Naming Names

It may be a wee bit early but I think we should start coming up with a naming convention for this year's lambs and kids. For those of you new to the blog, we use naming conventions for a bunch of reasons. It makes it super-easy to figure out how old an animal that was born on the farm is but mostly it's just easier than coming up with a million names on the spot during birthing season. 

Two years ago we named our babies after candy and varieties of cheese. Last year the shareholders voted to name the kids (baby goats) after herbs and spices. We have, up till now, named our ewes (female sheep) after islands and our rams after presidents of the United States, but we have so many sheep now that we are going to name the new lambs the same way we name the kids from now on.

With so many readers I'm sure we can come up with a really good naming conventions this year. Post your suggestions here. We'll winnow the list down to five or six and then let everybody vote.

Here's what you need to know:

The category needs to be something with lots of naming possibilities. Candy was great cause there are umpteen jillion kinds. Think broad. Characters from fiction? Good. Characters from Dickens?Fine.  Characters from Salinger novels? Not so much. 

Be creative. Chinese food dishes. The counties of Ireland. Just be sure there are names suitable for males and females.

We can do two different conventions for the goats and the sheep as long as they kind of go together, i.e. goats are herbs and sheep are spices. 

This is one of the most direct ways in which you get to help us on the farm so have fun with it! I can't wait to see what ya'll come up with.

With Apologies to My Male Readership...

Last September I had the good fortune to sit next to a woman named Nancy Aronie at an animal communication workshop I was attending. I say good fortune because Nancy is an absolutely fabulous woman. She's a wonderful writer and gives a very famous workshop on the Vineyard called Writing from the Heart.  Everyone at the workshop we were attending had to go around the room and introduce themselves and Nancy laughed deeply and wept openly in the same sentence. She is brilliant, and brimming over with life, and, lucky for me, she is freezing all the time.

Lucky for me, because the other reason I was so fortunate to be sitting next to Nancy was that she brought a hot water bottle with her to the workshop. Turns out she takes it everywhere she goes to keep her warm. During a break in the morning session Nancy refilled her water bottle from the tea kettle. At first I thought the whole thing was kind of bizarre, but when she stuck it in between us I was instantly converted. "You'll have to get one," Nancy said. To which I replied,  "Nancy, I am 38-years-old. I cannot start carrying a hot water bottle around with me." 

Which turned out to be totally untrue. Even as I write this I have my trusty hot water bottle by my side, keeping me toasty. Oh, I don't carry it around with me. Not out of the house anyway. Unless I'm going up to Patrick's parent's house across the street. Or for a long car ride. Or to the movies. Not that we ever go to the movies, but if we did, I'd take my hot water bottle with me.

The only problem with the hot water bottle is that I can't take it with me when I'm doing chores outside cause you have to hold it. I actually considered getting one of those baby slings to hold it in place against my chest while I'm feeding or working the livestock but it seemed kind of impractical.

The thing is, I am cold all the time. Well, not all the time. I'm warmish from May through September. But winters in the Northeast kick my ass. I hate being cold, and as a result, I dread doing all of the everyday tasks that I so enjoy doing when it's warm.

And, if I may be frank with you, (and I think I can speak frankly with you) the worst thing in the world is when my breasts get cold. It's beyond uncomfortable- it's painful. And, short of taking a hot shower, I find it very, very difficult to recover from cold breasts.

Until today that is. Today, I came up with the idea for which I will become famous. Forget the whole "started the first Fiber CSA" business. If and when my obit appears in the New York Times, it will be because of the discovery I made at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, January 4th.

And it never would have occurred to me to share this particular piece of awesome if Patrick, upon hearing the news of my miraculous invention, hadn't groaned and said "I can't wait the hear what the blog readers think of this!" That's when I realized it would be wrong for me to keep this discovery to myself. As wrong as wrong can be.

I was getting ready to go out and work sheep and goats with Patrick and Erin this afternoon. "Working" livestock means trimming hooves, worming and delousing all the animals in a particular pen and it. takes. for. ever. Like hours. Outside. In the cold.  As usual, I was dragging my feet and stalling because I was already cold, and I really didn't want my boobs to get any colder or more painful. So right before I left the house, I grabbed two of those "Hot Hands" hand warmers from the kitchen drawer. You know, those little packets that you shake up to cause some kind of chemical reaction and then stick in your gloves? Only I stuck them in my bra. And it was magic, my friends.

