LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY & A CHANGE OF PACE!

It has been a busy few days... the 'Bloke' is leaving to spend a week in Sydney, all the goat feeders needed to be filled, big bales of hay put out.  There was a time when I did these jobs on my own ...but the tractor broke & was replaced with a BobCat.  The 'tucker trolley' aka Feed Cart was designed to be little old lady friendly ...it has a battery start but the battery went flat yonks ago & this little old lady can't work the pull start on the motor.  I must confess - pull start motors & I do not get along ...that's OK ...push lawn mowers & chain saws also have pull start motors so that lets me 'off' mowing & cutting wood.

When I began my magnificent affair with Angora goats & mohair, I started with 2 little goats so I could have some mohair for hand spinning... then I got serious & bought a buck.  Then I bought more goats, sent does out for 'service' & quickly outgrew the land area I was running them on.  It doesn't take too many years to fill a 5 acre plot with goats... so we moved.

The move was huge, an 8 hour drive from all that was familiar, from where I had spent 50 plus years of my life, from my family, my sons, my home!  The move was a culture shock also - town & surrounding area has a population of around 110 people.  Town consists of a handful of houses, a Hotel, a Club, a Produce Store, a Motor Repair Shop, Post Office & a Cafe.  A little school & 2 churches with a monthly service.  Oh, and the big Grain Silo on the now defunct rail line at the edge of town.

The farm was huge ... November 15th 2002 we took possession of 8072 acres and about 1500 Merino sheep.  We moved the goats ..all 100 of them & two alpacas in 4 loads, filling up a little stock crate & towing trailers in trips that took over 10 hours, arriving at the farm in the dark of night.  We chose to do it this way and didn't have any deaths from the move.

Then it was time to do more fencing, buy in hay, buy more goats, put the bucks in, build the goat shed and become a serious goat breeder.  The shed was finished just days before kidding commenced. That first year I kidded 110 does in my new 'big' shed.  The electricity wasn't connected, all the work & dramas that happened in the dark of night was done by torchlight.

Three weeks before the goats were due to start kidding that first year, I had a fall and broke my wrist.  Home alone, the Bloke was in Sydney, I phoned the Hotel & the publican's son came to the rescue, drove me to the hospital, 45 minutes away.  They could only provide the Xray, so we had another hour and a half to the nearest 'proper' hospital where I was admitted & plastered.  The lady who ran the Hotel aka 'Pub' picked me up from hospital the next day.  My son made a mad dash from Sydney & arrived just on dark to look after his silly old mother & her goats.

My friend MamaSheri in Texas, wrote just the other day how things happen in life that change our attitude without us really being aware of the changes.  It made me think of my journey out here 'in the middle of nowhere'. 

When I was running a small number of goats on that 5 acre farm, the goats all had names, I spent a fortune on Vet bills & feed bills, fussed over every kid that hit the ground.  What we really had was a little paddock, with little yards, little sheds & everything was done the hard way.  We'd travel 3 hours each way to buy loads of bagged feed especially formulated for Angora goats.  We would feed that out into little tubs, mobbed by goats.  We used little bales of hay, carted them around in a wheel barrow at feeding time.  Shearing was a nightmare ...I did manage to engage a professional shearer but without a proper shearing shed ..it was chaos.  Drenching without a holding yard or race was crazy.  Kidding was hard work, although there were not a lot of kids ...mothers & kids had to be locked up every night to keep them safe from the resident foxes.  Foxes that I could not shoot or bait because our semi-rural patch of paradise was on the edge of surburbia.

So what's changed?  Well ...isolation has meant I've had to become more self reliant, the shops, Doctor & Vet aren't just 5 minutes down the road any more.  Going shopping is a major event, takes so long to get there that there is no time to waste 'window shopping'.  I miss my family, my friends & chatting with people I know, people who know me & understand my passions.  I've become somewhat reclusive... my goats & my mohair fill my days! 

My goats ...yeah, there are attitude changes there, too.  There are a few 'specials' that have names, some of those will get buried when they die.  The nameless ones go to 'Boot Hill'.  And, Life & Death ...well, there's a major shift!  Once I would do what ever I thought it took to save every goat, even when in my heart I knew the battle was lost before it began.  Don't mean that to sound like I don't care - it's now I know when it's time to let go.  My goats have taught me that! 

We had 8 years of drought to contend with followed by two very wet years ...that was a big learning curve, I got to learn a lot about what can kill a goat when you aren't really trying!  There were a few post mortems to sort out some of the dramas as well as some intensive testing done.  I'm sure there's still a few curves we haven't encountered, yet ...just hope they stay away.

