Things we've learnt so far....

• How to pull a calf (that's stuck during labour).
• A picnic with goats is a recipe for disaster.
• Don't ever bother wearing nice clothes.
• We never thought we'd have to deal with so much shit. Literally.
• Don't listen to your wife when she says you need to check on the goat babies at 1am in the morning (then she locks you in their little house in attempt to get all of them inside, which they were before you checked on them). It's a very noisy affair.
• With great joy comes great sadness (the births are great, stock loss is always sad).

Goat cuddles.

• Always accept goat cuddles.
• Full moon = crazy animals (the cows go slightly "doolally").
• Goats love eating thistle flowers, just before they burst into bloom.
• Spring is ridiculously busy, especially when you have newborn (human) babies too.
• Toddlers "helping" aren't really helping.

Helping.

• Wine and cheese go well together, beers and cheese go well together, wine and beer also go well together.
• There is no point about crying over spilt milk in the dairy. Best to just get over it and clean it up.
• Dogs love to share the poddy kids' milk. It makes them somewhat portly.
• Hamish loves to share the poddy's milk.
• Weeds. That is all.

He touched the electric fence.

• Don't touch the electric fences. (I've lost count how many times have I said that!)
• Bulls can be scary. Cows can also be scary.
• Hand-raising a calf with the goats leads to a very big, funny-looking (cow)goat.
• Plant more trees.
• There is always fencing to do. Always.

Fencing. And more helping.

• The best weather for fencing in is in the wind and sleet, according to Iain.
• How to build a website.
• How to build sheds.
• Blackberries. One for the bucket, one for me.
• A wise man told us that "a big dry is broken by a big rain". So far, so true.
• Bushfires are scary.
• All children should visit a farm.
• The day you make a time-dependent plan is the day the animals decide to change their routine.
• We live in a wonderful community, and are so thankful for all the support we have received and continue to receive.

A picnic with goats.

Yearling calves not being scary.

Spring madness. Lots of newborns and kids.

More helping.

Dear Georgie (resting now) getting portly (on blood and bone).

Daddy Jacob posing with yet another sunset.

Bringing the girls home after evacuating for the bushfire in January 2013.

Sunsets and sunrises in our part of the world.

Spring Clean

It's about 3 weeks until we're expecting the first kids to be born, which means it's time to spring clean the girls' quarters! We had accumulated almost a year's worth of composting-hay flooring which we cleaned out with the help of the excavator. 

The digger, having a break for morning tea, sitting atop a year's worth of hot composting floor.

The floor was then transported to the top of one of the paddocks, where it was wet with water and will continue to compost down. In about a year's time (after it's been turned over and wet down again at least twice more), it will be spread over the paddock, and so provide a nitrogen boost. It's a great way of recycling carbon on the farm, and puts all that goat poo and wee to good use too.

The pile begins to take shape.

And so it grows.

We love our compost floor - it acts as a great insulator from the cold concrete flooring of the shed, and it's also quite comfy for the girls to lie down on (so comfy, that during milking season, we often have to wake them up in the morning). It's a sensible way to utilise the hay that the girls don't want to eat (they pick out the best bits and toss the other stuff around - often onto the floor or ground). They stay warm and dry - the combination of poo, wee and hay starts the hot-composting process (seriously, it's well over 50 degrees C deep in the litter), and the hay is sitting on a graduated floor that has a drain in place so any wet stuff filters down and is able to exit the shed into the effluent system. We open up the roller doors when they're out in the paddock, and the wind and sun dries it out a little more. Then, before they get tucked in at night, we scatter more hay to ensure a clean and dry layer is on top.

The 2015 compost pile, turned and wetted on several occasions over the course of the year.

The 2015 compost close-up.

The finished pile from 2016! Approximately 26m x 3m x 1+m - that's a lot of poo and hay!

Clean floor - now to get it comfy again....

Prepping the floor each evening.

5-star accommodation, if you're a goat!

The girls rush in to check out their new bedroom.