Here we go again!

11:53 pm Monday night- three hungry, healthy baby girls born!  That makes 15!

Whew!

After the last post, we again had two more baby goats born, one boy and one girl, at around 3:00pm.  So for the last 24 hours we have been helping birth baby goats, feeding baby goats, milking mama goats, feeding baby goats, cleaning out birthing stalls, doing regular chores, washing lots and lots of towels, feeding baby goats, and well...you get the picture! 

"Bubba"

So now we have a running total of 12 baby goats: Cody, Andy, Sugar, Honey, Ginger, Abbie, Juan, General, Jim, Glory, Bubba, and Rebekah.  (You know that you've lived in the South too long when you start naming goats Sugar, Honey and Bubba!)

Top: Rebekah;  Middle: Bubba;  Bottom: Glory

General and Juan (or is that Jim??? Hmmm, I'll have to think about that one.)

Abby and Jim/Juan?

Cody and his comrades

"Rebekah"

And Yet Another...

We were blessed with another little doe. She was born about a 1/2 an hour ago. So far the junior does have been doing a wonderful job being milked. Praise The Lord!

Posted by Jordan

And Some More...

It's 3:43 am Monday morning and we have two new baby goats!  Two bucks!  Until next time...

More Babies!

It is now 12:03 am Monday morning and we have two new healthy baby goats!  One boy and one girl!  Praise the Lord from whom all blessings flow!

99 Balloons

For those of you who haven't seen this video yet, simply put, you have to.

To Market, To Market...

This picture was taken at the Aiken Farmer's Market this summer by one of our very loyal customers.  Jordan and Ethan went every Saturday, rain or shine, and we appreciate all their hard work! 

(Thank you Kandis, for the picture!)

The "Kids" (video 2)

The "Kids"! (video 1)

The twins were having a little bit of a hard time with the "kids"
because they were so close to the same size!  "Kids" will be "kids" !?!

Love At First Sight?

The other day Dad and Mom visited another dairy farm up by Greenwood.  The owner milks Saanen and Nigerian Dwarf goats.  While they were there, Mom happened to see the Saanen kids, and it was love at first sight.  She picked out this little buck, and brought him home to surprise us!  A surprise indeed!  The boys named him Cody.

The junior does due any day now...

Faith ended up only having one buck, Andy.

We moved the babies out to the barn on Wednesday.

Andy is on the left; Sugar, Honey, and Ginger are in the back;

Cody is in the front.

Wishful Thinking...

Looks like I'm not the only one wishing for warmer weather!

Puppy Love...

Ethan took these pictures of our dogs, Riley and Toby, sitting in our work van the other day.  When he showed them to me, I was surprised because they were both so attentive!  It is usually very hard to get a good picture of the two of them, let alone one where they are actually looking at the same time!  Come to find out, Ethan was holding a treat over his head the whole time!  We all had a good laugh over that one!  But they did turn out good!

First baby goats of the year!

 The first baby goats were born today by our excellent milker, Joy! We are back in the milking business! Actually, as I'm writing this, another doe, Faith, is in labor. Joy did a great job, delivering three healthy girls! For us, this was a miracle and such a blessing, as we try to increase and improve our herd! Also, this was only the second time that we have had multiple girls from the same doe in all of our years of breeding. Last time, it was Joy's mother, Dora, who had twin girls. But that was back when we left the babies to nurse on the mothers. It turned out that when the babies were born, we were just preparing to go on a trip, so thinking everything was okay, we left, only to receive a call a few days later that the mother had not been feeding the babies and the twin girls that we had so looked forward to were now dead. So, these three girls are very special to us indeed!

                                               

For right now, we have 3 doelings born from Joy, and one little buck born from Faith. We are waiting to see if Faith will have any more. She looks like she could, but she delivered the buck at about 7:00 tonight, and she hasn't been doing anything else yet. We are a little concerned about her right now. That is, actually, the reason I am typing this so late! I have the midnight shift to check on her, Mom has the 1:00 am shift, and then I go back out at 5:00 am to check. We always bring the babies inside for the first night and put them in a tupperware, so Jordan and Savannah will be waking up through the night to feed them when they cry! Yup, we're back into the swing of things alright! But it's always worth it. I wouldn't trade this part for anything.  Around here, it's everyone's favorite time of year!

