Seeing is believing ..

Now here's an interesting picture for you - taken during milking this morning:

Just looks like two goats lying around outside ... But it is interesting for two reasons ..

The goat on the left is Siouxsie.  Remember Siouxsie??  The girlie who had acupuncture on her face to try and get her tongue and jaw working again properly after being so ill ...  How good does she look now?  Both ears up and chewing away without packing the food in her cheek like a hamster.

Siouxsie had been lying in the yard after milking, along with a good number of the other goats.  After a while, the goat on the right walked over to her, rubbed her head against Siouxsie's neck and then settled down very close to her.  She could have lain down next to her sister or one of her many friends but she made a conscious decision to lie down next to Siouxsie.

Not quite believing my eyes, I climbed over the gate and went to check her ear tag number.  Yep ... I was right.  This was Diana, one of Siouxsie's triplet daughters, born in 2011.  She had snuggled up next to her mum.

So why is this so remarkable I hear you ask ...  Well, bear in mind that, as a dairy herd, we use our girls for milk.  This, means that we take the kids away from their mums after a few days and feed them all by hand as the mums come back through the parlour for milking.  So, the kids only have 4 or 5 days with their mothers.  Barely time to get to know them well, you would think.  Yet Diana clearly recognised her own mum Siouxsie more than 2 years later.  I just find it incredible.

Eating cherries in the Naughty Corner

You may remember that David instituted a 'Sin Bin' for those goats who are particularly naughty at milking time.  This pen is also known as the 'Naughty Corner' and now seems to be permanently inhabited by youngsters Lara and Bassey.

They come in for milking with the first or second load of goats, go out down the ramp and then lurk about waiting for the door to open again.  Then they dash back in, open the second door by themselves (chin over the gap in the top and pull!), run back down the ramp in the parlour and dash over to the feed barrow.  David then walks them to the Naughty Corner where they have a drink of water and lie down to watch the rest of the goats come through for milking.

It's all part of the routine now and they both seem perfectly happy in their little corner.  Especially when they get treats at the end of milking!

Tonight we had some cherries for them.  Round things are always a bit tricky to eat but you get the hang of it eventually.  But what to do with that stone in the middle?  Bassey quickly developed the technique of spitting it out, whilst Lara had a go at crunching at it before spitting it out in disgust as well.  Here they are ...

Meanwhile, Mitzy and Marmite cats are in full hunting mode at the moment.  Harvest always brings  all the little creatures out of the fields and they are both taking full advantage of this.  Every day I return home to find at least one small deceased creature somewhere in the house.  Today was no exception as I came back to find not one but two live pygmy shrews tiddling about on my kitchen floor! 

I managed to relocate them back outdoors without M and M seeing me ...

That was the week that was ...

Whizz bang!  Another week gone!!

The usual array of milk, cheese, deliveries and markets .. but this week I had one of my new markets at Blackheath.  Glorious sunny day and a short hop up the A2 to Blackheath .. it was such a luxury not to have to drive into London!

It was great to see some of the stallholders I already knew.  Made me feel right at home! 

 

I was positioned between Gary's Fish and Mud Pies (also a Blackheath 'virgin'!).  I know the fish man from West Hampstead where my stall is opposite to his.  I always spend an inordinate amount of time suspiciously eyeing up his live lobsters whilst fighting the urge to go and buy them all and set them free!!

So, it was great to be next to him and be able to chat.  Have to admit that it's not my usual chat-up line .. 'do you mind if I stroke your lobster?'.  And I did learn quite a lot about lobsters on Sunday.  They are absolutely fascinating.  Almost prehistoric or alien to look at.  And did you know that they never die of old age?  They just keep on growing and getting older until they are caught and eaten or  get sick and die. 

Despite the August holidays, the market was nice and busy and I had a lot of interest in our delicious milk and cheese.  And I was thrilled to find raw cow's cream on the Redlays Farm stall.  Wonderful and so thick that you can turn the pot upside down! 

Back in the land of goats, the little boys are getting on well with the big boys and have no problem pushing in at feeding time.  I am always on hand to referee, just in case any of them get out of hand (usually Daramac throwing his considerable weight around!) but they are all pretty well behaved.  Here's young Isa pushing his way in between Beamish and Daramac - you can just about see the little brown bottom sticking up right in the middle of the photo between those two huge beasties!

 

And yesterday saw the last of the 2012 meat kids go off to the butcher.  Poor little men ...  This was Fissi's brother looking out of the back of the trailer as I prepared to drive off.  

 

Wilma is doing pretty well on her fruit and banana diet.  She is also starting to eat a little hard feed now and is nibbling away at hay.  Fingers crossed that she will make a good recovery and will be with us for a few more years yet!

Highs and lows

As I have said many times before, the life of a livestock farmer has huge highs and equally huge lows. 

Let us start with the lows ... yesterday we lost one of the Gracie Moos.  Number 1 Gracie Moo was the first calf born to our little herd of pedigree Sussex in 2009.  She was a lovely big girlie and, like the other cows, has never had any health problems at all.

So, I was shocked to find her suddenly extremely ill in the field when I went to check on them on Sunday night.  We did what we could for her but she only got worse and a very early visit from our wonderful vet on Monday morning only confirmed what we already knew.   That there really was no hope and she would have to be put down.  Doubly tragic as she was in calf and, at less than halfway into her pregnancy, there was absolutely no way the calf would be viable if we could even try to save it. 

