Bumps and Bruises

 Baby Girl and I take walks out to the goat pastures sometimes. We walk out with the goats and sit with them for a while. After a couple hours we try to sneak away before they notice. But they always do. Then when they see that we're getting away they start running as fast as they can to catch up with us. Sometimes they don't stop before they reach us, they just run right through us! or rather, into me.

They don't mean to get me with their horns. They just get excited and start running and then run into me... with their heads. They do it to each other too... I guess they think I'm a goat.

I got this bruise a couple weeks ago. It really hurt and was swollen for a couple of days. I couldn't even sit down comfortably for days. Actually it still hurts!

I don't mind the bruises. That's life on the farm, and really it doesn't happen that often. The only thing I mind a little is that William gets in a fight with a tree where the tree tries to eat his leg and he comes out with a couple of scratches, some sore muscles but not much else to show for it. I take a walk outside and come home with my leg falling off.

Video my Life

Today I followed Bonnie Rose around with the video camera and tried to capture her doing all sorts of adorable things.

Here's a video of Rosie playing the drums for the baby goats, Daisy and Danny. I'm trying to teach her not to push the goats, but she thinks she IS a goat so she likes to push them off whatever they are standing on. It's a goat thing.

I thought this was cute so I'm putting it up here. You don't have to watch it if you're not interested. It's Bella nursing her babies. I just love the little sounds Daisy makes when she's nursing.

After lunch we had dance time.  This was the first time Rosie has danced with one of her bears. This bear was given to her on her first birthday by the waiter at The Teddy Bear Cafe in TaiKang Lu, Shanghai China.  

You can hear Rosie say "more" when the song ends and then "dance" to her bear. 

Here's another one of Rosie dancing with her bear.  (Sorry for the mess behind her... it's laundry and cleaning day.)

Here's a couple pictures of our day for those of you who just want a quick glance or can't get the videos to work.

Bella teaches her babies and mine how to climb on a log...

 And Rosie makes her teddy bear tap dance.

Wednesday Morning Surprise!

 SURPRISE! Two new baby goats!

While we knew that our goat, Bella, was pregnant we thought she was due on July 15th.  So it was a bit of a surprise when this morning she popped out these two little beauties.

 We had a boy and a girl. 

Our boy is Denny...

 and our girl is Dottie. (I think... we may change that)

 They are much smaller than our last batch. Denny is 7 pounds and Dottie is just 4 pounds. So small!

 Bonnie Rose is very in love with them.

Ice Cream, Vines, Goats and Sunset: It must be Summer 142/365

 I only like to eat ice cream if I'm hot. Sitting on the porch at dusk, watching the plants grow and the sun set is the perfect time for an ice cream treat.

 Speaking of plants growing. I'm pretty excited about this vine we have growing in my rabbit shaped vine guide thingy. I swear  you can see it growing. It grows about 6 or 7 inches every day. Soon I'm going to have a lovely rabbit shaped vine with pretty purple flowers.

 Baby Girl likes to watch the vines grow too. This is my cat shaped vine guide thingy.  These seedlings popped up over night.

 Baby Girl's favorite part of the day is also dusk when she gets to walk out with the goats to the back pastures and watch them eat. She's guarding their water bucket here and making sure they are all drinking plenty of water.

 William calls this time of day "The Golden Hour" I really do love it. The more I'm here the more I fall in love with living in this area.

The beauty of the nature all around us is so peaceful and perfect.

Growing big and strong 130/365

Remember those baby goats that were born back in February? Well they are growing so big so fast! 
Here's a video of them playing with their mamas on one of the fallen trees.

Rosie talks to the goats 128/365

Baby Girl is growing and learning so fast. I can hardly believe it's been just a few months that she's been walking. Now she RUNS everywhere and is talking. Here's a little video of her talking to the goats (it starts with her baaing at them) and telling me what the other animals say.

Aaand We're Back...121-122-123/365

Blogger was down for a couple of days there so I couldn't post anything.  I have three days to make up here, but luckily most of our days look alot the same.  

One thing that was fun the last few days was the number of packages that came for me. That was very fun and exciting and made my birthday extra special. Every morning I had something new to open for my birthday. None of the packages, however, had a "From" name on them so it was a fun guessing game trying to figure out who they were from.  I was going to post a picture of all my goodies and tell people to let me know who sent what, but in the days blogger was down I got a couple emails and all was cleared up. 

 

My dear friend Julie sent me the box of Gluten Free goodies for mother's day from The Inspired Cookie, so freaking yummy!

William's parents sent me all the books and CDs. I feel very loved and spoiled.

And my darling Anandit sent me a designer t-shirt from the Demi and Aston Foundation (DNA), to raise awareness about child sex slavery. The design is called "freedom." It's a nice shirt. I love it.

