It is hot again today. I guess it will be until the monsoon hits in July. Then it will be hot and muggy! All the cactus are blooming big time. Bright orange and yellow flowers on the prickly pear. The cholla have smaller purple blooms and wicked stickers. My California poppy is blooming in the raised bed and the Mexican primrose has quite a show in the rock garden. The yard will fill up with tall stickery weeds once the monsoon arrives so I am enjoying these flowers now.

Hi Y'all. Sorry I have been away so long. Sometimes it gets crazy around here and I don't get to the computer.

First I should say that I am still feeding Mouth 3 times a day. On the advice of several friends and acquaintances, I have decided to bottle feed all the kids until they are 12 weeks old at least. Mouth was put back on real goat milk today so I will be visiting my new milk source more often. Both of the angora kids are getting 4 feedings a day and getting cuter by the minute. Little Bones was leaping and frisking all over her pen today. So fun to watch healthy kids perform their crazy antics!

I was able to contact my new shearer today too. He is in Sacramento today but plans on returning to Tucson soon. He informed me that, due to his trip to CA., he is really backlogged in his schedule. He asked me to leave my name and number and promised to call me once he returns to AZ. I sincerely hope that he will be able to fit in this little farm soon. If not I have one other option. A neighbor has offered to help and maybe show me how to shear myself. What a load off that would be! I could shear whenever I was ready and, boy, would it be cheap! Ha!

I don't know how real farmers keep their heads above water financially. Some of them even make money! I hope to make some money selling the kids. I would like to sell my fleece too. I suppose I should get busy and post stuff on ebay or craig's list or something. Maybe after the kids are done bottle feeding I will get to that. There is so much to do and so many things need to be fixed or built around here. I've had people tell me they are bored at home all day and that is why they work. Well, I am never bored and I have more to do than there are hours in the day. Sometimes I get discouraged because there are so many things that MUST be done that I have trouble finding time to do the things I want to do. One thing though, I am very thankful that I no longer have to punch a time clock. Another thing, I am thankful that I no longer live in a development. I am thankful for all my animals and my family. And thanks to all of you who read this blog.

Our little bunny did not make it through a second night. He was too cold and still needed mom's milk I think. I let him rest under one of our sage bushes.

Mouth is doing fine in spite of stuffing himself a couple of days ago. I have cut his bottle feeding down to twice a day and will make that one next week. I cannot believe how fast the first kids are growing. I have a special fondness for Bold-Fresh. I guess it must be his attitude because he looks pretty much the same as the other white pygora kids. He comes to see me even though I am not bottle feeding him. He is one cool kid! Ha!

Southern Arizona is cooking again. The weathermen say it is a little early but we are already hitting temps in the triple digits. It was 80 degrees at 8:30 this morning. Our thermometer is showing 104 degrees now at 3pm. I worry about the animals when it gets so hot. I make sure they do not run out of water and they all have some shade in their pens. In the case of Little Bones, she is penned in the barn since she doesn't have enough sense to keep cool yet.

I have been given the name of another shearer so I will be calling him soon. It is even more important to get the animals sheared now that the temp is so high. The goats especially seem to get too hot. The alpacas seem to do surprisingly well. They will all feel better without their heavy coats though.

I am making a trip to buy more goat milk this evening. The little pigs, oops, I mean kids, are going through it fast. Let's see, I bought 2 gallons on Sunday and this is Thursday, so the two angora kids are going through half a gallon a day! Wow! Don't think I'm feeding them too much. They aren't having any diarrhea and they always want the bottle when I bring it. I do think Caramel is nursing the angora buck some but not enough. He still hollers when I come out with the bottle. If I see him nursing, I skip that feeding and give him the bottle at the next feeding time. I think it is unusual for a kid to drink from a bottle and his mom. I read somewhere that they learn one way or the other and it is hard to train them to take a bottle if they are suckling on mom. He doesn't seem to have a problem either way.

I made my decision and my poster for selling the kids. I am debating about when to post it. I think I should wait until they are all weaned but maybe I should try to sell them now. That way, when they are weaned, they can go to their new homes right away. I'll ask Steve what he thinks.

As soon as one problem is solved, another presents itself. I guess Lucy did not like being alone. She pushed her way through the fence and is now residing with the father of her kids. We will have to move one of them before the kids arrive and fix the fence. Falkor will have to be moved as it will be easier, but it may be awhile before we can build a new buck pen for him. He is the reason Lucy was able to get throught the fence in the first place.

At the 2pm feeding time, Mouth was so full that he would not take a bottle. That could be good or bad. It means he is eating hay but maybe he ate too much. I will have to keep an eye on him.

Little Bones has been moved to the goat barn. She was able to escape from her little pen here in the house and seems to be doing OK, so I graduated her back to the barn. I did have to pen her inside when the sun got high because she doesn't seem to understand that the sun and the heat are dangerous. She is cooler inside. She and her brother have upped their milk intake to about a cup per feeding. I'll have to get more milk in a day or two.

Last night I was watering my tomatoes a little after the sun went down. Something moved in the green foliage. I thought it was one of those bull frogs we get in the summer during monsoon. I got a flashlight from the house and what a surprise! No snake, thank God. It was the tiniest baby rabbit I've ever seen. I don't know how it got into the raised bed which is waist high. Maybe one of the cats caught it and left it there when it stopped moving,not realizing it wasn't dead. There is not a mark on it and it seems perfectly OK. I left it there overnight, thinking that there are more predators out at night, and it would be better to let it go during the day. It was still there this morning so I showed my #2 grandson, Dan. He, of course, wanted to hold it. So now it is in an old fish tank with a cardboard box for hiding and a bunch of hay for bedding and food. I haven't decided if I will try to raise it on goat milk or let it go. I have no idea if it is big enough to survive on it's own or if I would be releasing it to certain death. It is about the size of an adult mouse.

