Laughing Goat Fiber Farm

This duck is plotting to take over the world!

2009-04-06T20:56:00.000-07:00

11 EGGS!!

Or, she cannot count...

or she knows that many of her eggs will not hatch..

12 EGGS!!

or she's using probabilities to project her final duckling yield...

or she's related to my brothers and thus competitive about ev-er-y-thing!

13 EGGS!!

What's your theory?

Do ducks prefer Base 10? or Binary?

2009-04-03T16:02:00.001-07:00

This morning I found 10 eggs and a duck guarding them.

Is it because she's finished now?

She's completed a set of 10?

Was "10" her nice, round numbered goal after all?

Or is this 1010?

What's YOUR take on this development?

Where will it all end??

2009-04-02T10:16:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I found a duck nest just outside the south door of the barn. It's tucked up against the barn, under the overhang, just next to the stack of hay bales. When I found it, there were 3 eggs in the nest, but no duck. The next day there were 4 eggs, then 5 eggs, then 6 eggs.

I decided to document the progress. So each day I go out with my camera in hand and try to catch the duck in the act. Here you can see the hay bales and the corner of the door. Not the smartest choice but it must have seemed like a good idea at the time.

So far, no luck - but look how many eggs there are!

How many will she lay before she decides that's enough?

She's up to NINE for heaven's sake! What could she be thinking?

Doesn't she know Eight is Enough?

And how can we be sure that the nine she's already laid will hatch?

Apparently, as they're laying their clutch of eggs, ducks allow them to cool, so that they slow the development and all the eggs hatch at once.

We'll see... when we tune in tomorrow for the next installment.

www.laughinggoatfiber.com

Nets and Wilbur, and finally The Recycle Bank!

2009-03-23T18:08:00.000-07:00

Okay, okay. So Cornell didn't win. They almost won the FIRST half of the game. They were definitely in the running, and made it pretty interesting, until the half. I guess the Missouri Tigers figured out how to beat them during the break.

STILL! 59 pts! I rounded up and sent $60 to Nothing But Nets, for SIX nets! Nice work guys. Maybe some of those other teams'll get new t-shirts 'n stuff. Cornell can claim to have saved lives with their game.

We are having very cold weather again. (15 degrees tonight, 20 degrees tomorrow night!)

March is supposed to go out like a lamb, right? And March is over next in 7 days, right? I'm nervous that baby goats will be born during this cold snap. Ugh. If I'm here that'll be fine. I love taking them into the house and pampering them. But I hate finding cold, lifeless little bodies. I'm really glad that Wilbur didn't get to canoodle with the nannies until November 1st. That makes it likely that the fun will begin soon, but not TOO soon.

The kidding pens are all set up. The nursery is ready for them. Now we just need to turn up the heat a little.. just a little.

Today's excitement is that I finally sent in my application to partner with The Recycle Bank. They have this great idea. They go to communities that don't have very good recycling programs and they set up one that gives rewards based on how much stuff you recycle. You get credits that you can use to purchase from the merchants on their list. I'm going to be on their list soon. I love the idea of being part of a program that encourages recycling. AND they have over 300,000 people involved in the program already. SOME of them must be knitters! Recycling knitters. I love it.

Waiting, waiting...

2009-03-20T07:35:00.000-07:00

The nannies are nestled snugly in their kidding pens with just a week to go before D-day! Here's a shot of Nod, my oldest, from the top! She's looks like she's having octuplets! I'm joking. She's probably having twins. I can't wait! Each morning, and every night I check them and report to the family - "No babies yet!"

In the meantime I have the NCAA tournament to amuse me. Today my favorite team - win or lose - is Cornell University. We've been fans for 10 years now, and when we first started going to the games they lost a lot! And no one was cheering them on. We'd be two of maybe 200 people attending.

These days you have to get your tickets ahead, and you'd better get there early or you won't get a good seat. They play Univ of Missouri today. For each point they score, I'm donating $1 to Nothing But Nets. They distribute mosquito netting to prevent malaria. For just $10 you can send a net that will protect a mother and child, often a whole family.

That's Mojo, he's the biggest fan. In fact, he eats the opposing team during halftime. Lookout Missouri Tigers!

Go BIG RED!

