I think I've become a cat person

In addition to this cuteness, the brown eyed kitty likes to jump in my lap and knead me and suckle my shirt like he's nursing. He makes cute little suckling noises and everything.

This morning when I went out to feed the cats, I saw a big orange blur of a cat dart out from the shed and dive under the fence and disappear into the woods before I could even say, "Kitty?" I couldn't figure out what could have frightened him so much...but then, as I stared at his brother, I felt something rub against my leg. Both my kitties were present after all! I guess they had a mysterious visitor who joined them for their nightly debauchery. It's so odd, how the whole time I've lived here I've never seen a stray cat and then once I get cats, one shows up all of a sudden. How do they know? Maybe the big orange cat has been making nightly visits all along. I'm going to be thinking of him every time I hear the coyotes howling.

Hummer Time!

Today was wonderful! I rolled out of bed at about 9am, woken with sweet Yombi kisses. I made my coffee and sat on the back patio in the warm sunshine while the cats stretched out at my feet and my little goslings chirped to me. The bumble bees were buzzing around my head. One in particular was very loud and when I turned to see it, I saw not a bumble bee, but a humming bird! The small male must have come to tell me that he's back from Mexico and hungry. I immediately (well, okay, I finished my coffee first) went in and put on a pot of sugar water. By this evening there were already 3 or 4 at the feeders. Last year, at their peak, there were at least 30-40 hummers swarming my feeders at a time. I was going through 8 cups of sugar water a day.

After that I took the goslings down to the pond for their swimming lesson (like I need to teach them anything). As soon as we come down the hill and they see the water, they start running and jump right in. It's so cute. Yombi likes swimming lessons, too. Maddie prefers to life guard from the banks.

Mother Goose

Ben and Jerry

So, I've neglected to write about my two new kitties for a week now; but only because I didn't have any good pictures of them because it was always raining. The vet clinic I work for pawned off two cats on me that they've had up for adoption for a couple months. The brothers were stray kittens near my friends' apartment and she managed to coax them close enough to grab. The vet clinic neutered them and gave them shots and then they sat in a cat cage in the lobby for two months. Eventually they said, "You need barn cats, don't you?" I said, "Do I?" I'm really not much of a cat person, but I decided to take them home and just see.

Well, after being locked up in a cage, these kitties are soooo affectionate. They love any attention even if it's attention from dogs, goats, goslings...haha. I think they are going to fit in just fine. I had them closed up in the shed for the first few days, but now they pretty much have free run of the shed/back yard area. They sleep in the shed most of the day, but last night they were bouncing all over the back yard catching anything that moved. This morning I went out with my coffee and camera and got some pictures at last.

Gos-zilla

Rainbow

It was a double rainbow, but by the time I got my camera it was almost gone.

Puddle Jumping

You know how when you were a kid, toys that could go in the water always outranked the ones that didn't? I was reminded of that today...

Testing the waters

The bottom one dove through the water and the one above it tried to do the same but it was too shallow, so he just ended up launching himself through the air.

it looks like he has little t rex arms.

Finally a puddle deep enough to swim in.

Sebastopol Goslings

I drove a total of 9 hours yesterday to pick up the two gray Sebastopol goslings I've had reserved since November. I really didn't feel like going and I couldn't even remember why I wanted them so much in Nov when I sent in my deposit, but I was going to E-town to sell some chickens, so I figured since I was heading west, I might as well go on to TN...And I'm so glad I did!

These little babies are sooo sweet. They are not at all like chicks, who run screaming every time they see me. The goslings follow me around and jump in my lap and snuggle up for a nap. I LOVE them! I was hoping the weather would be nice again today so I could take them outside to swim, but it's raining. I only got a few pictures last night because it was getting dark, but here they are.

Preening my "feathers" for me.

Weird

Feedjit tells me that someone from LA got to my site by googling, "Horizons milk puppy mill". I'm thinking wtf why would someone search for that. Well it turns out several of the organic dairy farmers for Horizons milk (milk company who boasts about the humane treatment of their cows) are also running puppy mills. Horizons suspended at least one farmer until he stopped breeding puppies (he had several hundred dogs on site), so I'm not saying boycott Horizons, but it's just funny that two things that I mentioned on my blog that don't seem like they could ever possibly have anything to do with eachother led someone here because it's the exact thing they were searching for. haha. It's a vast and small world.

I think you can pretty much google anything and still get results.

