Barn, Chicken Coop, Jug Pens & House Painting - 2019 on Havencroft Farm

A couple years ago I adopted the practice of picking a motivational phrase for the coming new year. I can't remember where I heard that idea, or if I just thought of it. My phrase for 2019 has been Focus & Finish, a much needed reminder for my creative, energetic, blonde Gemini self. There is just so much to do out there and so many opportunities and ... I can start 9 million projects, and accomplish a few. Focus & Finish has been very useful.

When I look at 2019 from the perspective of what happened this year, instead of looking at what is still left on my to-do list, I am amazed. 2019 is a year when we made family connections and our family added new people to this world. Its a year when I found practices, people, and things that I didn't know I needed, and they revolutionized my life. It's a year worth chronicling.

These will be in several blog posts, and things listed are not in order of importance -

2019 Around Havencroft Farm

Barn - I had forgotten how much I love having a barn to keep my animals safe, dry and warm. It's a place to store feed safely, keep all the tools in one place and milk the goats in comfort. It's nice to have a barn again.

During installation, before we added more gravel at the base and brought
the animals in.

In November of 2018 we had a barn installed. Over this year we've filled it in and filled it up. It's actually a 17 by 32 foot carport, with 7 foot ceilings and a 10 by 17 foot tool room at the back. We've used and loved our mobile hoop shelters for decades, and we still have them for the sheep half of the farm, but now the goats have a tight, dry, permanent shelter. That means we have to clean it out, instead of just moving the hoop shelter, but we have friends who use the deep bedding as mulch on their gardens. They came and helped clean last spring. We'll see if the barn cleaning party grows this coming spring.

The new barn is approved by the alpine dairy goat flock.

We were able to store 83 bales of hay in the barn, instead of outside under tarps. Sweet! It is my milking barn, grain room and garden tool storage. We like it so much we want to get one for the sheep side of the farm, perhaps in 2 or 3 more years. It was an expensive purchase, but should last for decades, and one that makes me happy every time I step out the back door.

Jug pens - Something in shepherding that I've always said was unnecessary with our wonderful Jacob sheep, but that I have learned to love this last year, and a product of having the barn are jug pens.

Kachina and her lambs Ophelia & Olympia in the jug pen
in the new barn during the near constant rain of the winter and spring of 2019.

These are small pens built inside the barn. Ours are 5-foot by 5-foot, for ewes or does who are about to lamb or kid. This allows the mother a clean dry place to have her babies, a quiet time to bond with them, and it gives the babies a start in a safe environment. In 40 years of shepherding, I did not use them. 

We had safe spaces for ewes having trouble, sometimes it was the farmhouse kitchen, but for the most part, they weren't needed. Instinct leads ewes to find a safe place to lamb, the other sheep in the flock give them space, and most lambs are up and about on their own with just their mother's cleaning. But, during lambing season (February and March for us at Havencroft Farm) we rotate checking the ewes every two hours. This way we can help any ewes having birthing troubles and find any babies who are struggling. We leave many of our ewes out to lamb as they please. But now, we have two jug pens in the barn, and we rotated sheep through them for the 2019 lambing season. All the first-time mothers went into a pen, then we didn't have to search the pasture for them. Any ewe who had trouble in the past went in. The littlest lambs went in with their moms during big storms. We had no bottle babies in 2019, perhaps due to the jug pens. That is a huge labor saver.

Painting the House - Have you ever read John Grisham's "A Painted House"? I love that book. Squirrel...

Havencroft Farm, September 20, 2019

I live in the rural Ozarks. I grew up as an Army brat, moved for the first time at nine-days-old, and even as an adult, I moved a lot. I love the Ozarks, the land, the water, the people, and our homestead. I live here by choice. 

When we first looked at this house, it was many colors on the outside. When she couldn't sell it, the former owner painted it white on the outside the summer of 2009. I don't think it was good quality paint, so by the summer of 2019, it looked really shabby. 

We've wanted to paint it, and fix a lot of the structural necessities for years, but with Shawn working two jobs, Lena full time in the broom shop, and me working 45-55 hours a week, plus the farm and the weaving business, and now school, it was obvious we weren't going to get it done. But the Spring rains of 2019 had exacerbated some wall rot on the west side. So, we took out a loan from the bank of Mom & Dad and hired a contractor. Picking paint was fun. We went with a slate green for the body, and a tan to match the rock walls for the trim. I like it a lot. And the homestead looks so much more groomed and cared for, just having the house painted. When I look through old photos of this place, I'm amazed by all the improvements we've made in our decade here. It's still got a ways to go, but, Focus & Finish.

Chicken coop - I've had chickens most of my adult life. They eat bugs, they turn the soil in the goat barn, and they lay eggs. They just fit in my life. My chickens have lived in falling down sheds, up in the top of a pine tree for the night & just loose during the day, a nice home made chicken coop with an elaborate big run, the top of the pig barn, and a cattle panel covered with a tarp. They did fine in all these accommodations. But I like to keep them safe. So I wanted a strong, solid, tight chicken coop. 

