Well, we jumped the gun on kidding season this year! Today we went and bought two purebred Nubian bottle babies to be suitors for our Alpine girls this fall. I’m tired of trucking all over the countryside for a driveway breeding, only to discover that the doe went out of heat on the way to meet her boyfriend. We’ve had some good luck with driveway breedings, but we’ve also had our fair share of repeats and disappointments. This year we’ll have our own bucks! These cute little guys have no idea how important they’ll be come fall. As they say, the buck is half the herd.

The other goats were very interested in the new arrivals. Nubbin was especially enamored with the little brown boy who looks just like the ones she lost two years ago. She mourned for them terribly and I think she still remembers them because as soon as she saw that little guy she went right for him.

I let Nubbin into the enclosure and she gently followed him and kept nosing his bottom. I put her on the stanchion and she did not protest when I taught him to suckle from a real teat instead of a bottle. She was not so sure about the black one and did some kicking when I offered him a teat. But with some persistence I was able to get her to stand and get him to take the teat. I doubt it will happen, but I would love it if Nubbin adopted these two. It would make transition into my herd so much quicker and easier if they had a “mommy” to look after them and show them the ropes. In the meantime, they are cozily ensconced in a doghouse in the patio enclosure.

In other news, Delilah is spending her first night by herself in the kidding shed. I don’t think she’ll pop tonight, but she went through enough changes today that I think it’s time she had a room to herself “just in case”. I think she’s enjoying the privacy, and we get to keep an eye on her through the “goat-o-scope.”

Phil and Finn–such good friends. Or so it seems…

“Oh no! There goes Phil into the abyss!”

“Help me, Finn!”

“Are you kidding me?”

Mission: Accomplished

It seems Finn had an accomplice! Nefarious Nan: Finn’s shadowy overlord plotting from the background!

When I went to fill the girls’ water trough yesterday, this cute little thing flushed out of the hose! It was undoubtedly after the crickets and spiders that also whooshed out of the hose. The hose had lain dormant all winter, and the unsuspecting critters were alarmed to discover their home was also a water park.

It’s a skink, and technically I don’t think they’re supposed to live in this area at this elevation, but what do scientists know? We’ve been seeing them ever since we moved to this house, but this is the first time I’ve ever been able to catch one. I think it was a bit dazed from its unexpected water slide, but the second I put it down near the rocks where we usually see these things, it vanished out of sight in the blink of an eye.

Although it is still sunny, wind struck the house with a blast this morning and it promises to only get stronger as the day goes on. So I’m very thankful that Phil and I were able to take the goats out for a nice walk at Graneros Gorge yesterday. It’s not a long hike, but it’s very scenic and the goats love climbing on all the rocks! They had so much fun racing and leaping that they were all panting heavily within a few minutes.

They also took many opportunities to give us heart failure.

The first thing Finn did was disappear over the precipice.

I peered after him and saw nothing but a 50-foot drop and no ledges. I didn’t hear any despairing cries, so I knew he must not have fallen. I called and heard a baa-aah from somewhere below, so I kept calling and walked away. A few minutes later, Finn’s eager head popped up from an entirely different spot along the cliff. I have no idea how he got over there because it looked like a sheer drop-off to me, but I wasn’t going to hang around longer to find out since I didn’t want him to repeat the performance, nor to lead the less athletic Sputnik astray.

Tigerlily is just like her papa–nimble and fearless of heights.

“If I stand on this rock I can be bigger than Dad!”

Our “angel goat” has grown into a big, sturdy girl. At not quite a year, she’s taller than her mother, and compared side-by-side to Finn at this age, I’m sure she would be substantially bigger than he was. She gets along very well with the boys. They are dominant over her, but they rarely pick on her because she simply won’t take it. If someone butts her she comes back swinging, and the boys respect her for it. She also loves going out. The last few times we hiked with Finn and Sputnik, we had a hard time keeping Tigerlily out of the truck. So now she’s coming with us.

Sputnik blended in well with our surroundings.

Case in point…

Sputnik was not photogenic on this hike. While Finn and Tigerlily ricocheted from rock to rock, leaning over cliffs, peering behind boulders, and otherwise posing for dramatic shots, Sputnik kept his nose to the ground as he scurried greedily from one dry tuft of grass to another. They way he gobbled up dead foliage, you’d think he’d been starved for two weeks! I’m not sure I understand his tastes–this stuff was not exactly haute cuisine!

Phil and the crew with Pike’s Peak in the background.

Heading back toward our own Greenhorn Mountains.

Once we got back to the truck, the goats decided they weren’t leaving. No one would jump into the bed (although Tigerlily thought about it). So we drove off without them. When faced with the prospect of staying there by themselves, Graneros Gorge looked a lot less fun. The goats chased frantically after us until we stopped to invite them in again. Tigerlily jumped right up, but the boys were not quite ready to call it quits. We drove on again until they looked fairly tired and then tried once more. This time Finn loaded up, but Sputnik felt stubborn and I wasn’t going to argue with him. This time we drove off pretty fast, and it didn’t take Sputnik long to start panicking. When I stopped for the final time, Sputnik was coiled and ready to spring before I could even reach the tailgate. I expect it won’t take long for them to figure out it’s much easier to obey the first time!