The Cast of Characters

2009-03-11T13:30:00.000-07:00

The farm is coming alive this week, especially today. It was about 65 at 2pm today. Tonight it's supposed to go down to 22 with a wind chill down to 5! Whew! But I digress.

I went out to take pictures of the animals enjoying the weather. Here's an example - The ducks were splashing happily in all the puddles.

One of the ducks emerged from a hiding spot in the barn, meaning a nesting spot was there somewhere. I hunted it out behind the barrel in the corner near Bert's pen. It looks pretty cozy! Smart little duck.

But the fun part was the reaction of the baby goats. They ran to see what all the commotion was. The duck was complaining like a cranky old woman and they stood like little preschoolers with their eyes wide.

We have an amusing assortment of animals, human and otherwise, intent on entertaining you. If you come to visit us on one of our Farm Tours, you may meet:

Cassie-cashgora (aka Houdini),
Rocky-alpaca (the worrier),
Suzy and Matt - apprentices from Cornell University,
Jess (veeerrry friendly),
Fabio-cashmere (a very graceful jumper),
Gary (my longsuffering, overworked husband),
Marion and Nancy (yes, they're "Farmer's Daughters!"),
Violet and Wilbur-colored angora goats(New!),
Bert-angora (3 legged goat),
Gandalf-colored angora (Huge horns),
Shadow and Arwin-sheep,
The Ducks!
and many more angoras, alpacas and cashmeres.

Now, go do some knitting or weaving or something. More stories tomorrow.

A Fresh Start

2009-03-05T20:08:00.000-08:00

March 5th.

Seems like a good day to begin again. February 16th was actually the new beginning.. or - wait - maybe it was actually January 27th. That's the day that Suzy and Matt arrived for the first time.
Suzy and Matt are my apprentices. They're seniors at Cornell University, here in Ithaca. The have made this brutal February so much fun. We put out hay together and trim hooves. We dye yarn and soon - work on assembling the 8 harness loom.

AND, on Feb 16 - Violet, my gorgeous new-to-me nanny, had twin girls, Cuddles and Puddles. Anyway, between Suzy/Matt and the baby goats things are starting to really get rolling. Of course that kind of ups the number of farm related tasks that need doing.

For instance:
1. I need to update my weblog regularly.
2. I need to post more yarn on my Etsy store: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6919023
3. Trim everyone's hooves! Yes, all of them.
4. Trim hind ends of the nannies before they kid.
5. Get the kidding pens ready.
6. Finish the plans for Farm Tours and Events.
...
You've probably got the idea by now.

Bad Day for Bert

2008-09-10T18:55:00.000-07:00

Bert of Bert & Ernie, a set of wethers, is having a pretty bad year.

In Aug of 2007 he got a deadly parasite, p. tenuis or meningeal worm. The worm literally eats the animal's nerves on its way to invading the spinal column. White tailed deer carry it and then snails and slugs pick it up from deer droppings. The goats, sheep, and alpaca pick it up when they graze wet fields where the deer have been.

So, last year poor Bert got it badly enough that he was dragging both hind legs. We treated him for 5 days and he recovered - mostly. His hind quarters were always a little slower than he expected, but he managed.

This Spring he got one hind leg caught in between the horns of one of the other goats, a common occurance. It broke just below the ankle. The vets splinted it and we waited, hoping it would heal. After about 5 weeks we took the splint off, thinking it had healed well enough.

But. Apparently it had not.

I went out to the field to check on the animals last Wed and they all came over to see me. They knew I was moving fencing and fresh pasture was on their menu for the day. Everybody quietly followed me as I worked, except Bert. He stood off alone and bawled for me. So, when I was finished moving the fencing and the animals were eating, I went to see what was up with Bert.

He was limping. One of his hind legs was sore, and he smelled awful. I got a lead and took him to the barn. Gary helped by holding him and I took a look at the leg. It was clearly broken, with protruding bone, and full of puss. It looked to me like Bert might be aggravating things by dripping urine onto the wound from his heavy fleece. So, we hoisted him onto a platform and I removed all the dirty fleece around his "pizzer." I noticed it was quite sore and the skin was inflamed. I started to have a very bad feeling about poor Bert.

Antibiotics were the next thing I did. The infected leg, the skin inflamation, bad news for sure. We gave him some hay and some water, shut the light and went in to email the vet. Dr. McArt didn't think it sounded very good, and agreed to visit on Thursday.