I worked outside for two hours without getting cold. At all. I don't think it's overstating it to say that this may very well have changed my life. 

I think ya'll know me well enough to know that I don't regularly talk about my breasts in public, and I truly hope I haven't offended anyone with my immodesty, but if even one of you suffers from the distress of cold breasts and is helped by my discovery, it will all be worth it.

We happened to have bought a whole passel of hand warmers for our Solstice party, and I think they cost around $2 a dozen at Walmart. Of course it means having to step foot in Walmart- an errand I put right up there with being water boarded- but believe me my friends, it will be worth it.

Goat Condos

These condos were made from plastic domes I bought at a local plastic manufacturing plant. They were originally intended for keeping equipment dry on Navy ships but these had some slight flaws (though I'll be damned if I can find 'em) so they put a sign out in front of the factory that read "Domes for Sale".

They sold me for of them for $60/each and I had Patrick cut the doorways.  The baby goats LOVE them. Twins Chipotle and Ancho have moved into one of them and won't let anyone else in, even though there is room for at least four kids in each one. They are really cozy and warm inside and we put down fresh hay in them each morning. 

Hay: It's what's for dinner.

As I mentioned here, we have been receiving many request from non-knitters who want to support MVFF/HVFF but aren't interested in joining the CSA. Most of the request come from loyal blog readers who've been following the goings on around the farm and want to be a part of it, but there are also an awful lot of animal-lovers who just believe in what we are doing and want to insure the viability of our business. 

My first response to requests to help was "Really?" followed quickly by "Why?".  But then I took some time to really think about it and it makes total sense to me. The desire to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, to accomplish as a group what we couldn't manage on our own, is the most natural thing in the world. 

With that in mind, Patrick and I decided that we wanted to make supporting our farm something that everyone can do, no matter their financial situation. And we especially didn't want to be off-putting to our shareholders. That's when we hit on the idea of sponsoring a bale of hay.

Hay bales are currently costing us $6.50 a piece. Not bad right? Except that we go through hay like nobody's business around here! 10 sheep (or goats) eat a bale of hay per day which means we are feeding 7 bales a day ($45.50), 49 bales a week ($318), 196 bales a month ($1274). And that's just the hay! We also feed a grain ration twice a day.

The need to find quality hay at a price that won't bankrupt us has taken over a good portion of my waking hours and some of my non-waking ones. The other night I dreamed that I was laying in the hay feeder and the goats were eating my hair and my clothes! 

If you're interested in sponsoring a bale, a day, a week or a month's worth of hay please know that your contribution will be put to use right away! And to thank you we will be acknowledging out sponsors right here on the blog. 

We'd also like to thank anyone who donates a day or more of hay with a MVFF 2009 Calendar. Weekly sponsors will receive a Calendar and a beautiful needle-felted sheep or angora goat ornament for your holiday tree.

Just shoot me an email if you would like to become a hay sponsor: susangibbs1 AT mac DOT com.

A couple of you have asked if it would be possible to sponsor a specific sheep or goat- i.e. cover the cost of feed, hay and vet bills for a year. What a lovely idea! Please contact me [susangibbs1 AT mac DOT com] if this is something you are interested in .

Farm pics

We moved the sheep and goats to new pasture today and it was darn near impossible to get a decent picture of anybody because they all had their heads in their food.

Flies were running Fettucini crazy today so I sprayed him with fly spray. Turns out he hates fly spray. 

Team Work

I love this picture. If you look closely you can see that Hannah (the highest goat in the photo) is actually bracing herself against Lincoln's face. I mean, her hooves are actually pressing against his face. And he is letting her because she is also bending the branch down low enough for him to eat too. Next thing you know they will be making and using simple tools.

Sheep and Goats on Parade

Moving Day

Welcome to the new home of the Farm Update. This blog is entirely dedicated to communicating with you, our shareholders. 

There are a couple of cool things about doing the update this way. First of all, because it's web-based, I can update it from anywhere. I'm hoping this translates into several "mini-updates" every week. I also really like that you all can make comments directly on the update and others will be able to see them, but don't let that stop you from emailing me. I really enjoy getting emails from you with questions or comments, so keep 'em coming.

