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This weekend was a completely different type of weekend for me.  Instead of working with the goats and making soap, I took some time for myself and had a quilting weekend with the girls.

In my “spare” time (all 5 minutes a week),  I love to quilt.  I am not a particularly skillful quilter.  I use patterns a lot, adding my own touches.  I  tend to use lots of scraps and rarely ever use a complete line of quilting fabric.  I sew in fits and spurts when I can find the time, and I love it.  I love the feel of the fabric in my hands, I love the way fabric colors play and dance on a quilt, I love the way the cut up bits of fabric come together to form intricate designs, and most importantly, I love the way it feels to cuddle up at the end of the day under a blanket that I have stitched with my hands and formed into a functional piece of household art.

So this weekend, I went to the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival.  I enjoyed some time away from the house and the animals and drove to Hampton, Virginia, with 2 friends Mary Beth and Sharon, to stay in the home of Mary Beth’s sister, Teresa.  We spent a good solid day admiring the beautiful quilts of talented quilters, shopped in the shops at the venue, and generally had a wonderful time enjoying the sights and watching the people.

Pieced, quilted, and now ready for binding!!

We also ate lots of steamed, spiced shrimp and sewed, sewed, sewed.  I had a quilt top all pieced together about 6 months ago, and this weekend, I had a chance to quilt the quilt sandwich together.  I love this phase of the process as I bring to culmination the hours of quilt construction. The only thing left to do before I use it or give it away for use is to put on the binding, the covering at the edge of the quilt.  And quilting is what I did for most of the day on Saturday.

Now my appetite is whetted for more sewing.  I would love to know how I will find the time to sew for the hours and hours that I would like to dedicate to that hobby.  I really simply do not know how I will find the time to take care of the animals or milk the goats or make chicken coop adjustments because I have too much sewing to do.

Chicken Quilting on My New Quilt

I do not have time to dedicate to the goat kids that will arrive in two week or the fences that need mending.  I do not have time to make or wrap soap or arrange baskets for the market, or turn shaving brush handles….. I have too much quilting to do.

Oh, who am I kidding?  Next week when the sweet faces of the goats look up at me and the kids are arriving and the sweet smell of lavender soap calls to me from the drying rack, all will come into balance again. But for now, I’m enamored with quilts.

One of the most exciting times of year is kidding season.  We absolutely love it.  We are busy with goat kidding preparations and making sure that our does are in perfect condition to have healthy happy kids and watching closely for any signs of pending delivery. This time is the culmination of 6 months of planning and preparation.

Esther must have at least a couple in there.

Only time will tell if Cody is expecting.

Fall Goat Kidding Preparations

In the fall, we carefully consider the attributes of our bucks and does and make plans for which pairs will make the best babies.  Sometimes, we have had a wonderful breeding that we want to repeat, and sometimes we want to pair a doe with certain characteristics with a buck with other complimentary characteristics.  (For this year’s pairings, see our 2015-2016 Breeding Plan.)

By fall, we are looking at our spring calendar to make sure births do not occur during vacations and do occur when we have the ideal times for kidding. We count backward 5 months, and that is when we aim for breedings to take place.

Before that time, we make sure the does are healthy, wormed if necessary, and have their hoofs trimmed.  They are all still being milked, so it is important that they are not too thin or too fat at that time of year.

In the fall of 2015,  the 3 does we wanted to kid before a trip in April all cycled (became breedable and interesting to the buck) on the 15th and 16th of November.  We put our buck Bramble with each of them for only about an hour each, and voila, the breedings were done, and kids were on the way.

Winter Goat Kidding Preparations

We allow our does to continue to produce milk into the beginning of winter, but by about 2-3 months before kids are due, we dry them off so that they can put their energy into growing their babies instead of making milk.  For most of the winter, they eat only great quality Orchard Grass/Alfalfa hay.  Then, about 1 month before they are due to kid, we introduce a small amount of grain into their diet.  We also make sure that all of our goats have access to mineral all of the time so that we know they are in the best condition possible.

That is where we are now. We are just getting ready to start them on some grain.

Spring Goat Kidding Preparations

We also make sure that we have a kidding bucket with all of our supplies, ready for delivery. At a minimum, we have:

• Nitrile gloves for keeping our hands clean during delivery, and making sure that the bacteria on our hands does not     affect momma or baby
• Lubricating jelly to be used on our gloved hand in case we need to assist in delivery
• Providone iodine to be used to dip umbilical cord on the  kid after delivery. This helps to dry out the cord and also kills bacteria that could cause illness in the baby
• Lots of towels, cloth and paper. We need these to help dry off kids after delivery.  This is especially important if it is cold outside.
• Flashlight. It always seems that goats need assistance in the middle of the night 🙂
• Scissors for cutting the cord or opening a tough bag of feed, if needed.
• Dental floss for tying off a cord, if necessary.
• Bulb syringe to help get fluids out of the mouth/throat of a kid, if necessary.
• Grain and warm water for momma after a job well done
• Trash bag to gather up all of the afterbirth and trash that seems to accumulate
• Nutri-drench. We like to give two pumps of this vitamin liquid to all kids right after birth to give them a good start.