When she called me at work, she was grim. Bert's leg could not be repaired, and he was in a lot of pain. We started to make arrangements for putting him down and digging a hole here in the stony ground of Ithaca. Then one of the vet students, Sean, remembered an alpaca cria that had it's foot amputated. It sounds weird, but I was so happy at that thought. Let's just take Bert's foot off.

So we did. Gary and I sheared Bert Thursday night, and the vets came back on Friday. They did the surgery on a table in the yard, under the butternut tree (which kept dropping butternuts onto the sterile table!) while our little flock of ducks kept wandering past. It was quite a festive atmosphere.

The surgery actually went very well. Bert didn't lose much blood and had lots of loose skin to sew over the end of his leg bone to make a stump. He's done very well since, and is clearly feeling better. Before the surgery he was so placid, as though he didn't care what we did to him. Now he's eating well and noticing his surroundings and resisting our ministrations a little.

Phew. I hate losing an animal, but Bert is a fiber superstar, so that would have been extra sad.

He took the first bandage off almost immediately, so I had to get one of those plastic collars that keep dogs from scratching. It worked pretty well!

Tomorrow the vets come back to give rabies vaccines and they'll check Bert's wound. I'm very optimistic. Hopefully that's his last challenge for a while.

More wonderful stuff

2008-08-25T10:17:00.000-07:00

Today's my birthday! Yay. That's part of the reason for feeling so fortunate. After moving the goats, visiting the Cornell sheep barn, and stacking the hay, I was treated to a surprise birthday barbecue! I was gifted with season tickets to the Cornell men's basketball games. What a great idea. Last year they played so well that they made the NCAA March Madness tournament for the first time in 20 years. And I looove to holler and jump and root for my team.

What a great weekend...

It's a wonderful life.

2008-08-24T15:53:00.000-07:00

I feel blessed today. Most days I feel blessed, but some days I'm really aware of how incredibly lucky I am.

Yesterday was such fun! I rose early - like a good farmer - to let the animals out of the barnyard and back out in the pastures. Sometimes that's a crazy scene with goats heading off in the wrong direction and alpacas that don't feel like following - but it was a perfectly gorgeous morning, and the animals were very cooperative. I shook a bucket of grain, and they followed me right into the field. Fence closed. One job done.

After breakfast I raced over to Dryden for a workshop at the Sheep Barn run by Cornell University. They have a system for winter pasturing that I really want to try. Brian Magee, who also shears the goats for me, gave us the morning and early afternoon to find out more about the STAR system and winter pasturing. Cornell raises sheep mainly for meat, so they want to have a steady supply of all sizes of lambs throughout the year. He's developed this great system to keep the ewes lambing through all seasons. Feed costs might make that unprofitable, but Brian has them pastured year round. Not only is that cost effective - they're healthier!

2008-04-29T08:51:00.000-07:00

People always smile when I tell them the name of the farm, then they ask why I chose it.

Well, here's the story: My wonderful friend, Mary, and her family, drove all the way from Ohio to visit us last summer - which is a very long way. They did it all in one day, and thus arrived about 2am.

It was a lovely summer evening, so I sat on the front porch watching for car lights in order to direct them to our driveway. When they got out of the car we were all whispering and giggly - so excited to see each other.

The barn isn't very far away, and I guess goats have pretty good hearing. They began calling to us politely - a soft "ba ha ha ha." Susie, 12 and silly, said "Your goats are laughing at me!"

I thought that was a funny thought and it might make a happy farm name.

There you go. A happy name, and a pretty good descriptor too. I laugh at the goats, and the goats laugh at me.

2008-04-27T18:05:00.000-07:00

Also, please visit our new website: www.laughinggoatfiber.com!

2008-04-27T17:50:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Laughing Goat Fiber Farm. Things are a bit crazy right now, as we prepare for the 2008 Wine Country Fiber Farm Tour on May 10 and 11. If you're interested in natural fibers, interested in sheep, goats, alpacas and other fiber-bearing animals, or just want something different to do on a Saturday or Sunday, you should really check it out at: http://counties.cce.cornell.edu/schuyler/.

We'd love to have you visit us.

Lisa