If you look over on the right side of the screen and scroll down a bit, you will find a super-cool list of shareholder's blogs, shops and websites. I found all of these in your ravelry profiles and thought some of you might want to get to know your fellow shareholders a bit. What a talented bunch of people you are! If I missed anyone's website or blog, shoot me an email and I'll add you to the list. Of course, if for any reason you don't want to be on the list, let me know and I'll take you off. 

But the best thing about this blog vs. the old emails is that everyone will be able to see the photographs. I am going to keep posting lots of pics to flickr but I am going to keep a few special ones out every week for the update and you'll find them here. This is the picture of the dogs from last week's update that about 1/3 of you didn't get to see. 

This week was a crazy-exciting, fully chaotic one on the farm. In addition to the birth of our very first kiddo of the season, today was the day we made our move from the Farm Institute to Felix Neck.  More on that later though.

Our little one is absolutely thriving! She is eating well, which is the biggest concern at this stage in her life. One of the things that goes wrong with new kids and lambs most frequently is that they can't find their mother's udder easily. I am particularly worried about this happening this year because we were unable to shear the nannies bellies before kidding began. This is called crutching, and we've never skipped it before, but the absence of an on-Island shearer made the decision for us. With Angora goats there is the very real possibility that the kid with latch on to one of the ringlets of hair and think they are nursing. Then they wear themselves out trying to get milk from it and lack the energy to find the teat later.

But this wasn't a problem for this kid. I worried about it (because I am a world-class worrier) until I saw her nurse a couple of times. Even if you don't see the kid nursing you can tell if they've been eating by picking them up. An empty kid and a full one feel totally different, but they in-betweens can be vexing.

I guess it's time to give our first little one a name. The winner of the "What should we name the kids?" primary is ....Herbs and Spices! There were lots of votes in the other categories but Herbs and Spices won by a pretty good margin. I am taking the liberty on naming this kid Thyme.

 

We moved some of our chickens into the hoop house with the 10 (now 9) pregnant nanny goats this week. The thinking behind this was that the chicken will help keep the parasite load in the hoop house down, which is important when you have goats in such an enclosed area for so long. The only problem is that our beautiful rooster, Dan Rather, has apparently gone insane!

Just after I discovered that Mary Poppins had kidded and was checking out the new baby, I heard flapping behind me and turned around just before Dan Rather attacked me. It sounds kind of funny- I mean he's like a foot tall- but he wasn't playing around! He kept coming at me, jumping in the air and ruffeling out his neck feathes while making a terrible screeching noise. I had to kick at him several times to get him to go away. The next time I came in to feed though, he did it again. I was holding the lid to the metal trash can we keep the feed in and I actually hit him with it in mid-air. It was like a cartoon; it made that hilarious thwong-ong-ong-ong noise. 

I moved Biscotti over to the kidding barn today and she seems to have cooled Dan Rather's jets although he now he is crowing constantly! Like ever minute constantly. Dan Rather is a beautiful rooster and I really want to enter him in the fair this year, but if he doesn't pull himself together he might wind up in a lovely coq au vin!

Today we finally made our big move to our new home, the Felix Neck Audabon Sanctuary. Felix Neck is one of the best kept secrets on the Vineyard. 

We were really excited about the move, and had twice had to reschedule due to bad weather, so we were determined to get it done today. Unfortunately, this was one of Patrick's long weekends in New York with his kids, so I was on my own. 

Well not completely on my own. We paid someone with a big trailer to move everyone at once and our good friend Mark Defeo and his brother Pete volunteered to help. 

I had been awake all night Saturday going through all of the things that could go wrong. What if the dogs got out at Felix Neck and ran around like maniacs? What is we couldn't get the flock in the trailer? What if the guy we hired didn't show up? What if the weather reports were right and we had a snow storm?

 

The move couldn't have gone any better. The sky was clear blue for most of the move  of the day, most of the  sheep and goats walked right on to the trailer when promised grain and we only had to chase one sheep, the trailer guy was only a little late. Everyone really behaved beautifully.

Felix Neck asked us to bring our flock there to help them reclaim some land from invasive species and Hannah got straight to work on the oriental bittersweet. This picture totally cracks me up. Her lips are just hilarious!

That's all for today. I am completely whipped! I will send out another alert if and when the next baby comes. In the meantime, check back here from time to time this week and I'll send out an email when I post the next big update next Sunday.

Susan