The day  was so beautiful that even after our hike we could not get enough of the outdoors. So we swung by the grocery store to pick up some hot dogs and marshmallows and we had our first campfire of the season. Cuzco was thrilled. He supervised as Phil shoveled last year’s ash and debris from the fire pit, then he waited next to the rock ring while Phil and I gathered wood and got the food together. He never left that campfire all evening. He stood with his face in the smoke, inhaling the delicious cedar smell with half-closed eyes and rapt expression. He hurried over to the house to wait by the patio gate when he heard Phil tuning his fiddle in the basement. Then as Phil came out playing “Goat in the Rain”, Cuzco stayed glued to Phil’s side all the way back to the campfire. He was mesmerized by the music and his nose never left the bow. After the music, Cuzco stood by Phil’s chair and rested his big, bony old head in Phil’s lap where he stayed for probably 45 minutes as the fire slowly died. None of the other goats particularly like the campfire or the music. This is one activity that Cuzco has all to himself and it brings him back to the days when he was the only one.

Sadly, only a week after his first spring brushing, Cuzco’s hair inexplicably started coming out in clumps and now he’s almost bald, the poor fella! Given the current sad state of his usually glorious ensemble, there will be no “Glamour Shots” for a while. We don’t want Cuzco to be embarrassed by his nakedness. Hopefully a new coat will grow in quickly.

But in the meantime, we still have stories which are sometimes even better than photos. I got a new harness today and Cuzco wanted to try it on for size. It was a chill, blustery day and the patio where I normally tack up was slick with ice, so I figured I’d take Cuzco in the cozy basement and try the harness on by the wood stove. I’m used to bringing the girls in every morning to be milked. It’s usually a pretty calm affair: I open the basement door and the goat walks sedately in ahead of me and moseys over to the stanchion with maybe a pause here or there to investigate something on the way.

But Cuzco is not a sedate kinda guy. Purely out of habit, I opened the door for Cuzco like I do for the girls without first haltering him or even grabbing his collar. I might as well have opened the door for a tornado! There was half a box of popcorn left over from a movie last Wednesday that was sitting on a shelf ten feet inside the door. I’d been rationing it out to all the goats over the last couple of days, and it must have had a homing beacon on it. In the blink of an eye, Cuzco tore across the space, dove his head into the popcorn, and inhaled most of it before I could reach him. I tried to pull it down from the shelf so he could at least eat it on the floor (I was envisioning mouse-attracting bits of popcorn scattered behind the shelf from Cuzco’s vicious assault on the box). But this effort turned into of a tug-of-war which resulted in Cuzco’s head getting stuck inside the popcorn box.

I pulled the now-empty box off Cuzco’s head and snatched at his collar, but he was too quick for me. He whisked away and made a lunge for the shelf where he knew he’d smelled animal crackers and peanuts. First Cuzco savaged the animal cracker box. It was plastic and the lid was screwed on. It took him less than half a second to realize he couldn’t immediately access the crackers, so he tossed it off the shelf in disdain and turned to the peanuts. They were brand new, still sealed and sitting inside a shopping bag. I reached Cuzco just as he reached the peanuts. He felt my hand close on his collar and made one more desperate lunge that swept every item off the shelf into a heap on the floor.

I had hold of the collar, but when the goat is as big and strong and determined as Cuzco, and when one is laughing so hard it’s difficult even to stand up, let alone control a raging, 200 lb. beast, keeping hold of the collar doesn’t really make a difference. I “accompanied” Cuzco to the bin of alfalfa pellets where he shoved aside the big jar of Cosequin that serves to weigh down the cheap plastic cover, knocked the alfalfa bin open with his nose, and dove his entire head into the contents. He was buried up to the eyeballs and gorging much bigger mouthfuls of the pellets than he could actually chew. I clung desperately to his collar, trying to pull him out and thinking that he must come up for air eventually, at which point I would slam the lid down and hustle him away. But Cuzco knew my scheme and refused to surface. So I pulled harder on his collar in an attempt to drag him out by main force. Well, I managed to drag him out but the bin came with him. I had just filled it that morning and I watched in horror as the contents slowly began to pour over Cuzco’s head and spread across the floor.

Just at that moment, Phil, who had been laughing at this fiasco from the other side of the room, saw the desperateness of the situation and raced over to grab the bin before it tumbled over completely. I tugged Cuzco to where his halter was hanging, but before I could reach it he shoveled the lid off the metal grain can and almost pulled that one over before I hauled him out with Phil’s help. Once haltered, Cuzco knew the rampage was over and submitted immediately. He followed me across the basement to the tie pole, gentle as a lamb, and stood perfectly during the long, tedious ordeal of adjusting a new harness. That’s Cuzco… whether he’s being good or bad, he puts his whole heart into it.

