Chickory B. Dances For Her Supper

Nothing exciting to tell...just wanna show off pictures of how talented my goatie is.

I do so love that girl.

She makes me laugh.

Fence Faces

Dosidoe has gone off to Queenacres for the Susan Treatment.  These pictures were taken the morning she left.


Feed troughs are good for more than just dining, they also help us appear taller!

Whatcha doin'?

HRH The Princess Gidget and the Plebs

We have a couple of new wethers in the mix right now, they came here from Susan's to finish out on our grass, before we send them off to freezer camp.

The little guy is Gimli, and the big whine bucket on the right is Mikey.

Mikey is a rather vocal wienie.  Here you see him coming up from the "dead goat pose" to do the "using the horns to scratch the itch" thing.  It is one of the few times since he got here that he hasn't been screaming bloody murder.

HRH The Princess Gidget has not been willing to sit for an official picture, but i have caught her off guard a couple of times.

Here we find HRH backing away from the crowd at the fence,

and this is when i learned she doesn't like to be bothered when she is stuffing her face.  Can you see the daggers?

 

She is such a trip. 
Will keep on it, and try to get you a good picture that really shows the personality.
If Her Majesty grants me the dispensation.

Whizzbang Chicken Plucker

Several years ago, Susan, Dear Susan gave us a set of plans to make a Whizbang Chicken Plucker.  It looked mighty interesting, but was rather dear to produce, so we have never gotten around to it.

Earlier this summer, we sold surplus layers to some new homesteaders.  A couple of weeks ago, they called and asked if we wanted to borrow the WCP they had put together.  Susan and i jumped on the chance to give it a whirl (pun intended.)

This sucker is AMAZING!!!  It is worth EVERY pretty penny it costs to put it together!!!

When we butcher, Susan can pluck a bird in about five minutes.  Takes me closer to ten.  Or fifteen.  Depends on how much caffeine i have ingested, and how much we are talking.  Which is usually a LOT.  Anyway, split the diff and let's say it takes Susan and i together a total of 15+/- minutes to pluck two birds.

Now, i never timed it, but Susan said it was about a 15 SECOND run, and i am perfectly comfortable saying that two birds were completely plucked in under 30 seconds.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Squeamish alert:   dead naked bird pictures to follow

So here it is...

The fingers inside the drum and on the spinning plate are about three inches long, and are flexible.

First ya gotta scald the birds (this would be after you have bled them out,) just like you are going to do when you pluck by hand. 

Then you turn on the motor and the plate on the bottom starts spinning at lightnin' speed.  You drop two scalded birds in there, and then start hosing down the sides of the drum to keep the feathers from clogging everything up.  There is about a 1 inch space between the edge of the plate and the wall of the drum, so the feathers just fall right down below the drum, out of the way and piled up for easy clean up.

The birds go whizzing around, and miraculously stay down at the bottom of the drum.

In just SECONDS, they are feather free.  As Ellie May used to say..."They nakey!"

The part that blows my wee small mind, though, is that the birds are not bruised, and the skin is not torn.

Works on ducks, too!!  The ducks did require a little clean up, but we think the water wasn't quite hot enough on the scald, so that may have been the problem.  Nonetheless, it was still SIGNIFICANTLY faster and easier than doing it by hand.

 Next week we are gonna try in on a goose. Will letcha know how that goes.

 

The sad part of this story is that we have to send the Whizbang Chicken Plucker back where it came from.

 

Shucks.

 

Thanks, Miki!! Sure do appreciate the opportunity to give it a test drive!

Peaches Vs. George

Goat kids usually go through phases similar to those of two legged kids. They have the terrible two's stage, the prepubescent gawky geeky stages, the teenage sighing and eye rolling stage, and so on right up to the wise grande dam stage where they merely cast a look and all those around them whither and bow.

At the moment, Peach Blossom is a know-it-all, badder-n-you, ain't skeered, nuthin' but 'tude 'tween.

Since she is the low man on the totem pole, she has had to look outside her species to show her superiority.

For the last couple of months, when she has had the opportunity, Peaches has taken on George and Ralph.  She challenges them with her head down and ears pinned back, then gets as tall as she can on two legs, and comes down in her best head butt. 

Ralph usually just ambles away grumbling, and George usually gives her a good barking to and she runs back to the herd.

This has been going on all summer, and i have been trying to catch it on film (i guess that is no longer a valid euphemism.  How about catch it on disc?)  Finally, i was in the right place at the right time...with the camera turned on!!

Unfortunately, it would seem that George has run out of patience with this little charade.
Fortunately, i was standing right there and was able to take corrective measures.
Unfortunately, everything happened so fast i am not sure that Peaches actually got the message.

