Baby Ivy
Cricket delivered a gigantic doeling yesterday! Not bad work for a first-timer.
She looks a lot like her mama, but even more like her daddy Moses. Everyone’s happy, well, except for our old goat Bell, who has to sleep alone now.
Welcome!
Glad you came to visit!
Got something to say? Email me at fastweedpuller at gmail dot com.Wisdom from the sage
Wendell Berry:
"We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it."
--from an essay in "The Long-Legged House""The word agriculture, after all, does not mean "agriscience," much less "agribusiness." It means "cultivation of land." And cultivation is at the root of the sense both of culture and of cult. The ideas of tillage and worship are thus joined in culture. And these words all come from an Indo-European root meaning both "to revolve" and "to dwell." To live, to survive on the earth, to care for the soil, and to worship, all are bound at the root to the idea of a cycle. It is only by understanding the cultural complexity and largeness of the concept of agriculture that we can see the threatening diminishments implied by the term "agribusiness."
"Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating."
--both the above are from essays in "The Art of the Commonplace: Agrarian Essays"Is this so hard to believe?
"An atheist is just somebody who feels about Yahweh the way any decent Christian feels about Thor, or Ba'al, or The Golden Calf. As has been said before, we are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further," Richard Dawkins, 2002.
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fast grow the weeds 
Congratulations! Three seems just right for you guys, and a doeling!
What a fun start to the weekend 🙂
We are thinking about buying a goat mainly for the milk.
Do you have any recommendations? We have a small backyard (about 3/4 acre) but enough weeds and grass to keep them happy. probably need a smaller pygmy breed, I would imagine. Also, are they loud?
Hi CJ. Many, many people like the small dairy breed Nigerian Dwarf goats. And because so many people like them, they’re expensive…around here that means $350 a doeling, whereas full-sized purebreds like my little Ivy here (an Alpine) go for $200…and they give you three times the amount of milk. Me, I am obviously biased. But there are other smaller dairy breeds: the Kinder (a mix of pygmy and Nubian) is a nice choice, as is any mini version of the larger breeds (mini-LaMancha, mini-Nubian, etc.). The only breed that’s extremely loud is the Nubian. They’re in a class by themselves, noise-wise. My Alpines are pretty quiet…though Cricket understandably put out quite a lot of noise when she was delivering Ivy into the world.
Yay! A doeling!!!
Congrats on the little girl! And very cute pics. I especially like the second one. 🙂
What a cutie, and what fantastic photos, El! Welcome to baby Ivy.
Brett
Aw, congrats!
Very cute! Yay for nanny goats!
So very cute. Congratulations!
{{swooning in a kind of Kingsolver way}}
Do they have ROUND pupils?
Congratulations.
Very sweet.
Awwwww. . . good work, everyone!
OMGosh! How cute is that!
That is the sweetest picture, just adorable!
Great looking kids! I’ve read through some of your stories. They give a great personal account of raising dairy goats.
Are you going to start breeding and selling them? Feel free to list your farm in our directory – Goatbay.com – I’m sure people would love to see your pics and read about your experiences and your those great looking cheeses!