Today I brushed Cuzco with the wire slicker brush. We filled an entire 2-gallon bucket with hair in about 15 minutes. It was awesome. I dumped it out in the woods and no doubt the birds are going to have a hey-day lining their nests with the warm, downy softness. I won’t tell Cuzco about the birds though. If he found out he’d probably never shed again just to spite them.

As the primary elections are heating up, Cuzco would like to remind all of you good people that you don’t have to choose between bloviating Elephants and asinine Donkeys. Choose the moral high ground! Vote for the Goat!

Cuzco has a lot of experience on the campaign trail and would like to remind everyone that in the one and only political contest in which he ran, he won a landslide victory not only for Homecoming King but also for Queen, despite the fact that he did not even run on the “Queen” ticket!

Cuzco is excellent at browsing through the issues to arrive at the best option.

However, he refuses to be bribed or swayed. (Cuzco sniffed this flower but he DID NOT INHALE!)

Cuzco is especially good at listening to people’s concerns.

This goat’s winning ways can persuade even the most stubborn dissenter.

Even if their beliefs are downright shocking.

Cuzco is the kinda guy who you can really see eye-to-eye with, and you always know he’s leveling with you.

And Cuzco always gets the women’s vote!

Cuzco always looks so lordly when he lounges around the yard for his naps, which have become longer and more frequent in his old age.

As soon as I took this photo I decided that Cuzco needed some personal attention. The other goats were nowhere in sight and I thought I could sneak out and give him some cookies without anyone else noticing. WRONG! The minute I rattled the chain on the back patio gate, I heard a rushing, crashing, trampling noise from the hill on my right. The rest of the herd came pouring frantically out of the scrub oak and reached me about the same time I reached Cuzco. I was hoping I could pamper the old goat without him having to get up, but as soon as the rest of the herd swarmed round us, Cuzco leapt to his feet to fend them off. I made sure he still got all the cookies to himself, but it was in spastic, frenzied snatches between swatting everyone else away. I wasn’t about to reward those other rapscallions for mobbing me while I was trying to share a quiet moment with our dear old Patriarch.

Nubbin is the only goat in our herd that Cuzco actually seems to like. When we take a walk, Nubbin usually stays right in Cuzco’s shadow and he doesn’t push her away. At night, she is the only goat he sometimes allows in his shed. Funny how goats’ preferences work. Nubbin’s mother, Nibbles, was the first goat we added to our herd, and Nibbles was the only goat Cuzco ever bonded with. All subsequent goats and their offspring were regarded as unwelcome intrusions on his life and were never accepted, Nubbin included. But after Nibbles died, Nubbin attached herself to Cuzco (much to his annoyance) and she never gave up. Eventually he grudgingly accepted her and now he lets her hang around. There’s a chance Nubbin may go to a new home in Idaho sometime this spring, and as much as he would never admit it out loud, I think Cuzco is going to miss her.

It’s early days yet, but I can’t wait for kidding season! I sort of tried to get a “belly” picture of Delilah today but she wouldn’t cooperate, and I’m also on the wrong side (I started off on the right side but she turned around on me!). She’s not due until April 9th, but she’s been doing the “pregnant waddle” since January.

Petunia is due May 5th, and Jezebel is due June 3rd, so babies will be spaced pretty far apart this year. That just means we get a longer kidding season and more baby goat fun for all!

Friday we took a few moments to survey the damage done by the terrific wind storm that swept over us the day before. The wind blasted in around 1:30 a.m. on Thursday and startled Phil and I out of a deep sleep. It was so loud we ended up sleeping in the guest bedroom on the lee side of the house. It only got worse as day dawned. When I first looked out the window in the morning, our goat tower was still intact, tattered American flag still fluttering gallantly. An hour later the entire top portion was demolished. The wooden shed that provided the base to the topmost spool and the flagpole was upside-down on top of my electric fence and the spool was on the ground.

After further assessment, we decided that the wooden shed is done for. It’s not worth screwing it back together again, and as this is the second time it’s taken flight in a wind storm, I think it might be more of a hazard than it’s worth. I really don’t need it winging its way across the pasture and landing on a goat like she was the Wicked Witch of the East.

Goats, of course, love any kind of change to their environment. The jungle gym hasn’t gotten so much attention in months! I should take this to heart and move a couple of the spools every other week or so, or maybe add a stump or two and then take it away.

Finn poses for the camera by standing on his sister, Petunia. Pictures don’t lie!

Petunia and Tigerlilly were the Queen and Princess of the spools respectively. They spent more time up there than everyone else combined. But that’s because they know how regal they look on a pedestal!

I affectionately call Petunia my “Pretty Pet”. I love her funny airplane ears and heart-shaped nose. When her mother, Lilly, left the scene, Petunia stepped gracefully into the role of herd queen, but luckily she’s not the vicious tyrant her mother was. Overall, we’ve had a much more peaceful herd this past year.

Princess Tigerlily! I don’t usually like white goats, but I have to make an exception for this little cutie.