The red feather

Another glorious day for Balham market yesterday.  Freezing cold but beautiful and sunny.  Fortunately I have now sorted out my 'cold feet' problem so the only bit of me that suffered yesterday were the fingers but there's not a lot you can do about that when you're serving food.  On the advice of Clare the Egg from Wye Market, I bought myself a pair of Muck Boots.  Posh neoprene boots.  They are just amazing!  I hope that whoever invented them is VERY very rich.  I have not experienced warm feet in winter for many years and it is just so wonderful.

Market was steady but not overly busy but I was delighted to get a visit from Sara, GeeGee parrot's Mama.  There aren't many stalls on the market who have customers that walk up to them and start bleating ... it could only be Sara.  GeeGee stayed at home in the warm - she apparently had a bit of a crash landing a couple of days earlier when she damaged herself after a close encounter with a door.  Apparently the navigation equipment was a bit sub-standard in the dark.  To make up for not being there in person (or should that be 'in parrot'?), she sent Sara along with one of her beautiful feathers:

I'm sure that we all wish GeeGee a speedy recovery!  I had taken along a few walnuts from the tree at the farm for Sara to take home with her, so hopefully she will enjoy eating those whilst convalescing!!

Whilst I was watching the youngsters feeding this morning I thought I would take a few photos to show the many different colours.  Basically, we have black, white and brown goats.  They come in various shades and most of them have perfect pedigree markings - like Betty and Wilma in this picture.  This was taken at a show in 2005 when they were both young goatlings!

But sometimes, for no apparent reason, you get what the breeders call 'mis-marked' goats.  These can range from a slight white mark in the wrong place to the most beautiful spotty or splodgy markings.  These animals would not be any good for showing but we absolutely love them in our herd.  The more colours the better! 

Here are some of our little splodgy jobs - all of whom have perfectly marked parents.  Our very first splodgy goat was Diddi who was born in 2007.

She has had several kids since and all of them are perfectly marked brown and white girls.

Here are a few of last year's kids.

This is Mamkina.  She has a black mum and white dad.  Her twin sister is completely white.

This is Dottie.  She is one of Betty's daughters.  Her sister is the light brown one to her right.

And this is Mara.

Bottoms up everyone!