Unlike goats who are usually euthanased by the vet, the best way to deal with a huge animal like a Gracie Moo is, unfortunately, to have her shot.  Not pleasant at all but something all livestock farmers have to face.  All done professionally and quickly.  Poor Gracie Moo.

But tonight came the high point.  Ellie's Dairy Fresh Goat Curd has won a Silver Award at the International Cheese Awards in Cheshire.   Hurrah!!!

We had, as usual, entered a few classes just for the excitement of participating in the World's Largest Cheese Awards.  Judging took place today and I was scanning the results to see how many awards our friends at High Weald Dairy had won when I came across our name!  Amazing!!  Didn't expect that to happen.  We will get a certificate and everything ... how exciting is that?! 

Doesn't make up for Gracie Moo but it did bring a smile to the face :-)

All on the move again

Yet again we are moving everyone around!  The 6 little stud boys were moved out into the cattle yard a few days ago in preparation for some of them going off to Somerset:

We let them settle in for a couple of days and then we moved The Boys back outside as well:

It's coming round to THAT time of year again .. and having already seen a suspiciously waggy tail on one of the girls the other day, it was time to get those big chaps back outside and away from the ladies.  They are quite happy out there as they can talk to the girls over the fence.  And they are very gentle with the little chaps as well.  All boys together!

As I went out to feed them this evening in a thunderstorm and torrential rain, I did wonder if it was sensible to be wandering around in the middle of an open yard wheeling a metal wheelbarrow through metal gates ....

David has modified the big hayrack slightly to lift it off the ground. 

That's spoilt poor Kitty's game as she can no longer jump on top of the bale, but it does mean that more goats can get round/under it at any one time.

It always makes me laugh to see them rushing back in to eat their hay after morning milking.  They have a lovely field outside to graze but they all have to come dashing back into the barn to get a tum-full of that yummy hay first.

At considerable personal risk, I shot a little video on my phone yesterday morning as I opened the gate to let them all back in.  I managed to keep my balance ... just ...

 

My little Husky is growing bigger every day but she still likes to sit on your lap at coffee time.  Methinks she is getting just a little too big for this now ..  But she does like to try and drink the water as it comes out of the tap instead of waiting for the bucket to fill up:

 

Pacemakers and generators

Betty and Wilma were our very first two goats:

At just over 9 years old they are now considered to be 'elderly'.  In fact, show goats are classed as 'veteran' when they reach 6 years old!  However, both of them kidded well this year and have been looking very sprightly for their age.

However, over the past couple of months, Wilma has begun to look like an 'old goat' and also seemed to be having problems eating properly last week.  As she was starting to lose weight quite rapidly, I decided that it was time to get our wonderful vet Peter to come and check her over this morning.

A thorough examination of Wilma's mouth revealed that she had recently lost a large back tooth, so possibly had been suffering from toothache or a wobbly tooth.  But it also seems that she has a bit of a heart problem as well.  In a human, this would be corrected by a pacemaker but apparently these have not yet been developed for goats!

So, just lots of cuddles and squishy food for a while to try and build her back up again.  Keep an eye on her heart condition (you can feel the irregular heartbeat with your hand) and see if she improves, though there is nothing we can actually do about it.  I think she is looking forward to a good supply of bananas!

And how did you all fare in those storms the other night?  We had an absolute corker up here.  Unfortunately, one of the transformers in the field was hit by lightning and so we had no power for most of the day on Tuesday.  That created a few challenges! 

After numerous phone calls and searching around in other farmers' barns, we finally managed to locate one of these:

A generator.

But a generator with a difference ....

A generator that runs off a tractor.  Fantastic!

Bit noisy but it is powerful enough to run the milking parlour, the bulk milk tank and all the fridges and freezers.  A lot of extension cables all over the place and a bit of emergency wiring and we were all set .. Milking was very late and we finally finished just before noon.  Some of those big milkers were absolutely bursting to get into the parlour!  Proper power came back on just as we finished evening milking ...

A visit to Winnie the Pooh

Those of you who have the misfortune to use the M25 on a regular basis may be aware that a long stretch of the bottom half is currently being dug up (again).  This means that I have to sit in traffic queues for miles and miles and miles whenever I need to deliver to our wholesaler in Sussex.  After a recent delivery took me over 3 hours just to get there, I have vowed never to use that motorway route ever again! 

So I have devised a much more scenic route which takes me through the beautiful town of Tunbridge Wells and down through the Ashdown Forest, home of Winnie the Pooh.  It's familiar territory to me as I used to live on the edge of the forest many years ago (when I had a proper job!).  I just love that part of Sussex ... so leafy and green.

So instead of staring at the rear of a lorry and endless stretches of motorway tarmac, I now get to look at scenery like this:

Gorgeous eh?!  And it's actually fewer miles ...

As a lifelong Winnie the Pooh fan, it's always a joy to pass through the little village of Hartfield and 'Pooh Corner', the most fabulous Pooh shop anywhere in the known universe.

So today I awarded myself a short break and had a little walk around.  I was sorely tempted by Piglit's Tea Room and the promise of something large in the cake department but duty beckoned - I had those naughty goatlings to visit on the way home and then straight into evening milking.  But I did treat myself to a new bookmark ... I know how to spoil myself!

David had been busy filling up the barn with all that lovely new hay:

and some of the little chaps were catching the last of the evening sunshine:

Not sure what the weather holds for the next few days .. we are promised hot and humid but with the possibility of heavy thundery showers so not too good for haymaking ..  However, we do have to start moving some of the kids around to another barn as we need their space ready for more hay.  It looks like being yet another busy week!