And we don't have the time or direction to build one. Talent we have, and we can all build what ever we put our minds to, but we each have other directions our time. Spending about 6 months researching and looking at coops, we finally decided on one. It took a while to get in touch with the builders, and a 6-hour evening drive to Clarksville to make the arrangements to purchase it and have it delivered. I spent hours figuring out drainage, sun, shade, access and the best place to put the coop. The couple delivering it came from Conway. It is 10' by 14' and weighs over a ton. They delivered it on a truck and had a little tractor that just lifted the coop and put it right where I wanted it. Our babies chicks were moved out of their little pen in the barn and into the coop. We clean the coop out every Sunday and re-bed it with waste hay from the goat barn. There is no way eggs will ever pay for the cost of that chicken house, but it was so worth it in ease of care, aesthetics, and peace of mind. 

That's all for today. Further recap of 2019, the year of Finish & Focus to come.

What to keep in your kidding or lambing kit

Havencroft Kachina had these adorable twin ewes by Havencroft Neptune. The new barn gives us a great set up for jug pens to give mom and babies a safe place to bond .

 It's the beginning of lambing and kidding time here in the Ozarks on Havencroft Farm. That means it's time to keep the "midwifery" kit hanging by the door so we're ready to help when needed.

I've been a shepherd since 1979. I learned from an old-time shepherd, Finley Nelson, and from my dad's stories of having goats when he was a kid. So, I do things the old fashioned way. I am happy to learn about new ways, but I still think simple is good.

Our lambing kit is simple. It starts with towels to help mama dry off babies. Most ewes or does have twins, so if we can help her by drying off one while she goes about the business of having the second, that's good. If it's cold, getting the babies dry quickly will help them stay warm.

Scissors, iodine, towels and clean straw are staples for planning on Havencroft Farm. 

The next thing that's in the kit is a sprayer bottle of iodine for spraying the lamb's umbilical cord. It's vitally important. We always iodine babies. Sometimes we dip navels, but for the last few years we've been drenching them well with the sprayer.

We also keep scissors in the bag, just in case we need to trim umbilicals that are dragging the ground, or trim wool away from udders on sheep that haven't been sheared yet. The next thing that is vital is making sure that babies nurse very soon after being born. They need the protection of the first milk, colostrum, to protect them from bacteria and to get their gut working. We check the mama's udder, making sure the colostrum is flowing freely even if we weren't there for the birth. We also check to make sure babies have full tummies and warm, moist mouths.

If the babies are too weak to nurse, or if there is any other reason they can't get colostrum within an hour of being born, we thaw out some frozen colostrum from last year, or earlier in the year and use a bottle or dose syringe to get it down them. We always freeze excess colostrum from our dairy goats in two ounce bags for just this purpose. Colostrum and soaking navels in iodine are considered absolutely necessary on our farm.

Something else I try to keep in the kit are recycled shopping bags. They are handy for disposing of after birth. We keep that cleaned up because we do have coyotes, raccoons and other predators that we don't want to invite with the smell of new birth.

We also make sure we have clean, dry bedding available. Some of our ewes choose not to use it, but we try.

Finally, we keep molasses in the kit. We mix about 2 tablespoons (or glugs)  in a bowl of warm water to offer to every new mom after giving birth. Most of them drink it down. It gives them water, sugar for energy and minerals like iron to help replace what they've lost.

It's not much, we keep it simple. We also do regular night time barn checks during kidding and lambing season. The whole flock gets used to the flashlight as the silly humans wander through their sleeping place two or three times a night. We are respectful of their sleep and try not to shine the light hard on any ewe or doe unless something looks unusual.

Homesteading economics

"But don't you like meat?" queried the young woman as we talked about my goat flock. I had just given away the last of my crossbred goat kids to a family who raises them for their own winter meat supply. 

"Oh, I like our own farm-raised meat well enough." I replied. "Just not well enough to spend my milk supply raising meat."

I'd far rather have my milk for putting in my coffee, making cheese and sharing with my friends and family. Homestead economics. 

Thanks to the Lazy Goat String Band

Only in Mountain View...

A couple weeks ago, I was visiting with the members of the Lazy Goat String Band as they packed up after a set. The talk turned to goats. Emily Phillips is the fiddle player for this very talented group. Her mom, Christi, mentioned that they might have a few of their registered Alpine namesake goats for sale. 

Yesterday, I again visited with the group after a great set of music. Samuel Blake has a delightful new gourd banjo. I cut short my admiring the banjo to ask about the goats. (Sorry Samuel!)

Yep, they were still for sale. And I fell instantly in love when I met them. Meet Latte' and her daughter. Christi said I should let Shawn name her Isabell. 

The music of Mountain View brought me back my Alpines. I am so blessed to live here. 

Milk or goats? Milk

Shawn and I have always enjoyed traveling together. Driving and riding in the car is a great way to focus on each other and have in depth discussions about a wide range of topics.

