Mother Nature is a Tease

Annafleece watching her "Dad" out in the pasture.

Manda and Shrek.

The 14 ewes trying to figure out what Nate is doing. Notice Annafleece's position, directly behind him. No comfortable distance there!

54 degrees on March 7th! Not a very common occurrence in northern Minnesota. I know that we will still get more snow and miserable cold, but a girl can hope!

The snow is disappearing very quickly. We had big plans to head in town for the arrival of sled dogs and mushers in the WolfTrack Classic Sled Dog Race, and a free movie. Unfortunately the trail disintegrated so much today that they had to cancel the race. Even without the sled dogs, the boys and I headed to town for a quick bite to eat and the free movie "Snow Dogs." The boys were very well behaved and loved the movie.

Nate took advantage of the nice weather and remaining snow cover to burn one of the large piles of brush in the pasture. The ewes decided to venture out to investigate. I love how no one wants to venture in the untouched snow, they all traveled single file in the truck tracks that Nate left behind. Fiona, our icelandic, was in the lead most of the way, until Anna ventured up to check and see if Nate had treats for her. As I headed out in the pasture I held a bag of animal crackers over my head and hollered to the ewes. Kizzy was the first to break rank and lumber her baby heavy body across the snow. Kizzy will do anything for a cookie, just say the word cookie!

They are all getting big, lambing could start in 3 weeks! We have shearing scheduled for the 27th, about the same time as last year. Last year I fretted about shearing so close to lambing but it was the date that worked for our shearer. We had no problems, and he is so gentle with the girls I don't forsee any problems this year. Our lambing area will again be in the garage this year. Nate's schedule has been so busy that the barn will not be built until this summer. I don't mind-it's nice to have such a short walk for the nighttime lamb checks. Plus, the cameras work best at a shorter distance! Last year we set up with a large pen for the ewes and three jugs. There was only one night we needed to throw together a fourth jug last season, so three should be enough.

Milking Feta each morning is getting me up a bit earlier, good practice for lambing season. We've made ice cream and yogurt this week from the goat milk. Both turned out very good. I even made granola yesterday to go with the yogurt. A perfect breakfast! I am still milking twice per day, but afternoon production has gone down drastically. I think the main cause is Brie, she is growing very fast. I've also noticed that she eats more when the goats are outside for most of the day. More exercise equals more eating. My plan is to begin penning Brie each night and then milking only in the morning, letting Brie have free eats all day.

Ok, I best go get ready for another work week, and bed. Have a wonderful week everyone!