You see, Peaches did a little posturing, rared up, and when she came down, George was waiting with his mouth opened.

Instead of a head butt, Peaches pretty much rammed her head--her ENTIRE head--right in George's mouth.  George underscored the message with a rather fierce growl, and let her go.

Now, before you get all up in arms, let me state that i moved on the scene the instant it happened, and immediately got my hands on Peaches to check her out.  She was perfectly fine...she had a very small moist spot on the top of one ear where i assume she hit the roof of his mouth, but George did not clamp down on her, nor did he move a muscle or make an aggressive move...he only opened his mouth and growled.  This was a defensive "shot across the bow," and frankly, i think Pesky Peaches had it coming.

However, i couldn't let George think this was acceptable behavior, so I came unglued, and got after him in a hail of rocks and dust, growling and reigning down fury and fire.

This is what an extremely contrite George looks like.

And while all the fire and brimstone was being unleashed, Ralph couldn't get flat enough.  I turned around and he was raising the white flag..."It whuddn't me--i didn't do anything!!"

It took an emotional toll on everyone.
The boyz were traumatized.

And Peaches skeedaddled back to browsing with Percy, trying to pretend that she had never left the herd.

Everyone Present And Accounted For

Jesse, Owens, and the lost Bab have turned back up, and all the quackers are hanging out together.

For the time being.

Obituaries

The chillwren are back after an extended tour abroad.

WHEW!!

Well, not abroad, exactly.  But remember that i consider anything north of the Red River to be Yankee territory.
Which is, technically, abroad.
To me.

It was a rough go without them.  The workload was doable, but i had rotten luck, so...yuck.

Suffered several chicken losses, mostly with the young, mostly to the heat. 

Lost one of the little cochins, and the rest of Banty's chicks. 

Pearl turned up with two new ones, so the meat hen and her two chicks were unceremoniously tossed out of the maternity ward, and Pearl & Co. were moved in.  Pearl promptly contracted "fowl pox" (as opposed to chicken pox,) and went into intensive therapy to control it.  She is doing fine, and her chicks do not appear to have gotten it.  Fortunately.

We had rain one night, and i was trying to toss some of the brain surgeons that roost outside into the barn.  When the chickens scattered, the does crowded around me to see what was goin' on,  and trampled a pullet from one of Mama Hen's earlier broods.  Had another "Blind chicken in the pan-try" for about three days, before it became obvious that she wasn't going to make it, and had to put her out of her misery.

One of the Bab's bit it on the road (saw the body this time,) and about the same time Jesse, Owens, and another Bab went MIA, and the remaining three Bab's finally joined The Bob's in the doe yard.

The worst of all of it though, was the loss of Lace. 

Lace was our registered "foundation" doe, as Susan, Dear Susan calls her.

Lace has always had "issues."  Having come from a vaccinated herd, her resistance has always been very low, and we have gone through one battle after another with her.  This one took the cake, though.  And Lace.

I never could get Lace back up to snuff after last year's kidding, so i took her and Moon Pie (she was fine, just needed a tour at Boot Camp) to Susan's.  Susan worked them both over but good, and this year bred Lace to Manny the Manly Buck.  They produced three kids, Glory, Genesis, and HRH The Princess Gidget.  HRH Gidget is with us, although i have not made the time to properly introduce y'all.  Will be doin' that soon.

After a long haul, Lace was finally looking good, Susan actually got a good picture of her, and she promptly developed a mystery illness.

I won't go into detail, but let's just say it was awful.  Susan, Dear Susan valiantly battled what was first thought to be bacterial, and then viral infection.  The war was waged for three weeks and included having to hydrate Lace every hour and a half to two hours because of the terrible heat.  Lace was paralyzed throughout the illness, and at one point was blind.  Susan and Bob constructed a hoist and sling gizmo to suspend Lace for physical therapy.  They went above and beyond every step of the way, and Lace fought hard to stay.  Finally, though, when a diagnosis was decided upon, and the progression of the disease told us that there would be no recovery, they put Lace down. 

Thank you, Susan, so very much for everything you did for Lace, for giving up so much of your time and life to care for the old girl.  Words will never suffice.  You know the heart.  I said to you repeatedly throughout, if she had been with me she never would have made it through the first week.  You gave her a fighting chance.  And fight she did.  And you did.  Thank you.  Love.

Goodbye, Lacie Girl

Between the sister herds, we have retained seven Lace girls: daughters Dosidoe, Moon Pie, Paris, Glory, Genesis, and HRH The Princess Gidget; plus granddaughter Splendora.

And Sparkin' Sparta.

