We have been blessed with an abundance of moisture throughout this past spring. Regular small snow storms hit us throughout March and April, and May came with several long, soaking rains that saturated the already soggy ground and brought grass to places I thought could never be green again.

The goats have been enjoying the lush pasture!
Meet the Three Stooges! From left to right we’ve got Ruby, Sapphire, and Diamond. If our place is a circus, these three are the head clowns! We have a hard time photographing them because they won’t stop jumping on us. They LOVE any kind of attention and if anyone sits down for even a second, they will immediately find themselves covered in muddy little cloven hoofprints from twelve little muddy cloven hooves.

Ben Gunn is an old soul trapped in a young body. He looks like a baby, but don’t let his youthful appearance fool you! When the madcap girls are jumping all over us, Ben Gunn keeps a stoic distance, grazing maturely with the adult goats. He doesn’t even do much rough-and-tumble with the other goats when people are not there! He prefers to butt heads with the big goats and all that baby stuff is beneath him. For all that, he’s not unfriendly. He loves it when I sit quietly with him when the girls aren’t around, and big as he is, he’ll still climb in my lap as long as his crazy sister isn’t jumping on his head.

In one night of rain our neighbor’s nearly-empty pond filled almost to capacity. The next day it filled even more. We haven’t seen it this full since 2017.

Scout sure has been looking grown-up and pretty lately!

“Yes, I’m gorgeous!” he says.

Oh… he’s not posing. He’s just looking to see if Phil has a cookie for him.

Snowball has been keeping her kids closely confined to one of the shelters. This was understandable during this past weekend of constant rain, but now the babies are over a week old and they need some fresh air and sunshine! I evicted them from the shed this afternoon and forced their mother to take them on an outing around the property. They were delighted to finally be allowed to tag along with the big goats!

I can’t get over this little gals’ stunning markings!

Sputnik got worm medicine this morning and has a sulk on.

Finn hides and says, “Don’t give me any worm medicine!”

What’s all this??
It appears that a Loch Ness Monster moved into our lawn!!

I saw this guy advertised for $100 in the Pueblo classifieds and I couldn’t resist. Saturday was me and Phil’s 22nd wedding anniversary and we decided to make a day of it and get ourselves an anniversary present. We drove out with the horse trailer to pick this guy up (he’s solid concrete and pretty heavy!!) and we went out for lunch and ice cream and mini golf before returning home with our prize. We had to bury it a bit because of the slope and to make sure goats can’t knock it over on each other.

Phil and I think this piece looks great in our front yard.

The goats aren’t so sure. Are Ziggy and Sonic brave enough to come in for a closer look?

Aw… Ruby thinks Nessie needs a kiss!

Diamond thinks she found a friend.

Baby goat attack!

Dusty was pretty interested in the dragon for a while too. Pepperjack was more interested in grass and is therefore not in the photo.

We we were a little tired on Wednesday after delivering these wee ones in the wee hours, but they were worth it! With a little help from me pulling on their legs, Snowball delivered a big, strong baby boy followed by a small but also strong baby girl. Both kids were up and nursing in short order after Phil and I helped dry them off. We were able to spend a bit more time enjoying them the next day.  

We’re calling the little doeling “Isabella”. She looks remarkably like her grandmother Tigerlily, but with more black down her back. She also has little black spots throughout her white coat that remind me of a Dalmatian. I’ve always wanted a Dalmatian but they aren’t very well suited to our situation. Perhaps a Dalmatian-spotted goat would do.
She loves to sniff faces. Her brother is happy just to lay in laps.


Isabella also likes to hog the camera. I had a much harder time getting pictures of her brother Hawkins.

But then, who can resist this adorable face? It’s hard NOT to take too many pictures of a goat this cute! Look at those little puppy ears!


The photo is a little too clear to make it obvious, but when we look at the top of this little head through the somewhat blurry lense of the Goat-O-Scope we see two decoy happy eyes, or maybe some arched eyebrows looking back up at us. It won’t last long, but it’s funny in the meantime.

Hawkins would rather chill than mug for the camera. It’s hard to know what color this little guy will be. He’s similar to his daddy, Scout. Scout had a charcoal-colored back end but when he grew older it shedded out to solid black and now he’s a classic cou blanc. Hawkins will for sure be darker in the front than his daddy, but it remains to be seen what color the back half will end up. He also has a crinkled right ear that I might have to fix. Flop ears are ok. Pinched-together ears not so much. I had to fix Snowball’s pinched right ear when she was a kid too.

New arrivals came around 12:30/1:00 this morning!  Snowball blessed us with a lovely two-tone chamoise buckling (9 lbs.) and a stunning white and black spotted doeling (7 lbs.). Everyone is doing well!

It was a full super moon last night and the sky was clear and the air was warm. I took Dusty out for a moonlight ride last night and I’m so glad I did! Not only was it spectacular, but it meant my final check on Snowball was later than usual. On a normal night we’d have been asleep when she started labor! Sticking with the “Return to Treasure Island” theme, I believe we’ll be calling these two Hawkins and Isabella.

We went for a walk yesterday and Phil got attacked!!

