Meet Mina

I was right again! Yesterday morning I made the prediction Brighita would kid either that day or the next, and by 2:00, we had a new baby goat on the ground. 

We named her Mina, pronounced MEE-nah, which means mini. She is a mini-me of her mom! 

Brighita did well mothering. She licked her dry and got her up and moving right away. 

The other goats were there watching. It was very chill in the shed... Sage watched from her lounging position on the milking stand. 

Gerda chowed down on alfalfa while her kids hung out in a feed tub. 

They actually fell asleep while I was out there! 

I left everyone peaceful and snug. That evening after Jaron went to bed, G and I checked to make sure Mina nursed. Even though we hadn't seen her nursing, based on her energy level, I was pretty sure she had. Still, we wanted to confirm. 

Also, we were nervous about Brighita's udder. Turns out she has two teats on each side. They weren't noticeable until her udder got really big otherwise we probably would've gotten rid of her before kidding. 

I've never seen double teats with goats before! According to the Internet, it's more common in meat goats. It doesn't hurt them at all, but it can make nursing difficult since the extras aren't typically functional. 

In Brighita's case, both teats work on the one side! I didn't test the false teat on the other side; it's much smaller so my guess is it doesn't work. 

Mina had cleared out one side of the udder but hadn't drunk from the other. I showed her there was milk over there and she quickly figured it out. We'll let her nurse for a week and then begin milking. 

In other news, the goats have found interesting ways to access their mineral feeder. We saw Sage lean over from on top of the milking stand to nibble on the salt. I almost caught her in the action! 

The chickens have been very pleased with this warm weather. They're roaming all over our property! A bunch made it out to the pasture. Can you see them in the distance? 

SFA Soil Health Conference

Earlier this week Jaron, my dad, and I went to a two day soil health conference.

As you can see, Jaron was riveted by the speakers. Or maybe that was his food...

I packed a ton of snack, books, and toys to keep him occupied for the two days of listening to speakers. That plus my handy baby carrier for naps kept him occupied. 

Oh, and Boppa too. 😅

A few speakers focused on the importance of cover crops. 

I'd like to improve our pasture for better grazing, so some of the information was relevant to Havenacre. 

A different breakout session discussed pasture pigs, something we'd like to do at some point. Probably not on this homestead, but you never know! 

The coolest part of the conference was hearing Temple Grandin- famous for redesigning animal working facilities to be more humane for the animals. Not only was she one of the first women involved in this industry, she's also autistic. 

The first night of the conference they had a book signing followed by a screening of a new documentary about her followed by a Q&A with her and the movie producer. Unfortunately, the signing started at 7pm, movie at 8pm, and went to 9:30pm. Fortunately, Jaron was pretty happy and handled the late night okay. Unfortunately, he stayed awake the entire time. Too many cows in the documentary. 😂 He even stayed awake for the Q&A afterwards!

It's fascinating to listen to Dr. Grandin. She's very straightforward and refreshingly blunt, loud and passionate about her topic. Also not afraid to share her phone number; she announced it to the whole conference audience at the end of her last speech. Don't ask me for it; I didn't have any paper handy to write it down. 😅 She shares some of her facility designs in her books and for free on her website: https://www.grandin.com/.

One thing that annoyed me after her first presentation at the conference was that the people who raised their hands to ask questions didn't actually have a question. 🙄 Seriously guys! (Actually, they were all women).

Almost all of them led with something along the lines of, "thank you for being here, I so appreciate your work, it's been impactful in my life because..."  If they did have a question, they gave waaaay too much background information leading up to the question so that Temple got sidetracked, went off on a tangent, and they never had a chance to ask their original question. You'd think people would learn and just get to the point, haha. 

It was pretty tough keeping Jaron entertained both days. He's going through his terodactyl phase and screams at the drop of a hat, so I had to step out of the room a few times to not disrupt the speakers any more than we had already done. Thankfully, people were gracious and we had a lot of good interactions with people who clearly loved having a baby around. 

Will we go to the conference again next year? Time will tell! 

Getting Things Done!

