Mud and rain. And plenty of waggy tails!

Lovely weather.  For ducks ... Or mud wrestlers.  Still, not too much damage to anything (as yet!).  Just up to our eyeballs in mud across the farm yard!

Young Husky stood at the parlour door this morning just staring at the sea of mud outside, watching the rain come down:

And as soon as everyone has been milked, she runs back into the barn and bags herself the most popular comfy spot right under the hay rack:

 

Meanwhile, it's time for seasonal musical chairs again!

 

The goatlings have been moved into the main barn to leave the cattle yard empty in case we need to move the Gracie Moos indoors quickly.  They are due to calve within the next few weeks and there is also the possibility that the weather could turn bad very suddenly and we don't want to have young calves struggling out in the field if we can possibly avoid it.

 

You may notice in the picture above that there is a large black male goat in the same area as the goatlings.  This is our lovely Beamish goat.  So what of Hugo with the big ears??  Well, after being with the goatlings for several weeks, we are not convinced that he is doing his job quite properly as there still seems to be an awful lot of goatlings with waggy tails.  We have also put a number of milkers with Hugo and, so far, every single one has returned into season.

It can sometimes happen that the stress of moving house (however lovely the new house may be!) can play havoc with a chap's hormones ... We have seen it happen before when we took on a rather older male goat several years ago.  So, we have moved Hugo out for a rest and put Beamish in to get the job done quickly.  And he is absolutely loving it!  Hopefully, Hugo will be ready to go again next season after a good rest.

Max is also set up with a group of lovely ladies:

Whilst Daramac and Fremlin are keeping Hugo company in their new winter quarters in the front of the hay barn:

 But don't worry - they are not missing out on the fun!  Daramac has already had his share of young lovelies and our dear old Fremlin had a couple of well-chosen ladies a few weeks ago.  I still have a few more of the older girls lined up for him when they are ready.  Looks like there is life in the old boy yet!