So, now I have lots of goats & do things differently.  We no longer buy special mixes ...the goats get fed grain (that we grow on farm) in a Feeder that we fill with the Tucker Trolley, the hay bales are deposited in the paddocks with the Bobcat, we have a shearing shed & proper yards to work the stock in.  The goat shed is big enough to house 500 goats (very handy when they are off shears).  Kidding is much less labour intensive, although most of the goats do make it into the shed at kidding.  They go in one end, spend a few days in the pens & go out the other end.  While the kids are really small, the kids & doe mob goes back into the shed at night, then it's off down the paddock with the Maremma dogs.  No running around catching individual kids to pen up with their mum at the end of the day.  I have an old kettle full of stones that makes a great rattle... if the goats won't go into the shed when I use the rattle I get the Kelpie dog to push them in.  Job done in 3 minutes!  And I never wanted to work the goats with a dog ..that's been a major attitude shift!

 

This is the glorious goat shed. It's 18 meters wide x 24 meters long (approx. 60 x 80 ft).  The 27 pens take up 1/6 th of the shed, there is a partitioned off section of the same size next to pens.  The front & back sections are full width of the shed, with a big sliding door at each.  At the side of the shed is the entry door & a store/feed room, plus a "sick bay' & the hot box with heat lamp.

 

The pens were done with metal star posts, corrugated iron along the back walls & mesh dividers.  They were a temporary fix ...10 years later they are still in situ.  The mesh isn't the smartest idea, kids can get through it, nasty old mother goats will take a dislike to the kid next door & chew an ear.  Should the lovelies get too hostile, I wire a piece of plywood onto the mesh divider ..kinda like outta sight, outta mind ..that usually settles things down.

 

 

And this is my Kelpie boy Benny 'The Wonder Dog'

 

I tried to upload the Tucker Trolley but it was taking forever & it is now after 3 in the morning.  I also wanted to put in some shearing pictures ...ah, well ...that will be something for another day.

 

I'm looking forward to my little break of 'home alone' time ..just need to remember to keep the mobile phone charged & take it with me when I wander out the door...I have a habit of doing myself injury when left alone!  Well, it's now 4 a.m. ...I'm calling it a night!

Cheers from 'the middle of nowhere'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What has happened to Springtime.....

Just a week ago, there was green feed in the paddocks ...all gone now.  Officially, there is another month of Spring.  Today the flies were hanging around the wire screens to get the cool moist air from the Evaporative cooler, that means the temperature is around 36 deg C or 96 deg F.  When it hits 100 we get the wasps around the doors.

SPRINGTIME ~ Time to smell the Roses.

Spring time in my world is about kids & roses.  I spend a lot of time smelling 'goats' but enough time smelling 'roses'. 

I have to give you a little bit of history about where I found the roses.  Sorry I can't include 'smell' in the blog but I hope you will enjoy the pics.

A gardener I am not ...my favourite flowers are roses, poppies & crepe myrtle ...all very much no fuss stuff.  It's the old or heritage roses that have caught my attention.  They are hardy little devils, especially suited to the dry inland climate where I live.

When we bought the farm there were several roses growing near the house, they were surviving the drought & fairly neglected.  The big red rose bush was huge, 8 feet high, the flowers ..magnificent & the perfume ..superb. It's name I do not know. The other little thorny thing reminded me of a rose my mother loved & it grew outside the bedroom window of the house were I raised my two sons.  That rose was called Super Star.

About 5 years ago the Bloke noticed an article in "The Land" - our weekly paper of all things agricultural.  The story was about the roses at Bishop's Lodge.  Firstly - about the roses ...they were old 'heritage' roses, originally planted in by the then Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of the Riverina.  Bishop Anderson developed an extensive rose garden during his time at the Lodge (1895-1925).

The Church sold Bishop's Lodge in 1946 and it remained in private ownership until 1985 when it was purchased by the Hay Shire Council.  The building has architectural significance and the conservation of Bishop's Lodge became the Shire's major Bicentennnial project (1985-1989).  This also included work on the Rose garden.

Many of the old roses had been lost but Friends of Bishop's Lodge worked with the National Rose Society of Australia to identify the remaining roses.  While it was possible to classify the roses, the names of the original roses remain unknown.  Roses believed to have been introduced into the garden by Bishop Anderson are budded onto understock and are available for sale at the annual Bishop's Lodge Spring Fair in October or ordered 'bare-rooted' for winter planting.

And so it was, on Sunday 21st of October 2012 we made our third trip to smell the roses. 

The town of Hay is in western New South Wales, on the Murrumbidgee River.  It is 200 kilometers or 120 miles from home - a nice Sunday drive across the Riverina Plains.

It was a nice change dress-up, pull on the Durango Boots, flash the diamond rings and be driven to a place where I really wanted to go.

The garden wasn't quite as lush as I remembered - drought (10 years of it) followed by two very wet years had taken it's toll on the roses.  The Bishop's Lodge roses were not available to buy this year - no grafting had been done for 2 years due to the extreme weather events.