Once we have all of our supplies ready, we wait, and wait, and wait for that wonderful day.  We try our best to attend all births, but sometimes they don’t give us any notice or choose the busiest day at our day jobs to deliver, and then we pray that all goes well.  Of course, most of the time it does, and for that, we are grateful.

We also have two of the best nurse maids and birth helpers that the goats could have in Ethel and Lucy, our livestock guardian dogs.  They love kids and are always available to help clean up and lick a sluggish baby until they stand and move around.  They are the best.

If you are interested in getting on our waiting list for spring kids, just email us – bob@wynottfarm.com –  and we can talk more. 

Here, you fill find our ten greatest insights about raising goats, every bit of wisdom tinged with our own special blend of Wynott sarcasm. 🙂

1. Goats like to eat a variety of things. Grass, bark, oats, grain, poison ivy, kudzu, occasional bits of paper, their own milk, the dogs’ food, and hay.  With all of this variety, the hay must be the most expensive and of the best quality, but whatever you do, do not let the hay touch the ground, or it becomes tasteless and bitter, almost worse than life itself.
2. Male goats will go to great efforts to attract and woo their “women.”  This includes blubbering, spitting, moaning, and screaming.  The most important thing for them, however, is to pee everywhere: on other males, on the aforementioned hay (which then becomes inedible), their own legs, and most importantly their own faces.
3. Milking goats can be lots of fun.  This is especially true of first fresheners (goats being milked for the first time) and slightly wild goats because they can kick and jump and twist like flamenco dancers while keeping their heads still solidly in the grain bucket.
4. Female goats will choose the most inopportune time to have their kids.  They will choose a rainstorm, a snow storm, the middle of the night, or the very time that your dinner party starts.
5. Goats love to climb.  They will choose any and everything provided (or not) to climb on.  They will climb on low branches, tires buried on end in the ground, large wooden electric spools, picnic tables, and your newest car, given the opportunity.
6. Goats are very affectionate.  They love attention if they are raised with it and will show their attachment in a variety of ways.  They will rub against you after enjoying a meal of poison ivy; they will nibble at your hands at the same time as they chew a mouthful of lovely cud; and they will jump up to greet you after walking through the mud in the yard.
7. Goats hate to get wet.  They will avoid the rain and snow with great effort, even if it means staying in the barn for days at a time.
8. They love a routine and prefer the status quo.  It may take you weeks to entice them to a new area of pasture, and setting up a new and cleaner milking area might cause slight panic in their goaty brains.
9. Most herds have a very distinct herd hierarchy.  A herd queen controls most herd activity.   New goats might get chased out of the barn with the energy of a Tasmanian devil and the vehemence of a Roman soldier.
10. Goats love and need clean water at all times.  They will, however, do everything they possibly can to make this impossible.  They drop hay in the water, they drool in the water, they step in the water, and best of all, if they can accomplish it, they will poop in the water.

Although all of these things are true about raising goats, and yet, goats are also the best, most fun, and most amusing farm animals that I can ever imagine, and we can not imagine life without them!!!

Herd Social Dynamics In Action

Bob and I are, well, let’s just say that we are not spring chickens any more.  It seems that learning new tasks is just a bit more challenging than it once was.  Enter the handles for our new badger-hair shave brushes.

In building our soap business, we started to consider adding items to our inventory that would compliment our soap. One idea that came to mind a year ago was shaving brushes.  You see we produce a wonderful shaving soap in a puck form, and at the Charlottesville City Market, we sell some hand-thrown ceramic shaving mugs to use with the shaving soap, but up until now, we did not have a source for really nice shaving brushes with handles.

Finding the Materials

Bob found a source for lovely badger hair brushes that feel really wonderful on your face (or so I am told since I, Kathy,  have never experienced the facial shave), but we needed a source for handles.  Where oh where could our new handles come from?

Bob is an amazing shopper.  He can find a used anything for an amazing price.  He set his mind to finding a lathe, and that he did.  A 1950’s Craftsman lathe.  It is a thing of beauty, a machine built for many, many years of service.  The stand is made of cast iron and requires 2 men to move it, and the motor runs as if it was made yesterday.  The leather belt that turns the machine is in amazing shape. This lathe was clearly well-cared-for; 50 years later, the paint is in excellent condition, and it works like a charm.

Making the Handles

We cut some dogwood into pieces about a year ago with this process in mind so they were nice and dry, and ready for turning, so a couple of weeks ago, we turned on the lathe and got to work.  Our son Derek has had some limited experience with a lathe, and I had a very small amount of experience just a “few” years ago when I (yes, I Kathy) took a shop class in high school (no comments from the peanut gallery on how long ago that must have been).  We put a piece of wood on the lathe and turned away.  It has been sort of fun to look at the shapes and finishes that we like, and we are quite pleased with the results that we have been able to produce so far.

Today, our friend Ricky, who has had some experience turning items on a lathe, came over to help us with some ideas.  He showed us an amazing product called Shellawax that when paired with some really fine grit sandpaper and a bit of elbow grease puts a really nice finish on the shaving brush handles.  Take a look at this handle turned today, soon to be paired up with a silvertip badger hair brush.

How about that? Old dogs really can learn new tricks.