Oddly, or maybe not so oddly, Sparta and Paris were on the "For Sale" page, and were the only LaceXMoon kids i ever had trouble placing.  I always said i wanted to keep a LaceXMoon buck, but never did.  Although they put me over my goat quota for the year, i quit trying to sell them and kept them in the herd, figuring there must be a reason i wasn't supposed to get rid of them.  Guess now we know.

So there it is.  Consider yourself caught up.

Let's move on to happier thoughts.
Shall we?

The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

They Call Me Wog...Polly...Wog

Okay, starting to take flak again for not posting.

Time for spinnin' yarns has been tough to come by of late. 
The two legged kids have been on hiatus for the last two weeks, so Director of Operations has been doin' triple time, and trying to keep the canners running in the spare moments.

Will try to sit down here shortly and catch you up on the homestead news, but gotta tell a Polly Wog story before i forget it.  I have already lost one from earlier in the summer in which Bob the Bull sent The Wog flying.  Will see if i can get Uncle Boo to refresh my memory so i can share it with ya.

In the meantime, let's see if this will tie you over...

Bob the Bull was sold to a ranch about 40 miles away.

Everybody say Aaawwww!

Fear not!  There are still Bob stories to be told.

Seems the new owner has been having a bit of trouble with Bob, and called Uncle Boo to ask for help.

Boo said he would be glad to come over there and corral Bob, for a small fee.

The rancher about had a fit and refused to pay $100 to have the bull dealt with.

A week later, the rancher calls back and is willing to fork it over.

Boo loads up Polly and the Polaris, and heads over the hill.

Boo, the rancher, and Polly climb aboard the Polaris, and Boo asks, "Okay, where is Bob?"

To which the rancher responds, "Who is Bob?"

"Bob the Bull."

"You mean that bull has a name?"

They head out to a back pasture, and Polly musta been able to smell ol' Bob, because she started shaking and whining. 

Bob was spied, laying down with a bunch of heifers.
 
At about 50 yards out, Polly was so frenetic that she was about to lift off.

Boo asks the rancher where he wants Bob, and the rancher points out a corral some ways off.

Boo says, "Polly, look at that corral over there!!  I want Bob in that corral!! Now GO!!!!!!!"

Polly, without benefit of a cape or power bands, flies out of the Polaris, barking as she makes a mad dash in Bob's direction.

At the first bark, Bob turns his head, then gets up.  Polly gets up to him, and the two stood there, giving each other the hairy eyeball.  The line was drawn in the pasture. 

Polly took off again, runs right between his front legs and jumps up to bite him in the dangly bits.

Bob took off at an expedited pace, and was chased into the appointed corral.

Boo and the rancher drove up in the Polaris and closed the gate.

Boo then proceeded to grab a handful of range cubes and hand feed Bob.

The rancher was stunned, unbelieving, because apparently, no one had been able to get near Bob, and no one had been able to herd him.  Bob had been a real nuisance.

But of course, Polly's skills were what really astounded the old man.

He said, "I have been ranching for over 50 years, and I have had many a good cow dog, but I have  NEVER seen anything like that."

The rancher pulled out his foldin' money and handed Boo a hundred dollar bill.  "This is what I owe you."  

Then he peeled off another hundred, and handed it to Boo, and said, "And this one is so you can buy that dog a steak."

Symphony Of Life

Back a couple of years ago, my favorite music (Lyle, not withstanding) often started with the braying of Xote and Sancho, and then Maka, Ruby, Jake and Commando would all commence ahowlin'.  Jewels isn't much of a singer, she is more of a yapper, but she did her part, as well.  If Ellie May and Jethro and i were outside, we would join in...making it one fine happy sing-a-long.  When we were inside the house and they would start up, we would stop what we were doing and listen, with big stupid grins on our faces.  Sometimes, when the concert was particularly long, or if one of the dogs was in fine yodeling form, we would have a giggle together.

The Song of The Homestead has changed over the years, but it is still there.  It just isn't as well textured right now.  The Boyz do a fine job, and their bass voices are very expressive, but they are quite similar.  The Rubinator joins in, so as not to be left out, but doesn't put near the heart into it that Maka did.

That's the thing about life on the farm.  The dynamics are constantly changing.  Ya never know who will still be singing with ya.
We have had a bunch of rock stars in the past, but are a tad thin right now.  In time we will have another Hallelujah Chorus. 
The best i know to do is to continue to stop the presses when the symphony begins, and soak every note of it up into my heart and my brain.  With luck i will hold it there for the rest of my days.

Heck.  Guess that's the thing about life. Period.

My Boy turns 11 in a couple of hours.
It is going by so very fast.
Am trying not to miss a lick of it.