Someone's Turning 22!!!

Today is Jordan's 22nd birthday!

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. 

 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways,

and My thoughts than your thoughts."

-Isaiah 55:8-9

Jordan is always so sweet and kind.  She is thoughtful and considerate, and constantly puts other's wants above her own.  She is full of joy and fun to be around.  Jordan is a dear sister, a true "pillar" (Ps. 144: 12b) in our home, and a faithful daugther. 

She serves her family unfailingly on a daily basis,and she helps our home run smoothly.  She makes most of our meals and does all the grocery shopping.  She is the one who you will see at the Aiken Farmer's Market every Saturday selling our products.  She is also the "Feta Maker"!  She is a constant source of joy to each of us.  She is always willing to talk or listen.  We are blessed to have her in our family!

"Being confidant of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you

will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ."

-Philippians 1:6

Happy 22nd Birthday Jordan!  We love you bunches!

A Few Random Photos

This first picture is of Ethan, Dad and Noah at the All-Local Market (Whaley Street Market) in Columbia.  This market goes all year round and is usually very busy!

Our farm fresh eggs on display

 This is our walk-in hay rack that I had mentioned in a previous post.  Before we would have to throw the hay over the fence into the hay rack, or take a wheelbarrell of hay into the pen, but this walk-in rack is just wonderful! 
            
                                      

Blue Skies...

More Snow!

This past week we were blessed with more snow!

We have never gotten this much snow in one year!  It's wonderful!

Malachi

The Dairy

Wrainy

We have a fairly steep driveway, which makes a great sledding hill.  In fact, it would take us down so fast that we had to bail out at the bottom.  It snowed from midnight till morning on Monday, and then sleeted the next day, so the snow was very hard packed by Tuesday morning!  After the first day though, the bailing out part wasn't quite as fun as it had been on the soft, new snow of Monday!  But we all had a good time, not knowing when we might get this much snow again!

"Ready, Set, Go!!!"

Dad -The Champion!



Gram and Pop



The Winter Months...

      Many of you know that we have dried up our milk goats for the months of December and January.  For those of you who didn't, well,... now you do!  Goats can be milked for 10 months of the year, but they need to have a two month break right before they have their babies.  For us, the winter months are God's way of slowing us down a little.   
      So if we aren't milking, and there's nothing growing in the garden right now, what are we doing, you ask?  Relaxing!  Each of us girls have been making a couple of new skirts, along with reading good books that we just didn't have time for while we were milking.  We are enjoying playing games (we just held a Connect Four tournament the other day-Dad won by the way!), and just talking by the fireside.
      We have also been doing things that just needed to be done.  Last week we canned 23 quarts of spaghetti sauce from hydroponic tomatoes that someone had graciously given us.  We also got most of our spring cleaning done!  And slowly, as we clean out one barn and then another, our garden is being layered with hay, prepared for spring.  We are in process of cleaning out and organizing our attics.  We also built a walk-in hay rack for the goats. 
      So, with each passing season I understand more fully the words of Solomon: 

"To everything there is a season,

A time for every purpose under heaven."

-Ecclesiastes 3:1

Posted by Kelsey

Book Recommendation!

I don't normally write book recommendations, but this series was just too good to keep to ourselves!  It's the Viking Quest Series by Lois Walfrid Johnson.  Ethan received the books for his birthday in November.  We started reading them right away.  Anytime we went somewhere in the car we read it.  If all of us were home we stopped to read a couple of chapters.  We couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen next!  We just passed the series on to Gram who can't put it down!  Lois Walfrid Johnson is a very talented author with the way she keeps the story moving.  She also wrote it in a way that makes it a great book for boys and girls alike!  It is a great family read aloud!  (We would recommend it for ages 10 and up because some parts may be a little too much for a younger audience.)  So don't judge a book by it's cover and give this one a try!

A New Year-2011

Jordan, Kelsey, Savannah

Ethan and Noah

Noah

Ethan

Noah, Ethan, Savannah, Kelsey, Jordan