Meet Alice!

 Hi! I am Alice. I am new to the farm and I like it here and I came from another farm with lots and lots and lots of goats. All the kids were in a nice, big barn and we would talk and talk and talk all the time and no one could ever hear each other talk so we would all talk at the same time. Now I talk and talk and talk all the time and everyone can hear me because there's only five other goats so it's pretty quiet in the barn so I talk and talk and talk. I like to talk and talk sometimes I talk with my mouth empty and sometimes I talk with my mouth full and sometimes I talk while drinking and sometimes I talk when standing still and sometimes while sitting down. The farmer says I talk so much that if she closes her eyes she thinks I am a Nubian and not an Alpine. Isn't that funny? A Nubian! I could never be a Nubian because I am an Alpine and I have Alpine ears and a normal nose, not a Roman one and my parents weren't Nubians or anything. Wouldn't that be funny if I was a Nubian? I would be like "Hi, I am a Nubian". HahHahahahahahahhaahahahahaaa!

 The other goats are nice here and I live with a goat called El Grande Burrito. He's a wether and he's dark brown and white and his mom is Lucy and he still drinks milk. I get to eat grain. I love grain because it is yummy and smells good and makes my tummy full and I could eat it all day long. I wish I had some grain right now! Hahahahahah! Isn't that funny? It's not even lunch time and I want some grain. Grain would be good. I like grass too. Grass is green and tastes good and smells good and is fun to eat. Sometimes I get to go in the pasture and eat grass and it is a lot of fun and I like it except there are bugs that like to bite me and I don't like that and sometimes Daisy tries to beat me up and I don't like that either.

I am the new goat here and someday I might have babies and be milked. That will be fun and I think milking would be good because I will get grain during milking which is awesome and I love grain. It is nice to meet you and I am glad to be here and thanks to the farmer for bringing me to her farm and giving me a nice home and letting me play with the other goats. Bye now!

And some more goats were born

 Daisy kidded a few weeks ago. I am taking it as a good sign of the farmer's favoritism of me because it's been two weeks and she is just now getting around to posting Daisy's babies pictures. She posted pictures of MY kid on the day he was born. Daisy's kids are practically weaned and are now just being featured. So guess who the farmer likes better?? THIS GOAT! Take that Daisy!

 Uh, anyway.... Here is a picture of Prince Phillip. He's pretty cute, I guess... for a Saanen cross..

Here is Princess Aurora. Daisy had twins. A boy and a girl.

Here is the best looking kid of all -- my boy "El Grande Burrito". He is winning the "Biggest Baby Goat In The World" contest because he weighed in at 18 lbs at 21 days old. WINNING!

The farmer should stop trying to predict things

The farmer is great* at predicting what us goats will do *by "great", I mean "so terrible she can't predict the way out of a paper bag". Every year she makes all sorts of predictions about kidding season. And every year, she is completely wrong in every single aspect of every single prediction. Her track record is so bad that she can't even be relied upon to predict if we are pregnant or not. She's one of those people who swears up and down that a certain goat is not bred, only to find a mystery kid in the pen 5 months later.

This year she predicted that I would have twin does on day 155. Guess how much of that prediction she got right?? Um... only the part about how I would give birth this year. In reality, I had one buck kid on day 152.

"El Grande" was born today. The farmer actually tried to predict the time of delivery as Friday night at 9pm. Um.. He was actually born on Sunday at 1pm. (yeah, someone needs to revoke her license to predict). Her terrible predicting skills were not in our favor because the farmer spent all of Saturday night waking up the entire barn every hour to check on me.

Daisy is due next and I can't wait to see what wrong predictions the farmer makes about this one. I have heard her say that Daisy will have twins on day 150. We'll see..... we shall see.......

What the??

If you happen to be the one person who actually reads this blog, you might have noticed some discrepancies between the last update and previous entries. Like why am I pregnant and what happened to the plan to breed Fiona this year? Well, as usual, plans didn't function as planned. Fiona didn't reach her growth goals by breeding season so the farmer opted out of breeding her. She did grow well this year and has turned into a very good looking doe. She'll probably be bred next year. Since Fiona was out of the line-up, I was put into the breeding queue. The farmer rationalized that because I have always been a dependable breeder with an easy udder, then I should be bred this year.

So here we are. Daisy and I are bred and Fiona was spared a year.

Winter Update

I took the blog back from Figaro. He thought that since he won the trophy for the parade that he was entitled to the blog but he didn't even bother to update it or the Facebook account or the Twitter feed or even the Pinterest board so I took those back. Besides, the blog is called "Lucy the Goat", not "Figaro the Goat Who Looks Like a Sheep". I believe in truth in advertising, so since I am Lucy, I will take the blog back.

