Cowboy Zebra

The goats at the pumpkin farm walk up and down this steep ramp. At the top is a feed trough and kids can buy some oats, put them in the little cup attached to a pulley and pull on the rope which takes the cup up and dumps the oats into the trough.

So we now have two goats. Both are (hopefully) pregnant. Firefly was definitely lonely just have the horses as pasture mates. I don't think she was eating as much as she should have, and she would eat the most when I was out there WITH her HOLDING the hay. So I found an ad for this gal and she also has good dairy bloodlines. Nathan said we could buy her as well, so the kids and I went to pick her up today. I think that Firefly is very happy to have a friend.

Nathan let me buy a goat this week! This is Firefly and she's a Nigerian Dwarf goat. Her registered name is Flat Rocks Fire Water, and the people we bought her from called her Fire Water. That's a bit of a mouthful, so we're calling her Firefly. She's hopefully pregnant and will have kids in January. Meanwhile, she still is giving some milk which I didn't know till this morning! So we'll try milking her this evening...if we can catch her!

The goat isn't too sure about the horses. I wouldn't be either if I was that little and had been chased by them! Maybe we need to get another goat?

My neighbor and I are trading off mornings of keeping each other's kids, and yesterday she kept my boys. So Maggie and I took a trip to the fabric store and I got a pattern and material to make a dress for her! I mostly finished it last night. It's a 12 months size so she can wear it this spring and summer. I still need to make the matching hat and the bloomers.

The horses love it when I make applesauce...they get the leftovers!
My friend Loraine and I went to pick some more apples today. We hauled in 70 pounds! We went to the little convenience store down the road from us and asked the owner if we could pick some apples from the two apple trees in the parking lot. She said, "Go ahead, take as many as you want...take them all! Do you need a box?" Back at home we made 9 quarts of applesauce and we only got through half of the apples. Loraine is coming back tomorrow so we can finish.

Roosevelt elk are supposedly the largest elk in North America.

Today Ben, Amanda, the kids and I went to the Northwest Trek, a zoological park that has animals native to the northwest. Part of the park's experience is a tram tour that allows you to see some of the animals up close and in a natural environment. We saw bison, mountain goats, Roosevelt elk, black tailed deer, big horn sheep, swans, ducks, geese, and a moose. The walking section of the park we got to see grizzly and black bears, wolverines, beavers, a skunk, river otter, lynx, bobcats, and coyote. We couldn't find the fox and the cougar was put up to get heat rocks installed.

Ever since I first saw the huge slugs in this area I've had one dream. I wanted to make them wear hats. Live your dreams!

Nathan decided to not dig holes for the raised beds and suggested we use the tops of the 4x4s to attach trellises or a rabbit fence to. Good excuse if I do say so myself. I used the square foot gardening method and have planted bush beans, spinach, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, 1 zucchini, 1 squash, 1 winter squash, and 1 cantaloupe. We'll see how it goes! I'm going to plant a lettuce garden in the rectangle potter thing that's on our patio. The previous owners had a fountain in it, but only left the tub base. So Nathan took that out and filled it in with soil.

The Outdoor channel was filming the dog competition. This particular event was jumping for height, and the dogs had to knock down the target hanging up high. It was fun to watch and the boys were quite entertained for about 1/2 an hour.

They raced for an oreo cookie sitting on a plate at the end of the loop.

We went to the feed store today to pick out chicks. The boys were quite excited!