But that was OK - I found 2 interesting Heritage roses to buy....

 

my big red rose bush

 

perfect rose from my rose bush

 

The Bishop's Lodge



Ophelia in the garden at Bishop's Lodge

 

Ophelia (1912 Hybred Tea)

 

Shady walkway to the Hidden Garden

 

One of the original roses - amazing fragrance

'Ophelia' from my garden

 



 

In my garden - from Boshop's Lodge

 

This beauty is 7ft (2.1m) high - in my garden

 

Flowers from the 'new' heritage rose

 

and I haven't forgotten the kids

They are waiting for their bottles ...we now have 6 poddy monsters.  Kidding has slowed, hopefully not too many more to go.  I feel a road trip coming on....

Until next time ...Cheers  ....'Old Goatie'

MAAA - JUST A FEW RAMBLINGS & SOME PICS.

As I've already "blogged" today ..there's not heaps of new stuff but I was cruising around with the camera. The weather was warmer, the girls were using the shed as a shade house, so there's a few of the fat belly lovelies hanging inside.
It's heaps easier on Old Goatie now the goats are shorn ...another lovelie kidded today, and I didn't have to do anything ..no rolling the goat over & trimming around the udder ..no hassle trying to get the kid to find the teat.
Kidding in full fleece is not the ideal situation ..and definitely not what I had planned. Getting shearers to shear goats is a big problem, for some reason shearers just hate goats. Anyway, the reason why my last two kiddings have happened before shearing is thus ..the local guys who used to do my goats found other things to do & no longer shear.  I wasn't told of their plans until we were due to shear. Then it took another 6 weeks to get another team of shearers out here, having a major flood event in early March also delayed shearing. Summer shearing took place in early April.  Winter shearing was put back to early October, again due to rain & the sheepy people wanting to shear sheeps in September.  Goats didn't get crutched last year, so it was less than fun ..7 inches of pee stained mohair plus birthing gunk which had to be cut away with hand shears. Me poor old hands never quite recovered from that.
This year, the goats did get crutched about 6 weeks before kidding started and the mohair was not quite so long ...but too long for kids to find teats. I found a nifty pair of scissors which worked heaps better than the dagging shears ..they have kept there edge ..but then we weren't cutting long super wet shitty mohair.
It's not feasible to try & change the kidding time to fit these new shearing dates. Lots to consider ...and the weather isn't a major factor given the Antartic blast we copped this week, although it does dictate other things. If I leave it too late in Spring to kid we run into hot weather ..that's blowfly time. We have a very pretty green fly we call the Luci Fly ..pretty but deadly. It lays it's eggs onto anything damp, and eggs mean maggots which eat into the flesh. Horrific stuff!!
Then there is the feed situation. This area is a winter cropping area, we harvest late November/early December ...so by end of October feed is starting to dry off, weeds are setting seed ..and all that stuff.
I am going to have to bite the bullet and get the shearing done earlier which will mean at least one clip will be short. Don't like doing that because short mohair is not worth a lot ..but we run a commercial operation. The other problem we run into with the later shearing is getting the mohair to sale. I ship the mohair directly to South Africa with several other growers, and missing the boat means mohair is sitting in the shearing shed for 5 months ..a less than ideal situation. Can't change the shipping date because the mohair has to get to South Africa in the current season ..so our summer clip has to be in South Africa before the end of the summer selling season ..makes sense ..I reckon.
Well, that's the mohair rambling done & dusted.
Now an update on the Lovelies!  The little doe that I put under the heat lamp has made it. She is sitting on her ownsome & then as you can see ..she is up having a drink. The kiddie count is now 150 ..about 100 more than I wanted ..but that will be another story for another day. The goats have been enjoying the sunshine, so all is not too bad at this point in time.
And just in case you are wondering - the green mark on head ..means they were pulled out of the big mobat shearing 'cause they were close to kidding.

The Bloke is back from his evening outing, poddy bottles are being prepared as I type,
Tomorrow I'll be over in the shearing shed.. have a few big orders to sort & some mohair to wash and samples to send.
So it's night all, catch ya later ..Old Goatie

GETTING DOWN AND DIRTY WITH THE LOVELIES

Yesterday was awesome - sunshine really does lift the spirits. The Mums & Bubs were all enjoying the sun, and munching on the hay.  Old Goatie had the urge to join them, down on their level ...so to speak.  Risking life & limb (and my hair) I sat down in the hay to get a goat's eye view of their 'world' ...

Must explain ...we sheared goats Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.  A Sheep Graziers Alert was issued for Thursday & Friday ~ Warning of stock losses from very cold strong winds & heavy rain.  Naked goats are most at risk in these weather extremes.  Very Scary Stuff when you have about 670 nek-kid animals to keep out of the weather.

