So many blessings

Its been quite a busy few weeks around here! We had our precious little baby boy punctually on his due date. His name is George and he was born Thursday May 12th. 

 Both of Bryan's bee hives are doing fabulously and we are excited to see their daily progress. I have so much to post about Bees, but for now here are some fun photos of their progress.

And of course the baby goats!! They love to sit up on top of the picnic table and snuggle. They are growing up so fast!

 The garden is in full swing with daily harvests of lettuce, arugula, and spinach for delightful salads. This first picture is of the tomatoes. We still have yet to put up the T-posts and twine to hold up our wall of tomatoes.

Bed of sweet sugar snap peas :) YUM!!

Bush beans are creeping up and will soon be in full swing!

I dont have any new photo updates of the baby chicks...which really are not babies anymore! Ill get some good photos and post those later.

Covering Plants for Frost

Last week we had a frost warning for 2 nights in a row. FROST...IN MAY!!! But sure enough it got down into the 30s for 2 nights in a row. We had 90+ tomato plants in the ground that were at risk. 

I didnt want to go out and buy a ton of special row covers for frost risk...but I heard that just covering them with any pot, milk jug, bucket, etc would protect them just fine. So we dug out as many containers as we could find. Thankfully last year someone had given me about 100 large potting buckets last year!! I had no idea at the time what I was going to do with them so they just got tucked into the back of the garage. They sure did save the day!!!

Addie LOVED covering all the plants, which was a major bonus for me because I was about 38 weeks pregnant and really didn't want to squat down on the ground to bend and cover that many plants :) Addie covered all the plants and then in the morning we uncovered them all once the sun was out. We did this for 2 days and all the tomatoes survived without any problems. 

All our peppers, eggplant, basil, and legumes were not in the ground yet so I just took all the pots inside for those nights. I left the lettuce, spearmint, garlic, onions and chives to fend for themselves with the frost...and they did just fine without being covered. 

A few days later, with the risk of frost gone, I planted a bed of bush beans and a bed of bush peas. I also got all the peppers, eggplant and basil in the ground. The only thing left is more onions and a few flowers...which at this point will probably not get planted until after I have the baby! 

Meet the baby goats!!!

Poppy had 3 babies - 2 bucks and 1 doe. They all 3 are polled, meaning that they were born hornless and will not ever grow horns. We are very happy with this because we did not want to have to mess with disbudding (burning off the horn buds). They also all 3 have blue eyes which is a sought after feature in Nigerian Dwarfs! All these pictures are from their first week of life. They have already grown so much!! I wish we could keep all of them, but they are all for sale. They can be sold as early as 4 days old as bottle babies...needing to be fed milk from a bottle (which some people say is the best way to get a good friendly goat). Or they can be fully weaned by 8 weeks old and ready to leave their mom without any bottle feeding necessary. 

Poppy had this adorable white buckling first. He is the smallest, but definitely not the typical "runt" behavior. He will push his way through his brother and sister and always be the first to eat! Henry and Addie love him the most because they say his is the softest. They are all 3 extremely soft and fluffy, but for some reason Henry and Addie are convinced he is the softest :)

Born second was this rowdy little buckling!!! Extremely energetic but also very snuggly! He is the first one to go try out a new toy and definitely the bravest of the three babies. Bryan set up a little "play area" for them to run up ramps and jump off platforms...they sure do love it and this little guy is by far the most hilarious to watch! He isn't scared to run full steam off the top ramp and do a kick in the air!

Here are a few pictures of our precious little doe! Seriously just one of the cutest balls of fluff Ive ever held!!! Very stylish with her black boots as well :) She has one of the most gentle and laid back personalities. 

The Highs and Lows

Last week Peaches and Poppy were quickly approaching their due dates and their obvious discomfort made hopeful that we would be seeing some cute goat babies running around soon. Peaches due date was Sunday April 17th and Poppy's due date was Thursday April 21st (both based on a 145 day gestation for Nigerian Dwarfs). The entire week last week was spent in complete anticipation for the first signs of labor. Each day came and went with no goat babies until Friday morning I woke up and went out first thing to check on the girls. I saw Peaches tucked in the back of the goat barn and she didn't run out to greet me like she usually does in the morning so I was anxious to see if she had her baby. However, when I climbed into the barn with her I realized that she had 1 precious little baby goat that didn't make it :( I was so sad for her and so confused. I came in and got Bryan and we sat out with Peaches in confusion then we did our best to explain to Henry and Addie what happened as their two little faces stared at us in confusion as well. We called our vet and he was tremendously helpful! He explained a lot of situations that we were completely unaware could have been possible (now we know). His thoughts are that the baby was probably still born due to being in the birth canal too long. With first time "fresheners" (first labor) a goat may respond to the contractions by trying to avoid them and therefore not pushing (because the pushing makes it hurt worse). If the baby is stuck in the birth canal too long then there is the strong possibility of a still birth. We were so grieved to hear this, but we learned a very priceless lesson. On top of the sadness of Peaches loss we were also very concerned because she was not delivering the placenta. The vet explained that since she didn't have the baby to nurse on her it wasn't stimulating her uterus to do the proper contracting and her body just stopped laboring. That morning we immediately began milking her to help her expel the placenta and to relieve an extreme amount of pressure she had built up! The first milking she gave us almost 4 cups of milk and has consistently given 3-4 cups per milking ever since. We are milking her every morning and every night and like our vet recommended we are also milking her a little bit many times throughout the day to help keep her uterus contracting until the placenta is expelled. She is also on some medication to avoid infection and get her past this. Our plan was for the goats to nurse their babies until a few weeks after I had my baby and then we would start the daily milking later in May. Well, this obviously has not gone according to "the plan" but its really working out quite nicely. And milking is much easier and faster than I expected it to be...more on milking in another post :)