Anyways.... where was I again? Oh, right -- winter..... You will notice that I labeled this post "Winter Update" even though it is early March. Guess what? Up here in the North Country, it is STILL winter! Winter actually goes from mid-October until mid-May here. It's pretty ridiculous but it's true. I have goat friends in Alaska who are currently singing the praises of spring time and thinking about green grass and gardens. You want to know what I am thinking about?? Not freezing my udder off, that's what I am thinking about! This morning was -25F! Brrrr doesn't even begin to describe it.

Thank goodness I had the good sense not to get pregnant the first time the farmer put me in with the buck this year because I would be popping out kids in a week or two. I knew better when I heard the farmer say, "Well, if the weather in 2014 is like last year, then it will be warm and sunny in March so let's breed the goats early and get a jump on things". I knew better. Luckily both me and Daisy had the good fortitude to cross our legs and think unfertile thoughts until the last possible minute. We are both due to kid around April 16th. We were actually bred 8 days apart but since I like to hold my kids until day 156 and Daisy is a first freshener who has a good chance of going early around day 145, we might actually kid on the same day. Yay! Labor besties! Kidding on the same day is great because the farmer is really happy to give us lots of treats and take extra care with the kids. Plus she is usually too busy to bother us too much with anything more than treats and loves. No intense scrutiny or extra poking and prodding.

I will keep you posted on the kid progress. Hopefully winter ends soon (like in a month or two!).

In which Figaro wins a trophy...

Figaro here. I have taken over the blog from Lucy today. Why? Because I won a trophy and any goat who wins a trophy deserves a blog, of course. Why did I win a trophy? Because I am the coolest goat in Saranac Lake. Why am I the coolest? Because I marched in the Winter Carnival Gala Parade with the Adirondack Goat Club and we won the trophy for "1st Place Best Animal Unit". Why did I march? Because I am an awesome goat who looks like a sheep and who doesn't love to see a goat who looks like a sheep but who is actually a goat. Why do I look like a sheep? Because I am an Angora goat, duh. Back to the parade. There were 12 goats and 20 people and we all marched down Main St. The crowd loved us and even threw carrots at us (I don't really know why the crowd was throwing carrots at all the floats that marched by, but the goats really loved the carrots so please throw carrots every year). The Winter Carnival Parade is a crazy parade where the entire town shows up and acts silly, by "silly" I mean drunk. It's winter and cold but everyone is having a blast and they are having an even greater time when they see a goat who looks like a sheep walk by. So I won a trophy and I got a blog. Yay me.

World War G

To say it has been cold up here in the North Country of NY is like saying that Pope Francis is cool – a hugemungous understatement. It has been super friggin’ cold here with temperatures well below zero for days (and by “well below zero”, I don’t mean -5F – you pansies!). Subsequently all of the goats have been confined to the barn for days on end. Even the bucks have been brought into the barn. To illustrate how unusual the outside conditions have to be for the bucks to move inside, the farmer has often been heard muttering “It’ll be a cold day in Hell when I have stinky bucks living in my barn”. Well, welcome to Hell. 

Just as the weather turned cold, Daisy must have caught sight of herself in a mirror because she decided that since she is the second largest goat on the farm, she needed to be in charge of the smaller goats. Up until recently the pecking order was determined by age with me at 6 years old on top, Figaro at 4 years old next, Daisy at 2 next, followed by the spring babies (Fiona, Curry, and the two bucks). All was good with this order and no one had a problem with it. Well, low and behold, Daisy suddenly decided SHE had a problem with it. She started asserting her authority by beating the living tar out of Figaro who in spite of being older is smaller due to being an Angora. Daisy and Figaro have lived together for years but suddenly Daisy decided that she didn’t like his laissez-faire fuzzball attitude. She pounded him into the stall walls and door until the farmer decided to give him a break and move him to a new pen. The farmer then tried every configuration she could think of to fit 7 goats into 3 stalls without the bucks doing some unappreciated hanky-panky and without Daisy killing her stall mate. The farmer put Daisy in with Fiona but Daisy tried to kill Fiona. Then the farmer put Fiona and Curry in with Daisy but Daisy then tried to kill both of them. Then Daisy when in with me and I tried to kill Daisy. Finally the farmer had to settle on Daisy and Fiona together because Fiona was least likely to suffer permanent damage from repeated poundings. It’s pretty much been one big Ultimate Fighting match in the barn for the last few weeks. 

The weather broke for a few days and relative peace was enjoyed by all because the bucks could go back outside and the girls got to be in the pasture during the day. Now we are anticipating an “artic vortex” to descend. Hopefully the “Daisy vortex” has calmed down a bit and we can all go back to being friends (or at least mildly tolerating each other).