On Wednesday a package came for Baby Girl. Her Nana loves buying her things, espeically things that she can use out side. One of our favorite things to do is sit out in the field with the goats. So Nana got Baby Girl her own chair. It looks just like Mama's.

Baby Girl loves her chair very much and get very upset if the goat knock it over. She likes to rest in her chair after chasing the goats around.

The goats, especially Charlotte, like resting in my chair. This is what I came back to once after I got up to take a picture of Baby Girl.

The majority of the last few days has been spent outside. It's the first thing Baby Girl asks for when she wakes up and she never wants to go in. We spend all day out there and some times eat breakfast and lunch out there. There are some day we only come in at nap time and as soon as nap time is over we go back out.

Goat Pile 70/365

Our baby goats are so sweet. They all love the be held and they love attention. But they don't always love sharing the attention.

They were climbing all over me so much that I couldn't stop laughing, which made me helpless to their climbing. Silly Babies.

Our Favorite Chore 57/365

When I was a kid my mom made us a chore chart. We got to mark off the chart when we completed each chore we were assigned for the week. It was actually kind of fun. There was a clear list of things that needed to be done and we got to use a marker or sticker to show that we had done it. At the end of the day was a full chart and it felt like a great accomplishment.

Living in a very big house (our apartment in China was 820 square feet) there are a lot of chores in the that need to be done around the house. Living on a farm with 19 goats, 3 cats, and 2 dogs there are a lot of chores that need to be done outside the house.

But this is our favorite chore... 

The baby goats all need to be held so they grow up to be tame and loving.

We don't always get to all the chores we should every day. Maybe I should make a chore cart and buy some really fun stickers to help us remember them all. But we do get to this one every day.

We like to make sure that all our animals think they are lap animals, no matter how big and pointy they will grow up to be.

All my kids 52/365

six of our nine babies, plus my baby

Bonnie Rose loves to be outside. She asks to go outside almost as soon as she as she wakes up.  Now that all the goats are born, healthy and running around, she loves to be out with them.

All the kids love to climb on Nana. I'm not sure who is happier in this picture. The goat, the Baby, or my mom.  There's a lot of love in this goat pen.

Here she is telling her Daddy about her day with the goats. Aren't they so cute together!

Welcome Clover 51/365

Today the last of our five pregnant mother's had her baby. William went out to feed the goats and radioed in that our last pregnant goat was in labor. My mom ran out there as fast as she could but the baby was born before she even got outside. William was there for the delivery. In honor of March he named our new baby girl Clover.

You can see a picture of her on my mom's blog.

Today Baby Girl and I spent most of our day out in the goat pen.  She now thinks she's a baby goat.  She loves giving them hugs and kisses, and she really loves butting them with her head.

Bonnie Rose gives Charlie a hug

 She also loves to chase the babies around their yard and climb on anything they climb on. She pushes them off whatever they climb on so she can climb up on it. She's such a good little goat. And she smells like one too.

Bonnie Rose and her new favorite chair.

Names Needed! 47/365

twins! at 9 pounds each

When I was 13 my mom let me raise a Guide Dog for the blind with Guide Dogs of America.
His name was Dooley. I remember thinking it was kind of a funny name but that's the name he came with. I asked why he was named that and they explained to me that each litter is given a letter. They start at A and go all the way to Z. So every dog born in the same litter of Dooley had a D name. That way you always knew what "class" the dogs where in when you went to dog raising meetings and met other dogs.

My mom does the same thing with her goats. Each "Kidding" year has a letter and since this is my mom's third batch of babies we are on the letter C.

So far we have Cordelia, Cocoa, Charlie, Charlotte, Clara and Clarance.

Today two more baby boys were born. But we are running out of ideas for names.

We need name suggestions for two adorable baby boys that start with the letter C.

baby boy 1

baby boy 2

baby boy 1

baby boy 2



**EDIT** We named them Casey and Corey. 

A birthing adventure 46/365

keeping the babies warm

This has been a very long week. William and I were looking over the blog today and I was kind of surprised to see that all the babies have been born this week. Monday seems likes weeks ago.

We had two more babies born!
It's really fun how every birth has been so different. I hope you're not getting tired of hearing about them because we still have two more pregnant mothers!

Today started out normal enough. Actually it seemed like it was going to be a slow Friday. Baby and I got up about 9 and stayed in our room for a while reading books and sitting on her potty. Actually Baby Girl told me she wanted to sit on her potty this morning and then she went POO!
I am so proud of her. She's only 16 months and she's already telling me when she wants to go. And that folks is Elimination Communication.

Anyway, when we finally emerged from our room William and my mom were no where to be found. I looked for them and then checked on the goats from the back window with the binoculars my mom keeps by the window (for checking on the goats, not the neighbors).

