Gracie Moos come home

Yes, it's that time of year again when the Gracie Moos are brought back to the farm to spend the winter tucked up in the cattle yard outside the goat shed (recently vacated by our Big Boys).  David went with tractor and trailer at the weekend to collect them all and, apparently, they were all exceedingly well behaved and loaded without any problem.  Seems like they wanted to come home.

So, now we have all 10 of them close to home which is lovely.  Nice to hear that low mooing sound early in the morning.  And a few of the older ones are due to calve soon as well, so David will be more able to keep a close paternal eye on them.

As the saying goes .. they are big and brown and very very round!!

The goatie girls took advantage of the glorious crisp December mornings to have a little trot into their field.  Brave goaties that they are, they managed to tip-toe through the mud at the entrance and then skip out into that lovely grass for a nibble.

Young Humphrey is a most handsome chap now and still loves to come through the milking parlour with all the ladies at tea time.  He always has to be at the front of the queue ..

And Mora is definitely in with a chance for the Longest Beard in the Goat Shed award this year ..

 

 And goatlings will be goatlings .. the teenagers of the goat world.  Jigsaw seems to have found a favourite spot in the hayrack each morning:

But it is a little like a bunk bed .. spot those ears underneath!!

Anita and I spent a long day trimming little goat feet with all the youngsters on Monday.  Here are a few of them waiting for their turn:

Everyone is flat out at Ellie's Dairy at the moment with the festive season fast approaching.  Today was our last mail order day for milk until January and so the courier had piles and piles of boxes to collect this evening.

Dairy Fairy Julie will be hard at work preparing and packing cheese orders tomorrow and I will be busy (I hope!) at markets all weekend.  Fingers crossed that the weather stays reasonable until all markets are over .. I have vivid memories of driving home from Wye Market a couple of years ago in driving snow!