I made a list of all my goats. I plan to make a flyer to post at the feed store with the ones for sale. That will make Steve happy since we have too many goats and maybe we will get back some of the feed costs.

It is a new bright shiny morning in southern Arizona. I love mornings because it is cool and calm. The wind hasn't started blasting and it isn't hot. I like to sit on the front patio and watch the swallows dive and swoop catching bugs. I think they fly just for the fun of it. They are amazing little flyers.

Yesterday we accomplished some big changes. Steve spent most of the morning building another goat shelter. It is the third one he has built and the best so far. I was very pleased. The new shelter allowed us to move the 3 yearling kids out of the goat barn and into the big pasture at the northwest corner of our property. They will have more space to run around and play. They were not happy about the move yesterday. Goats don't like change, like a lot of people. They tried to push through the gates and climb over the fence, hollering all the while. I suppose goats "bleat" but when I am outside and they can see me, it feels like they are yelling at me. I don't think I've ever heard a sound quite like goats hollering! The 3 yearlings are the first babies we had on our farm. They were born in the middle of a rare blizzard we had last March. Silverado and Valentino are brothers, grey and black respectively. The other one is a gray doe named Butterfly by the grandkids. They are all friendly and easy to handle. I cannot decide if I will sell them or not. They have all been disbudded so I do not want them put with goats that have horns. Horned goats would beat them up.

Little Bones and her brother are doing very well. I thought Caramel was nursing the male yesterday but I could not be certain. I skipped a bottle feeding with him to see. He was ravenous at the next feeding so I don't think he was getting much from her. I found a new source for goat milk just across the highway from us. A really nice lady raises dairy goats and has lots of milk. I got 2 gallons from her for $3 each, a good price.

We also separated Lucy, my still pregnant doe, from the other moms yesterday. Boy, was that a struggle. If you ever buy goats, make sure they are tame and will follow you and not be afraid of you. Catching skiddish wild goats is frustrating and dangerous. We enlisted the help of our son-in-law, Jeff. He and Steve got in the pasture with 3 adult does, 3 kids and one bottle fed kid. The plan was to chase Lucy out of the pasture and encourage her to move to the goat barn. The goats all stayed in a herd and Mouth, the bottle baby, kept running toward whatever human was the closest, hindering any effort to separate Lucy out. Finally, after a couple of unsuccessful races around the feild, Steve got his lasso out. Now, Steve is no cowboy. His roping efforts are very amateurish. Jeff and I cornered the whole herd, 7 goats. Steve got as close as he could without making them run again and started tossing his noose toward Lucy. On the third try, he managed to get a pretty good hold on her over her horns and side of her head. Jeff and I ran in to grab her collar because we didn't want to straggle her. Jeff got wrapped up in the rope and she was fighting as hard as she could to get away. I got there in time to keep Jeff from going down. Steve also got there and got a grip in her horns. Jeff got untangled but did get a scape on his shin. No blood, thank the Lord! Steve then straddled Lucy and kept a hold on her horns. I pulled on her collar and we walked her to her new stall in the goat barn. She will spend the rest of her pregnancy there, unmolested by the other moms, and hopefully, she'll have healthy cute kids at the end of the month.

I hear Mouth hollering at me so I guess it is time to get dressed and feed everybody. Later y'all!

We named the new baby girl "Little Bones" because she is so small and thin. She is doing oh so much better today. I have named a couple of the other kids too. The other bottle baby, Jenny's son, I am calling "Mouth" because he is so loud when it is time to feed him. And I named his brother, "Bold-Fresh" because that is what he is. He always comes to visit when I am feeding Mouth and butts him while he's eating unless I pay attention to him and rub his chin. I think Mouth will be wethered but Bold-Fresh will not. I have not named Bobbin's girl and boy yet. They are still shy and I need to spend more time with them before their names present themselves. I will be selling all the bucks/wethers and keeping the two girls. Steve is nearly in a panic because we have so many goats. So email me if you want to buy any debrahedin@msn.com.

Steve is outside building another shelter for some of last year's kids. He is getting rather good at doing this. He is always helpful with whatever I want to do on this farm we've started.

Yesterday was another stressful day. My newest smallest girl kid seemed to be going downhill. She wouldn't suckle and only wanted to sleep. I couldn't figure out what would cause such a thing when she had been doing so well. I called the vet , who was out of town. That office also informed me that 2 other vets did not see goats. So I called Kathy. She was very helpful and advised me to get some fresh goat milk. So I called Liz and got some fresh goat milk that also had colostrum in it!

At 2pm, Little Bones, had stopped eating and started sleeping. I had tried to feed her several times but she would just go back to sleep. About 7pm, I got the goat milk and at 8 pm I managed to get a few gulps down her. At 10pm, she started suckling again. Then she started walking around again! Boy, was I happy! Today, she has been alert and walking and making noise. She even walked toward me when I called and wanted to feed her.

It is late now, about 10:30pm. So I will write more again later. Many thanks to Kathy and Liz for their help and support and Thanks to Dennis too, because if he hadn't been home, I wouldn't have been able to get the milk!