Then baby and I had breakfast together. We shared fried eggs and teased the dog a little with them. About 10:20am Aunt Mae called and we talked for a couple of minutes and then I wandered over to the window to check on the goats with the binoculars again.

It was so interesting to see her eat the placenta

I had noticed the first time I checked that one of the goats, Tahoe, was keeping her self separate from the others and I wanted to make she wasn't having a baby yet. She didn't seem like she was in active labor yet but I wanted to check.

I am so glad I did.


Tahoe wasn't in labor but when I went to scan the other mamas I saw that Lea, who was not showing signs earlier of being in labor, was bloody on her back end and there was something coming out!

I snatched up the baby and ran to our room. I still had no idea where my mom and William were and some one had to get out there. I dressed both me and baby as fast as I could and ran out the to goat pen. It maybe took us 10 minutes to get out there. if that.

By the time we got out there two baby goats were laying on the ground and Lea was looking MUCH thinner. I could tell that the second baby had JUST been born. He was still in the goo and needed to be cleaned up. I wrapped him in a towel and got him in a more dry place and tried to help him nurse. The other baby was already starting to walk a little so I tired to help her nurse.

Lea with her strong and healthy babies

Both the babies were very big, but then their mother had been HUGE. It was really cold  out and I needed to wrap them up to keep them warm. MY poor baby wasn't sure what was going on. She kissed and patted the girl goat for a while but then didn't like that I was holding these new babies instead of her.

Luckily we were only out there about half an hour before William and my mom came home. They had taken the two babies that were born on Wednesday to the vet.

My mom and I stayed with the babies for another couple of hours and William took Bonita in the house to warm up and play. It was a such sweet time of bonding with the new babies and trying to help them nurse. Lea and I have never been good friends before this but I think she was thankful I was there. She give me a few kisses on my nose and forehead to say thank you.

Her babies are strong and healthy weighing 8 1/2  pounds (3.8kilos) and 9 pounds (4kilos). We named them Charlie and Charlotte.

Dear Charlotte

Sweet Charlie

Happy weekend every one. I'm going to take an aspirin and get some sleep. I hope you can too.

Baby Bonita in the goat pen

2 more babies 44/365

2 days ago my mom's goat Angel gave birth to Cordelia and Cocoa.
Today another goat mama, Ava, went into labor.
This was Ava's first time having babies so the process was a bit slower. She was into labor for a while before she finally had her first baby, a girl. But then she really shocked us by running out of the birthing stall and dropping another baby. Ava was so small as a pregnant goat that up until last week I wasn't even sure she was really pregnant. We thought for sure she only had one baby and we were all very surprised to have her drop a good sized boy.

My mom says that goats are just like people, except with four legs. After helping Ava take care of her babies I think that's a pretty accurate statement.
Like most first time mothers, Ava was kind of freaked out and didn't know what was going on.  I think she was just as shocked to have a second baby as we were.  After we got her calmed down she finally started to warm up to her babies and cleaned them up and nursed them.

My mom is a professional goat midwife and lactation consultant now. She sat outside for 8 hours today helping Ava give birth and then learn how to nurse and care for her babies.

At first we were scared we were going to lose one of the babies because they were so small and Ava was too freaked out to mother them. But after my mom worked her magic we are very happy to have Clara and Clarence join our family.

Meet Clara

Welcome Clarence

My mom even had to "massage" Ava to get her placenta  to come out. Actually it was more like wrestling her . I think my mom is going to need a long hot bath and a massage after all these babies are born. We have 3 more mama goats waiting to give birth. My mom has been going out every 3 hours to make sure every one is safe and warm. I know she's exhausted.

Baby Bonnie is really enjoying all this time out in the goat pen. She really bonding with the goats and comes in smelling like them every day.

Pink Cast 43/365

Yesterday, since we had a new addition to our family, we spent all but a two hour nap in the goat pen. It was really fun watching the baby goats go from slimy little things to soft and fuzzy babies hobbling around. It's amazing how fast goats grow. I think they got taller right before our eyes.

Angel, the mama goat, was kind enough to let us hold her babies once in a while. They are so cute and cuddly, but every time I picked one up or every time one of the baby goats nursed my baby girl would ask to nurse too. At one point I was holding one of the little goats and Bonita walked over and sat almost on top of the baby and then frantically asked to nurse. Poor Baby Girl was a little jealous.

By the end of the day my darling daughter smelled like a goat and she desperately needed a bath. We both took a long bath and I soaped her down twice.

Today Bonita was so warn out from her day outside that she slept most of the day. We also had a lot of special mama and baby cuddle time.

Meanwhile, back in the goat pen, little baby Cocoa's back leg was bending the wrong way and she couldn't walk on it. My mom and William took her to the vet and she came home with a little pink cast on her leg. It's sad that she has to have a cast but she's already walking around a lot better.

She was even able to stand up and nurse today, something she couldn't do yesterday.