Banana chimney
peanut chair
cradle sausage apparently one of Newton's theories

Creamy, Delicious and Nutritious

Finally! After two weeks (seems like months) of hand cramping - I mean milking - I finally got to taste fresh goats milk (I hadto wait due to due to antibiotic withdrawal). It is very creamy and sweet. Not at all "goaty". YUM! I'm getting a reliable 2 1/2 cups per milking (twice a day) from Bella...which isn't bad for a first freshened pygmy goat. I'm definitely going to have to start looking at cheese recipes. And yogurt. And Kefir. And ICE CREAM!

Also, I have this amazingly fragrant flowering bush right under my bedroom window. I fell in love with it last year, but could never figure out what it was. After doing several google searches, I finally found success by searching: "Pink flower clusters shrub". It is Viburnum carlesii "Aurora". I can smell these things from the back yard. I cut a few to have in the house and as soon as I walk in the room, the sweet smell hits me. It almost smells like bubble gum, it's so sweet. I wish they would bloom all summer. The bush itself isn't that attractive, but it's well worth it for the week or so that the blooms are around.

If only pictures came with scent...I would love to share it as well.

Bella's Easter Bonnie Surprise

Bonnie is here!! She is so much more beautiful than even her pictures showed. Bella immediately took to her and she has been tongue flapping and licking Bonnie just like she's her own baby. It's very sweet. Bella still follows me around and gives me lots of kisses too. Bonnie's a bit shy around humans, but since Bella shadows me everywhere I go, little Bonnie follows right along. I was laying in the grass taking pictures and she hopped on my back! haha.

Bella is so happy with her goat baby. Now she doesn't have to "play" mommy with me. She has a real kid to look after. She is taking her job very seriously and none of the dogs get within 3 feet of me or Bonnie without getting head butted.

She won't let Bonnie nurse, which is good since I NEED that milk, haha...and Bonnie needs to stay weaned.

First she sees the feet...

...Then the head. "Oh, nooo!"

In other news, Treely's new trainer just came and got her today. She'll be going for 30-60 days of training about an hour away. So, I might not have any Tree mare posts for a while. Hopefully I can go up and take pictures of her pulling a cart (since she won't be doing any of that at my place, I need to at least have proof that she can, haha). She was such a good girl getting on the trailer. She's never been in a step up trailer, so she stopped and sniffed for a while then just decided to pick up her big ol' feet and step up. Good girl! Believe me, that's a definite improvement from the original loading method where at least two people get behind her and PUSH! Needless to say, she's come a long way.

Treely gets purty

FINALLY!!! A nice day that's not too cold for a bath. I've been dying to give my horse, Treely, a bath. It's either been Sunny and freezing or warm and rainy. It took me about an hour to get all the mud scrubbed off of her. She's shedding out globs of hair. Yes, globs.

Then I made her run around until she was dry while I took pictures...[insert evil laugh here]

I'm so mad I cut part of her out of this picture. I had the lunge whip in one hand and camera in the other and I needed two hands to take the picture.

Her expression always makes me giggle. She looks like a cartoon horse.

I've got a trainer lined up for this spring, so Tree mare is going to learn to drive and get some more time under saddle on trails and side passing and all that fun stuff. I just love my mare!

I'm so easy...

...No. Not like that. I got a note at work saying that I have a special delivery coming easter weekend and it made my whole day/week/month. LOOK!!!



She's a little Pygmy doeling. Her name is Bonnie - which goes oh so well with Bella (stuff like that is important when picking out goats). I love her mischievous eyebrow markings. My friend has been helping me search for a buddy for Bella. She found Bonnie for me today. Bonnie will be weaned next week and is going to a new home with, guess what? FRESH MILK!! haha This little one may just be nursing for the next 6 months.

I have been milking Bella. I haven't been able to drink it, though because she was on antibiotics. Hopefully in two weeks if the new doeling doesn't drink it all, I can have my first taste of fresh goats milk. I hope I like it. I'm a milk fanatic(I pay $4/half gallon for Horizons organic whole milk...it tastes better than ice cream), so I think I will.

Bella has been super cuddly since I started milking her. I guess she has all those mommy hormones going and I'm the closest thing to a baby. She licks and nuzzles my forehead when I'm milking her. This coming from a goat who just last week was completely intolerant of having her udder touched. The whole time she was pregnant I thought I was supposed to sort of condition her to having her udder messed with. I would give her grain and then we would wrestle for about two minutes. Then if I actually got my hands on her udder, she would just lay down. haha

Then, all of a sudden, babies come out and her udder fills up and she just about melted into the ground the first time I milked her. She was so relieved.

I understand why people have such close relationships with their milk cow/goats. Bella has really bonded to me this week. So, I hope she's nice to Bonnie. I think she will be glad to have another goat to keep her company when I'm not around. She's very vocal about how lonely she is.