The scanning man cometh!

Today was the day when our exceedingly busy scanning man came to call.  All the goaties were moved over one side of the barn and gates placed in strategic places so that everyone could be walked/shoved through Michael's special scanning contraption.

Michael sits in his little machine so that he can scan the goats as they come through and he can see the image on a screen in front of him:

Joe, Anita and Sam were catching goaties and pushing them through:

- some were more reluctant than others to walk into the strange contraption!

David was at the front end to read ear tags and spray mark bottoms and I was trying to keep up with all the paperwork on the right hand side!

It was a bit of a marathon but everyone behaved very well and so I now have a complete list of all the babies that are due to arrive in a few weeks.

We had a couple of nice surprises as some of the older girls are actually in kid.  Highlight of the day was our dear old Thelma goat who is having twins.  Thelma has been with us for almost 12 years and hasn't kidded for some time.  This year, despite her grand old age, she was fit and healthy and wagging her tail at the boys and so we let her in for a little romantic liaison with Fenn.

Thelma absolutely adores babies .. you may remember from years gone by that she and Margot are the herd midwives.  Between them, they attend every birth and help the new mums clean up their new born babies.  So, it will be absolutely wonderful to see Thelma with her own kids once again,  Can't wait!

Hey Fatty Tum Tum!

It's that time of year again .... fat, lazy goats just lying around waiting to have babies ..

Young Husky is particularly portly at the moment ..

Scanning is scheduled for next Monday so we will have a better idea how many babies are on the way!

And I know you all think that I am obsessed with goats drinking water from a tap .. but I couldn't resist taking this piccie at evening milking tonight.  Husky and daughter Monkey:

And it would seem that Hugo has a little friend.  I have spotted it a couple of times snuggled up in the straw, sometimes inside Hugo's pen close to him.  Tonight it was just the other side of the gate curled up in the straw .. You can just make it out in the darkness.

 A little black and white cat ..  Everyone needs a friend, even big smelly chaps like Hugo!

Learning new tricks

Now I'm not sure if you have met Martha goat before ... She is a black goat, granddaughter of our dear old Betty goat, and refuses to go up the ramp in the milking parlour as she comes through the gate.  Instead, she barges past whichever human happens to be on gate duty and plunges herself into the feed wheelbarrow.  Then, once she has had a few mouthfuls, she is happy to go up the ramp and take her proper place for milking.

She often watches Husky and Monkey as they trot around 'helping' with milking .. and it would seem that she has been watching them drinking water from the tap in the parlour as last night, this happened ..

Looks like there's going to be a bit of a queue at the parlour water fountain!

Ellie's Dairy goes on holiday!

As you know, David and I are very rarely able to take a day off.  But this week, leaving goatie Auntie Anita and Milking Mel in charge once again, we headed up to London for our annual away-day.  Oyster cards in hand, we set off by train from Blackheath to go and do touristy things in the big city!

We started at Covent Garden and then hopped on the Thames Clipper river boat to make our way down to Greenwich Pier and back.  Very relaxing and a great way to enjoy all the sights of London including Shakepeare's Globe Theatre ..

By the time we had got back and had dinner, it was time to get ready and go off to see the Cirque du Soleil once again at the Royal Albert Hall.

What a magnificent building that is!  No matter how many times I see it, it never fails to impress.

The stage setting for the show was incredible again ..

And the show itself was just breathtaking.  Unbelievable!

The following day, after a lie-in (what a luxury!) and a very leisurely breakfast we went to see Joe at Borough Market and then strolled along the road to go up The Shard.  I seem to spend rather a lot of time looking up at it, so I figured that it was time to start looking down!

And, what can I say?  Utterly amazing!  The view from the top is just fantastic and we spent a couple of hours picking out landmarks and watching the world go by hundreds of feet below us.

We treated ourselves to a hot mulled cider at the top level ..

Tweeted a picture of Borough Market from above ..

And generally just admired the view!

On our way back to Borough, we made a little detour to a small green area which lies on the corner of one of the busy roads.  Set back a little from the road, this place is known as Cross Bones Garden.  Well documented throughout history, it was a graveyard for the 'outcast dead'.  A paupers graveyard.  In fact, it is also known as the 'prostitute's graveyard'.

Set amidst the bustle of busy South London streets, this garden is very peaceful and has a strange poignant quality about it.  There is just a small pyramid and a shrine erected to remember the many hundreds of people buried in this place:

It is only open at certain times, but the gates are absolutely covered in messages and ribbons ..

You can find out more about it at http://www.crossbones.org.uk/

Then it was back to Borough for some lunch.  David obviously went straight round to our goaty friends at Gourmet Goat to have one of their delicious wraps ..

Check out their spanking new unit at Borough Market in Rochester Walk.  Very flash!  If you have never tried kid goat meat before, then get yourself over there and prepare to be deliciously surprised!

The final stop on our hols was the James Bond exhibition at the Film Theatre in Covent Garden.  It is the largest collection of original JB vehicles and was absolutely wonderful.  David, of course, was in his element with all those fantastic cars around him.  And each car had a running film behind it to show where it had appeared in the JB film.  Very well done and really enjoyable.

So, that was that over with for another year!  Back to reality and goats ...

Like mother ... like daughter ..

Regular readers of our little blog will be very familiar with our lovely Husky goat and all the various adventures we have been through together over the years.  And they will also know that Husky prefers to drink her water straight from the tap in the parlour ..

And, as we all know, Husky's daughter, young Monkey goat likes to help with milking and spends her time trotting around the parlour and sitting in the wheelbarrow ..

But it would seem that Monkey has been observing her mum very closely .. Because tonight, for the first time, we saw her do this ..

Who's a clever girl then?!

On a cold and frosty morning

There was a distinct chill in the air this morning as I stuck my nose out of my duvet and peeled myself off a very warm and comfy mattress ... Actually, it's not that cold .. it just feels so cold because the weather has been so mild recently.  And I'm getting older and feel the cold so much more than I used to.  Fully layered up with thermals and body-warmers, I set to scraping the ice off my van.

But it was lovely and warm and cosy in the goat shed and those girls were very reluctant to get up for milking again.  A little group of four of the Mary goats caught my eye .. all perfectly arranged next to each other with two lying one way and two lying the other way with their heads on the backs of the others.  Very cosy!

And it was such a crisp and clear morning outside.  The air was very still and quiet .. standing out in the goats' field, all I could hear was the hum of the vacuum pump outside the milking parlour.

So, I thought I would do a little video for you to give you a taste of early morning in goat-world ..

All the mud in the yard had turned to ice and so the goaties were happy to walk across it, though Mischief and Robin found it a little confusing to start with ..

But soon, most people were brave enough to skip outside and into their field to enjoy the early morning frost.

A dry day at last!

Finally!!  It has actually stopped raining for a couple of days.  Hurrah!  David has managed to get out and do some long overdue hedgecutting and we are no longer knee-deep in mud.  I am sure that it is only a brief respite but let's enjoy it while it lasts!

While I was out at market today I received a text from David which simply said 'goaties in field'.  As you may recall, they absolutely hate rain and so none of them have been anywhere near their field for several weeks now.  They have stuck their little noses out of the barn door occasionally and then promptly retreated back to the comfort of their straw and hay racks!

But today, the ground was hard and dry, the sun was shining and so off they went racing down to the bottom of the field:

Happy days!

Those big old Gracie Moos are happy too in their new home.  Lots of cosy warm straw and plenty to eat ... this was breakfast time ..

And here is our oldest girlie - Gracie 196.  She and her companion are 10 years old this March.