Galen crossed two big things off the list this week: 

We have a baby gate! It's so much easier than sliding an ottoman in front of the stairs every time.

And...

Kitchen helper, aka a foldable montessori tower. 

Jaron seems to like it! It's just a little too short to see outside the windows facing the shed/animals. 

Another Shed Update

Jaron and I are trying to get in the habit of going for a walk after lunch. We swung by the shed to check on the animals after one of these walks. 

 

The kids are growing well. 

Brighita is getting closer to kidding, and in my attempt to check on her, I remembered the heat lamp needed to be rehung.

This is why: 

The heat lamp was hanging directly over the wood. The heat from the bulb is so hot, it's causing the wood to burn.

I rehung it higher up and used twine to pull it away from the wood braces.

The goats are enjoying their new feeder. They like to be in the back area to nibble through the sides.

The cats like the feeder too. 

It's doing a pretty good job keeping the stems inside. The black bins are catching a good bit that have fallen. 

Still some waste but much better than before! 

One final update - I stuck a log under the mineral feeder so the goats can reach it better. Unfortunately, they keep rolling it away. Does that mean they're using it or playing with it? 

Shed Updates

A "door" cut into the pallet between the chicken side and the goat side so they can go between.

A board horizontal above the pallets to keep the goats on their side.

Wire over the waterer to keep the ducks from getting quite so messy.

The chicken feeders haven't fared well... The totes are too flimsy. We have a plan for an alternative feeder style. Stay tuned for that!

The cats enjoy the warmth of the haymow.

G made a tent for the ducks to hang out in since they enjoy being outside so much. This also keeps the chicken side cleaner since ducks are so messy.

This picture is from earlier this winter: we made a path between the garage and the shed which the goats enjoy. 

Spinach Sweet Potato Muffins

I don't remember how I found this recipe, but it's been on my to-make list for a long time. 

I finally got around to buying sweet potatoes, so I finally made them. 😅 

AND I followed the recipe exactly. No substitutions or changes. Well, except for duck eggs. I used duck eggs instead of chicken eggs. Probably didn't make that much difference. 

They're quite green. 

But they taste great. You might notice in the above picture that they have two different colors. The recipe says it makes 12 muffins, but I was able to make 21. The first batch was in a copper muffin tin and the second pan was a regular muffin tin. The copper definitely cooked faster, and might even be a little overdone. I put them in about 5 minutes apart, and ended up taking them out at the same time! In both, the toothpick came out clean. Sometimes I wonder if my oven runs hot ... 

Since the oven was on, I capitalized on the heat and did an experiment with the buckwheat banana pancakes we've enjoyed in the past. The recipe is so putzy because they are very sticky; you have to grease the frying pan between every single pancake! They taste really good, so I wondered if I could bake them in the oven on a silpat and avoid the annoying cooking process. 

They turned out alright. I don't love the texture - very flat- but they did come off nicer and it was super easy. I wonder if I started with a hot pan if the texture would improve...

To capitalize the hot oven even more, I also made egg muffin bites (to use up more of our old duck eggs too). I guess I overfilled the pan. 😅

Jaron's First Book Signing

Messaging with a friend yesterday afternoon and she mentioned she was going to an author talk in St. Peter later on with some other friends I know. She had read one book by the author a long time ago, but she loves listening to authors, so she's going anyway. I love hearing authors too and said so. Then she invited me along, said there was room in the car for both Jaron and me, and that they'd be leaving in about 45min. The author was Kate DiCamillo. 

To be spontaneous or not to be??

Jaron was napping so I said no. 

He woke up 10min later and I changed my answer. 

It's Kate DiCamillo! You might be familiar with two of her books The Tale of Despereaux or Because of Winn-Dixie. The Bink and Golly series is my favorite of hers. She also writes the Mercy Watson series. 

I grabbed a couple of books by her in case she was doing a book signing afterwards... and then I forgot them at home. But there was a table of her books for sale (at a discount!), so I bought one I knew I didn't have. 

Jaron did great. He quietly ate snacks and looked at books or audience members. I really enjoyed her presentation. And we did get our book signed in the end.