Bryan and I were determined to be with Poppy for her birth to help her so this same thing wouldn't happen again! We talked over various signs that could have told us that Peaches was in labor and the major signs showed up in Poppy that night - She refused to eat her dinner (which is completely out of character for her), doing alot of pacing, would not lay down for bed, and her udder sack had significantly filled up and hardened throughout that day. I went to bed early assuming that I would be up at some point! Bryan stayed up and monitored the situation and told me he would wake me up if anything happened. I was sound asleep and suddenly heard the back door fly open and Bryan yelling "Its Happening!!" then the door slammed. I flew out of bed (as fast as I could "fly" being 37 weeks pregnant), threw on my boots, grabbed my gloves, and ran out the door...glancing at the clock on the way by seeing that it was 1:30am. As I was scrambling to get myself out the door I kept hearing Poppy's extremely loud cries of labor and this made me all the more anxious to be by her side! 

In a matter of moments I was out the door and Bryan and I were standing there in utter confusion looking at each other saying "Now what?"! With every contraction Poppy would have she would cripple down to the ground or try and get away from the pain. It was very obvious in those moments that our vet was probably completely right about Peaches labor. We were seeing Poppy cry out in pain and back up or try and walk forward. She was doing everything against the contractions except PUSH! Time was passing and she wasn't progressing. All the research we had done said that her animal instinct would kick in and she would birth the babies...but in the back of our minds we knew what happened to Peaches baby. Finally I couldn't take it anymore and I got down on the ground to hold Poppy. The next contraction came and she cried out and fell into me with her head over my shoulder. Bryan came behind her to brace her body and she had a great push! The whole time she was laboring, Peaches was standing behind me quietly "talking" to her, it was very precious and sad all at the same time. Then with the next contraction and a hard push she had her first little baby!! Bryan and I were SO excited but still nervous if the baby was alright and what we should do. It felt like an eternity and the baby wasn't breathing. Bryan kept trying to put Poppy's nose down to the baby to get her to clean him up as well as forming the bond...then moments later the baby sneezed and let out the cutest little cry. We all took a huge sigh of relief!! Then we sat there wondering..."well, is there another one? Ummm, how do we know? Ummm how long do we wait?". A few minutes passed and I ran inside to get our "goat book", I flew to the chapter on birth and there was nothing about how long it might take for the next one to come out. I tried to Google it and found nothing...then I heard Poppy scream...YEP, here it comes!! I ran back out and sat right down with Poppy and she pushed hard and out came #2. At this point we thought for sure she was done since we were told that a first time freshener usually only has 1 baby...we thought 2 babies was great! Then without hesitation Poppy let out another cry and pushed out baby #3. Three Babies!! She immediately began cleaning them up and we hear 2 more little sneezes and 2 more little cries. All 3 babies were ok. This whole process only lasted about 20 minutes. Poppy did great forming a bond immediately with each of them and accepted all 3 babies wonderfully. We were told there could be a serious risk of abandonment with a first time mommy having more than 1 baby. They were all nursing within moments and not even 15 minutes after birth they were standing up and stumbling around. Bryan and I were slightly in shock at this point :) What an amazing experience! We sat in awe for almost 2 hours just watching the babies and Poppy. Bryan had been up all night so he decided to turn in for the night and I said I would stay up for a little bit longer to wait for the placenta to be delivered. About 5am Poppy delivered the placenta and she was already well on her way to being a good mommy!

Here is a picture of Poppy and her 3 babies about 10 minutes after their birth. You can see Peaches is in the background very much involved...shes going to be a great "Aunty Peach"

We gave Poppy time to get her babies all cleaned up and each of them had their first nursing. Then we moved them over to the goat barn shelter. With all the excitement of the evening we didn't think to check the weather forecast and within 5 minutes of moving them it started to rain! We were very grateful we moved them to the shelter before the rain started. 

This all just goes to show that we have little to no control over life and our plans! We have been tremendously blessed this past weekend to learn the highs and lows as well as the risks and rewards. As much as it grieves me that Peaches lost a baby and is now going through a lot of changes and discomforts, I am grateful that we were able to learn from her situation and help Poppy get through her first labor with 3 healthy babies. 

I have so many stories and pictures to share from these few days of goat babies! I look forward to sharing them with you all...assuming I can get myself inside to type them all instead of sitting outside holding those precious little balls of fluff!! 

 Henry and Addie cant get enough of these precious babies!! 

Sarge is extremely intrigued by them as are they curious about him. He is very good with them! It is funny to watch Sarge sit in the backyard and have 16 little baby chicks running all over him as well as 3 tiny baby goats jumping around him. Sometimes he looks annoyed and other times he just looks like a proud grandpa :)