The rain was needed, we have a mixed farming operation, besides the Angora goats we run Merino sheep and grow wheat, barley, oats which are due for harvest late in November ..had we not gotten around an inch of rain out of this weather event ...there would be no harvest & the sheeps would have had lots of tucker. (sheeps - yeah - I like to think of them as individuals so refer to them in the 'plural')

Australia is a land of extremes and this Weather Event was awesome.  There was snow in areas where just one week earlier there were Bush Fires.  People ...we are half way through Spring and snow is not the norm at this time of year.  Luckily we didn't get snow but we had temps in the 30's (celcius) or about 82 degrees F in the other measure only a day before this weather hit & we went down to 4 degrees C or 40 degrees F with a wind chill factor that made it feel like freezing.

Well, enough of the boring stuff... time to get down and dirty...

and....hey, that hay smelt sooo sweet...
Catch ya all, next time.... 'Old Goatie'

The Adventures Of 'Small Cat'.

I usually just write about my goats but we have other animals on the farm and this story I have to share, because if I had not seen the cat disappear into the chimney I would not have believed what she has been up to. We reckoned she had been playing 'chimney sweep' as she has been looking somewhat sooty of late.

'Small' was picked up off the side of the road some years ago.  The bloke found a bag on the side of the road on one of his road trips. Some horrible person had thrown a bag containing 3 kittens out of a car in the middle of nowhere. Two of the kittens had been squished and sitting by the bag was a tiny little ginger & white female kitten.  She was so tiny she got the name 'Small'.

She has grown into a lovely cat with a very interesting personality.  Loves her cuddles, is very vocal when she wants to be noticed, and is still a little on the small side compared to the other cats.

When we bought the farm the old wood-fired stove had been replaced with an electric stove and seperate oven 'monstrosity' that was in need of replacing.  The existing 'mess' was removed which left us with a hole in the wall.

Well, cats being cats thought this was a good place to go 'toil-lies' and so to stop that activity we installed a mesh gate over the hole until we got around to fixing up the space and installing a new stove. The mesh has kept the cats out ...but one evening I found Small climbing up the mesh from the inside.  There was no sign that she had used the floor as a toilet tray. 

 

We reckoned she had come down the chimney, as she sits on the outside of chimney and has often been seen & heard on the roof. Then there have been times when we know she was 'out' but has turned up 'in' or vice versa and neither of us have let her in or out.

 

In the chimney above where the old wood stove used to be is a sheet of tin which has 3 holes in it ...obviously a flue hole & two vent holes. The largest hole would be about 9 or 10 inches in diameter.

 

This morning I was in the kitchen making up the poddy bottles for my little kids, Small was prowling around the kitchen, then onto the back of the chair beside the mesh.  Next thing ..there was a rattle of metal and Small was nowhere to be seen.  I looked up to the tin plate and saw Small's tail disappearing into the darkness.

 

 

 

I put a piece of wood from where she jumped to the the hole to show the angle of the jump. The distance is 5 feet or 150cm.  If you look carefully at the last picture (through the cobwebs) you can see the flue hole & in the lower left hand corner what looks very much like the head of  'Small Cat' peering out of the vent hole. (If you click on the pic it should enlarge)

 

 

Outside photo of the chimney.

 

Our other ginger girl 'Meg' used to exit out through another chimney but we put a stop to that caper by having her de-sexed.  Meg's chimney has since been removed.

 

 

 

 

 

LIFE IN GOAT LAND

At this time of year my life revolves around the goats ...no time for the crafty stuff ...but then if my Lovelies were not having babies there would be no mohair to play with.

The goats have been busy kidding and we have just done the shearing... it has been a hectic time on the farm. Shearing went over three days and this 'old' goatie was looking forward to an early night but my Lovelies decided that my body was needed in the goat shed tonight ...so it's another late one.

A Lovely kidded just on dark ...I put her and bub in a pen, hoping all would be OK but that is not the case. We have kid on a hot water bottle under the heat lamp to warm her up so she can get a drink.

Yesterday in the hecticness (ok I make up words) that follows the end of shearing ...like having a chat & a beer with the shears while settling the bill, getting the goats back into the paddocks, making sure they have food and shelter, seven of the Lovelies kidded.

That was all most unexpected ...obviously shearing upset things a tad because some of these girls did not look like they were ready to give birth. All were penned with their kids ...morning was not happy. Four of the kids died overnight ...all were weak (premmie) and didn't make it to their feet.

Lovelies & Kids in the pen area of my big purpose built goat shed.

 

Well, the Bloke tells me it's time to up to my other home, the hottie & heatlamp take about an hour to do the warm up trick ...so here's hoping we can get this little girl on her feet and suckling.