So our current kid tally is 6. The girls and I got to see the last set of twins be born. It was very good timing on our part. After much deliberation the names are in for all of the goats.

Mother named Seven (just happens to be her ear tag number) had twins and their names are Spot (boy) and the girl is Mango.

Happy Birthday's baby girl is named To You.

Buttons baby girls is named Bow.

and the newest Mom her babies are called Eggnog(boy) and the girl is named Happy Easter.

We are having another wind storm today. We lost power for several hours and the roof of the barn is blowing off again.

Sunday



Grandpap and Grandma were here this weekend. Asa was off from work and we all worked in the barn. Well, Grandma watched the kids when they didnt want to be in the barn. Addisson helped worm the goats. She loves catching them and marking them. We mucked the barn today too. It took 3 truck loads. It was quite full. We hadnt done it for three weeks. That is much too long. But we had another baby girl this weekend. Buttons or massive head wound harriet. Addisson wants to name the baby, bow. So we have buttons and bowes. Both girls were very helpful in the barn and love to play with the babies.

OOOPS, Its not happy birthday to me silly, its happy birthday to you.

The Guinea Hens come out most days and eat at the bird feeder.

Yesterday, January 16, 2008, Happy Birthday had a baby girl. She is very cute. Happy Birthday is doing well and nursing her baby nicely. She is turning out to be a good mom. The girls loved having another baby goat. They had a ball playing with this baby. It was a few hours old when we spotted it. Now we arent sure what we are going to name it. Asa like "To me", Addisson likes" Happy Easter", Quinlyn hasnt said but will most likely vote what ever Addisson likes. I like "to me and Happy New Year" since they were born in Jan. So we arent sure if we are going to go with the Happy theme or the Birthday theme.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSDFJ_HtjTE&feature=related

Here is a video of the goats we want to get next.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VRklgMjr3E

This link is what we did to our cat Salem tonight. The girls watch this youtube the other night and have been really wanting to try this to one of our cats. Salem snuck in tonight so this was his punishment. I think Asa was more excited to try it than the girls. It really was funny and worked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qit3ALTelOo

This is Asa's favorite video on youtube. He has watched it endless times. For those of you who dont know. Asa loves animal shows where the cats talk. For Example, Sabrina the teen age witch. This is how Salem got his name. He liks the movie Babe, any show where the animals talk. Yes it is weird but funny. Check this youtube out.

Top picture is the baby boy. Next picture is the baby girl.

January 15, 2008

Today to new baby goats were born. One boy and one girl. Addisson wants to call them Dora and boots. However, Asa thinks the boy should be called spot because he has a single spot on his back and the girls should be called Hope. They are very cute and doing well so far. The girls were so excited to hear the news. I thought we would have had them weeks ago. We have one more mother that looks like she is going to explode. She is buttons. The goat who's horn ripped off in Asa's hand. We ended up calling her massive head wound harriet. She looks like she could explode anytime now.

Asa has been having to get eye drops put in and the girls love to remind him. This morning Addisson's first words of the day were "We forgot to put eyedrops in Daddy's eyes last night". She was still groggy, it was as though she was dreaming about putting eye drops in.

January 13, 2008

Today Asa and I worked in the barn. We gave all the goats their vaccines. Several of them are pregnant and I for sure thought they would have had babies by now. We also made some new hanging feeders out of PVC pipe. This allows them to eat up off the floor. Which they prefer. They told us one day. They also asked for electric blankets but we had to tell them no. (For those of you who know the book Click Clack Moo). The girls were outside with us. Quinlyn really didnt want to be outside. She gets so cold quickly. We were out for about 10 minutes before lunch and she had gotten her mittens completely soaked. She was heading for the house and no one could stop her. Asa had to run the store real quick so we all went inside. Her hands were so red. She wanted to stay out side but wouldnt tell me her mittens were wet and freezing. They hurt as they started to warm up.

After lunch we went back outside. The girls were entertained for a while with their magnetic wands. They use them to search for nails in the ground. We have demolished several items and they end up in a big pile. We have gotten rid of all of the debris but nails and screws are sometimes left behind. Especially when there was roofing involved. They were having fun picking up the nails with their wands. They love to hear them click to the magnet and they cheer "I got one!". Once that excitement wore off I had Addisson pounding nails into the bottom portion of the porch we tore off. We are going to use it as a goat shelter but it is laying by the barn now. There were nails sticking up from where the post were so she bent them down. She loved being able to use her new hammer. She also learned how to pound nails from the ones she collected. She took them and hammered them into the porch too. It was keeping her and Quinlyn busy and I didnt think the goats would care if there were many nails in the wood so I let them have at it. When Asa saw he was a little annoyed. He told them to stop because he was going to use that for the goats. Oh well, They were having fun and learning too.