We have been blessed with a cool, wet spring, but although it was enough to make the grass grow long and green, it was not enough to fill the pond or make the creeks flow as they should in springtime. Yesterday and today that changed. The rain moved in around 2:00 in the afternoon and it didn’t stop. It rained and rained all afternoon, all evening, and all through the night. When we awoke in the morning it was still raining. It continued until around 10:30 a.m. and then stopped. It was never a hard rain that washed away across the fields and straight into the ditches. It was the slow, steady, soaking kind that saturated the ground and got deep into the roots. By the time it stopped we’d had around 4 inches.

The pond has not been this full since 2017. When we woke up the pile of rocks next to the cow was still on the shore. By late morning the rocks were a little island.

Before the rainstorm, the pond was the size of the red circle and the rest was deep, sucking mud that kept animals from being able to drink from it.

The horses sure are enjoying all this grass! Every day is a feast!

In other news, Mocha ate the Goat-O-Scope last night. I guess being cooped up in the shelter gave her cabin fever and she decided to rewire the thing. I turned on the Goat-O-Scope sometime around 9:00 p.m. and saw a large eyeball staring into it, then a big, whiskered muzzle rooting around. I saw some teeth and a wire being pulled down from its neat little bundle above the camera. I ran downstairs and unplugged the extension cord before she bit into it and shocked herself. (I’m not sure if that’s what would happen but I was concerned.) This morning I found the chewed-up camera cord laying in the straw. It had been ripped right out of the unit and it can’t be fixed so we’ll have to see what we can do to replace it. Snowball is due in a few days and we can’t be without a Goat-O-Scope!

“…Even though it’s May!”

We woke up to almost eight inches of snow on May 11th. It quickly slumped to about 3 inches and by the next day there were only a few white traces left on the emerald green carpet of long, thick grass on our pastures.

Phil was a popular character with Snowball and the babies.

I love Sapphire’s ears. They go on for miles and they’re just slightly off-kilter in the way they attach to her head.

Ben Gunn enjoyed a frolic all by himself.

But it was more fun to butt heads with Zelda.

Skeeter’s kids wouldn’t leave Phil alone. Ruby especially wanted “Up! Up! Up!” even though she’d already spent most of the morning in Phil’s arms.

Sadie says, “Baby, it’s COLD outside!”

Little tender moment here. Ben Gunn is already huge! Look at this big fella!

Sapphire is proud of her newfound ability to jump on the doghouse. She defends it from all comers–especially her brother!

Phil is a very popular man.

March came in like a lion. Then April came in like a lion. We ran out of firewood and almost ran out of propane. But sometime around the end of April, warm weather arrived! I got my shorts out, grass started coming in everywhere, and the goats enjoyed going out for daily walks!

Snowball is looking mighty round these days. As this photo was taken on April 29th, she’s still got about four weeks to go here. “Hang in there, girl! How many babies have you got in there anyway?”

Sadie’s kids are two weeks old here and happy to be bounding out on one of their first walks.

Skeeter did not accompany us on this walk and we wondered where she was. I hunted around and eventually discovered her hiding in the boys’ pen at the top of the hill with her two little kidlets. They weren’t quite old enough to be going afield with the herd so she took them to a warm, safe place where she could keep an eye on everyone from above. I think last year’s hard lesson with Butterfly has made Skeeter cautious this time around. When the herd goes anywhere near the horses, Skeeter hangs back and takes her kids the other way.

Little Ruby loves climbing on big, soft mama!

Diamond was born with one straight and one flop ear. I was desperately hoping they’d stay this way, but alas, I believe this was the last of her asymmetrical start. The right ear straightened out over the following weekend, never to flop again.

Sputnik has a certain noble air about him, doesn’t he?

There’s that flop ear again!

Sapphire and Ben Gunn enjoy a nap in the soft grass and warm sunshine.

Skeeter and her her two girls under the shade of the ol’ pine tree. Remember it? Skeeter’s mother Petunia played under this same tree. Funny to think that dear old Lilly was Ruby and Diamond’s great-grandmother. Goat generations go by very quickly.

For the first time since they were born, Skeeter allowed her little darlings to play with Sadie’s older kids. She was rather suspicious of the filthy little brats, but she recognized the practicality of allowing her kids to have friends and entertainment other than herself.

Big Ben Gunn meets Diamond… who looks almost exactly like his sister Sapphire. It’s seriously hard to tell those two girls apart now that the size gap is narrowing!

Diamond and Ruby.

One year ago today…

Yes, May 6th was the day our little Butterfly was shot down. I can’t believe it’s been a year. She recovered so well in the ensuing weeks and I can’t believe she’s living the good life out in Utah where she is flying again over the rock formations.

We had another perfect kidding today! Skeeter went into labor around 2:00, which was the nicest part of the day, and she popped those kids out in textbook form. The only help Phil and I had to give was to cheer her on! She kidded two healthy, strong, and beautifully marked girls! Sticking with the treasure theme, we’ve named them Ruby and Diamond.

Ruby came first with a very large rush of water, and once she was dry she weighed in at exactly 8 lbs. She’s a lovely two-tone chamoisee like her dad, Sonic.

Diamond came just moments later with barely a push from mama, and she weighed 7.5 lbs. Although her front is mostly white right now, Diamond will be colored a lot like her mom when she grows up.

What a sweet little kiss!