Mid March Updates

In like a lion, out like a “uff-da!”

Eartha is turning into a pregnancy puddle.

These next few months will be a delicate balancing act. In addition to a non-profit job I work at, and contract cleaning. I started working as a staff member at a local farm/land school last year. I come in to support students and spend overnight time at the lodge as a backup person. During these 3-week farm stays, I still cram in work at my nonprofit job and keep the farm going with help from Bob to cover my morning chores when needed.

Goat kidding was scheduled to possibly start right as the last farm stay was wrapping up. I feel incredibly prepared for this kidding season. With goat jugs or birthing pens installed a few weeks ago, and heat barrels ready to be used by simply plugging into an outlet. Fingers crossed I don’t need these heat barrels, but with temperatures dropping to -5 tonight, 3/16, I’m just glad I’m prepared.

On top of the overnight extreme cold, we got about a foot of snow over the weekend. I spent about two hours today shoveling paths to help make walking around outside easier. Preparing these paths for my future self is important as well, in case I need to make multiple trips to the goat shelters in the middle of the night. Trudging through shin-high snow when expediency is needed isn’t fun.

My hope is that kidding won’t start until Wednesday this week, temperatures are going to climb back up into the 40’s with overnight lows in the 30’s. These temperatures aren’t immediately deadly to newborn goat kids. And it saves me a lot of extra work and worry dealing with extremely chilled or possibly frozen kids.

Another handy tool I have utilized for a few years is using a security camera. Or in my case, 4 different cameras to keep a close eye on pregnant does. This greatly reduces the need for me to get up every two hours and check on the goats through the night. I set an alarm, roll over, and look at my phone to see if I must be present when a goat is kidding.

Beyond a bit of anxiety getting through this cold night, I’m excited for this kidding season. There could be up to seven does that kid, with two first-time fresheners and two mature does that have had complicated kiddings the last two years. I might have my hands full assisting, but I am prepared.

This handsome fella is named Benson, and he is coming from Maine in late May. As well as a fully self-black buck and a 3 other SCI goats. Benson is a self-black SCI goat with large white splotches. He will eventually have semen collected from him and put into storage. This color and pattern have just not been seen and recorded to such a degree before in this breed.

In other news, I finished artwork for this year’s Zymurder death metal show. I think this is the 6th or 7th year of creating art for Zymurgy Brewing. It feels fabulous to be creative. I’ll share the artwork in a blog later on, but the requested theme was feminist rage. There has also been a regular ritual practice established for myself using a combination of intention, tarot cards, and journaling. I’m currently creating a good birthing ritual to help create intention around easy birthing and a calm head for goat kidding season.

More goat-related news, I have been working on obtaining some self-black goats from a breeder since last fall. I have transport getting lined up for the end of May with 5 goats coming my way. Because of this transport and timing, I need to postpone getting semen collected from my bucks until later this summer. I will likely collect semen from some of these bucks coming at the end of May. And the person I work with for collection has a lot more flexibility after the school year.

It’s fun to have projects in the works while establishing good boundaries to make sure projects are enjoyable and not anxiety-inducing.