are still one of my loves, just one I can't indulge at this time.  Hopefully in the future, we will be able to move and have more lovely LaManchas.  At least we have still have dogs and chickens to sustain us!

Winnowing is for the Birds

We grew some Mammoth Russian Sunflowers this summer.  My youngest really likes sunflowers and very much wanted to see them in the garden.  I think part of it may have been due to a book I loved when I was a child and have read to my boys a few times when we have been at my folks house.  My parents saved a number of wonderful books that I read when I was young and it's always fun to read them to my own children.  This particular book is called The Sunflower Garden and is about a young native American girl who wants to plant some sunflower seeds that were given to her by a friend from another tribe.  Her father didn't want to be bothered by what his daughter was doing when he was busy raising his sons but let her plant the seeds.  She carefully tended her garden and in the end made her father proud of her with her efforts (and by saving her baby brother from a rattlesnake).  I like to think that that story had some influence in my youngest's decision to plant sunflowers.


Luckily, they were very easy to grow and required very little room.  Here they are before they were in glorious full bloom (please pay no attention to the weeds!).




I, of course, neglected to get pictures of them in their glory days; all I have are pre-bloom and post-death.




When I thought about getting sunflower seeds, I thought it would be a fairly simple process.  Well, it is simple in that there aren't that many steps, but it is certainly tedious!  We cut the heads off the stalks when the petals had died back, the heads were curling backwards, and the backs of the flowers were turning brown.  We hung them in our side yard where they were protected from sun and moisture but they got plenty of fresh air to help dry them out further.  Then I promptly forgot about them.  I don't go into the side yard very often, just to get out my scooter to take the dogs mushing and usually when I go in the get my scooter my mind isn't thinking about gardening.  When we hung up the sunflowers, I found some garlic that I had put there earlier in the summer to cure and had also forgotten about.  Hmmm, maybe I should go out there now to see what else I left lying around...

Anyway, when I finally remembered the sunflowers, we pulled them down, brushed off the spiderwebs and started removing the seeds.  This was more difficult than I had anticipated.  First of all, the seeds weren't all that anxious to be removed.  They were packed in there pretty tightly!  I found that working from the outside in worked fairly well but there were lots of sharp edges and prickly things that kept making the process slightly painful.  I enlisted the help of my boys who didn't do too bad but probably got as much chaff as they did seeds in the bucket.








We did get a healthy amount of seeds, but there was a lot of chaff that needed to be winnowed out.  I put the bucket in the garage (really play/storage room), and again, forgot about it.




A week or so ago, Dave and the boys were out for the evening and I decided it would be a good idea to tackle the bucket of seeds and just get it done.  I had even more effective help this time.




I ended up with the bucket and two bowls in front of me.  One bowl for the chaff, and the other for the cleaned seeds.  As I took out the chaff, I also checked for seeds that hadn't formed properly and were just empty hulls.




After an hour or so, I had about 1.5 cups of seeds and it didn't even look like I had made a dent into the mess in the bucket.  It was not fun and didn't really feel at all rewarding as some chores that aren't fun but have a good result do.  I put the bucket with the rest of the seeds and chaff back on the shelf in the garage.  It's still there a week later.  The seeds are good, but I'm thinking of just tossing what's left into the chicken run and letting the chickens sort it out.  I think next year, the heads will be given directly to the chickens as a treat and forgo keeping any for myself.