All the hammering was happening outside the barn while we were waiting for Asa. Back in the barn the girls were helping me get the syringes ready for the vaccines. Addisson is a huge help. We started with the baby goats. Addisson catches them and brings them to Asa. He holds them while I give them the shots. Then Addisson marks them when we are done. Quinlyn was outside the fence and she would hand me the supplies. It was working quite well. Addisson loves when we give the goats their shots. She says "those goats arent going to like this" We finished the babies in no time and moved on the the ladies. They are more difficult. Quinlyn was going to hand us the supplies inside the pen. Addisson is the blocker and helps Asa catch the goats for these ones are much too big for her to handle. Then when we are done she marks the goats. I had several syringes and needles in my pocket already. Quinlyn had to wait outside the pen. She wouldnt leave the our bucket of meds alone and kept moving it. It ended up spilling because she wouldnt listen and just leave it on the ground where we had it. It wouldnt be so bad if it didnt cost $100 plus. The medicine doesnt come with a cap. Once you open it you have to seal it yourself. I had it in a Ziploc in a cup. It was stabilized pretty well but not for being tipped upside down. OOPS. She got yelled at and ran off and went outside. Asa went and got her and talked to her and gave her hugs and kisses. She felt bad but was very sad. She said "her daddy hurt her feelings!" With lots of tears. He didnt even say much to her. He just said she needs to listen and do what we tell her. She came back for a short time and then wandered off. She had headed back outside when we told her not too. It took a while to coax her back inside. But she eventually came back in with some stern tones from her dad.

I forgot to mention she had already gotten in trouble by me before we had started the vaccines for spitting at her sister. And during all of this she had to poop so we had made another trip back to the house to go to the potty. I told her we are not staying in the house we are going to go back out to the barn. She didnt like that much. Addisson had to pee twice during all of this and she peed another time. If they didnt have to poop I gave them the option of either peeing in the gutter or outside. They both chose outside.

So we are in with the lady goats and Asa, Addisson and I have a goat cornered. Asa tries to catch it and it runs to me. I tried to catch it and hip check it into the fence and try to block it. This goat wasnt the smallest goat but it wasn't very big. It knocked me off balance and I was the one who got checked backwards and ended up laying flat on my back in all the goat poop. YUCK. At least it was by the hay feeder so there was lots of cushion and most of the poop filters to the bottom. Addisson thought it was the funniest thing. These things usually happen to Asa not me. My hat even flew off my head.

Once we were all finished we had spent several hours in the barn. We all got showered and had dinner. Everyone is now in bed and I sit here typing with the lingering odor of barn. All of our clothes smelt like barn and the odor is penetrating the house from the laundry baskets. Tomorrow it will be top priority to get the clothes washed. Plus everyone's jackets.

A few days ago we had a huge wind storm. We lost power from 3am until 6pm in the evening. It was so windy it was nuts. We had wind like this in Unalaska but here it just seemed so different or unexpect. We had a steady 50mph and gusts up to 85mph. The wind blew down many telephone poles, put wholes in barns, blew barns down and it blew off some of our roof on our big milk barn. It also blew over many, many semi tractor trailers on the highway. It blew on off the bridge in Ogdensburg. They had to close down the bridge to Canada because of the high winds. They were only letting vehicles of high weight go thru. Everyone who had a big swing set like ours was blown over from our house to Alexandria bay. I found our slide way down by the trailers.

Asa was able to hook up the generator. Thank god because our house was freezing with no heat and so much wind. I think the house was down to 52 degrees before he had it running. It was chilli.

2008
Wow

Yes, everything was about eggnog. Quinlyn still asks for it. We keep having to tell her it is seasonal and there is no more eggnog. We had a wonderful Christmas. The girls got sick right before but were feeling much better by Christmas day. They both got bicycles from Santa. Which they loved and a runner sled. We havent had a chance to use the runner sled yet. Of course in my Christmas letter I said the snow would be here until the spring and it made a liar out of me. We did have about a foot of snow right after Christmas but currently there is none on the ground. Which is surprising. We had a few days where it was 50 degrees and one day where it was 65. It was beautiful.

My parents came up for Christmas and they froze in the house. We keep it a little too cold for them. Plus my dad wasnt feeling too well. When they got home we had infected them with the kids colds. They are still trying to get over that.