Yesterday, we drove down to Stuttgart to deliver another order of brooms to the Museum of the Grand Prairie. They have a beautiful gift shop and sell a lot of Laffing Horse brooms. It takes us about 4 hours to get there from Mountain View. That was plenty of time for me to prattle on about the discussion I started here in my blog yesterday. I loved my Alpine dairy goats of the past. I love my Lamancha dairy goats of the present.

Henna on the milk stand and Harley wondering what's up.

Do I want to be a goat breeder and produce top quality dairy goats? Or do I want to produce milk from well loved dairy goats. They are not exclusive. I love any goats I have, and crossbred goats can be top quality. But they do involved different decisions.
By the time we got to Pine Bluff to look at the wonderful goats there, I knew that I was looking for milkers to add to my milking string. While the romantic idea of going back to being a goat breeder was a sweet dream, it really doesn't fit into my life right now.

So, I had a nice visit with John Wagner and looked at his gorgeous, healthy goats - and came home without any. That gave us a chance to do some shopping at Tractor Supply and Lowes for supplies on the way home.

I'm still looking to add a milker or two, or a really nice doeling or two to the flock, but I am no longer looking for a buck or looking for purebreds. I just need healthy goats with nice udders who give great tasting milk. I'm still picky.

And I'm really appreciating having a partner in life to spin my wild ideas with so that I can weave a little reality into them. Thanks Shawn.

Dos Manos Alpines, a trip down memory lane

I've had dairy goats since 1979. A couple years ago, my mom found a letter I'd written to my Grandma about my first goats. I learned to milk goats from Finley Nelson in Fort Collins, Colorado. Finley also taught me to drive ponies, enjoy reading aloud to friends and to like Zane Grey westerns. Finley had a fine herd of heavy milking Saanen and Alpine does. He taught me to always buy the best male animal for your flock that you can afford. That's the best way to improve any livestock, from cattle to dairy goats. After all, your male is half your genetics. When Finley dispersed his herd, and I bought a few. I loved the beautiful black and white Sundgau does.

 I met Susan Moore about that same time when I was working on a ranch in Waverly, Colorado. Her La Luna Dairy Goats became the foundation of my Alpine herd. La Luna Innocencia was my favorite doe for many years. We had her until she was 12 and then she went to a friend's herd in Penrose, Colorado. She was hoping to get one more set of kids out of her.

The bucks that shared my life at that point were Fir Ridge RR Vesta's Andre; Tenmile Rommell Knut; Redwood Hills Nobleman; and Reparte', aka Party-goat. Andre became the most agressive buck I've every had. Nobleman was a true gentleman. I eventually culled all of Party-goat's descendants from the flock. They were all fence jumpers. That seems to be a highly heritable trait.

I had my flock on DHIR test. I just recently discovered the American Dairy Goat Association's registration database online and I spent a fun few minutes researching my old herd name, Dos Manos.  Dos Manos, two hands make the work go easier, milking smoother and working on the homestead lighter. Some of my Dos Manos girls milked as well as I remembered. Others, I did not remember at all. The Dos Manos goats from the 1980's are mine. Someone has picked up the name, so all the ones in the 2000's are not.

I was lucky to be a member of a very active Northern Colorado Dairy Goat club and to have Dr Joan Bowen as my veterinarian, small ruminant mentor and friend. I loved showing my Alpines. I have pictures of my son (now almost 30-years-old) in diapers in the show pen with the kids - the four-legged kids. Another family picture that I am fond of shows my two children, bundled up in blue parkas on hay bales, surrounded by goats. Goats were a big part of their life, we have many family goat stories.

Then we moved to southern Colorado for work. As my kids grew older and we got more involved in homeschooling, the show side of my goat world slipped away. I still kept milk goats, but I stopped registering them and showing them. My focus moved to raising children. The goats provided us with good milk to drink, make cheese, raise bottle baby calves and lambs and make soap with.

I kept goats. They became a mixture of breeds with different colors, different ear styles and different personalities. I kept the ones that had good tasting milk, were easy to milk and that didn't create trouble. When Shawn and I joined households, we scrambled our names and came up with Laffing Horse for our farm name. The first dairy goat we bought together was Victoria, a lovely Lamancha doe. We decided Lamancha's were our breed. We went to Northern Colorado to get South Fork King Arthur, a beautiful black Lamancha buck kid. But, my focus was still elsewhere. While I loved, milked and kept my goats, I didn't feel the call of the purebred registry, or of the show ring.

Our Lamanchas continue to be lovely goats. My two current girls, Henna and Harley have cute little Lamancha gopher ears, though they are 1/4 Saanen. I love the Manchi's disposition, milk quality and ease of care, but, we've found that is challenging to sell good milk goats that don't have ears. We've started called the price difference between goats with ears and those without the "ear tax." I've started looking back at other breeds. I'm tired of what the "ear tax" costs.

After selling the herd down last year due to the drought, I thought I might just be able to keep a few milkers for the family, but I'm finding that two milkers is too few for my comfort. So, tomorrow, we are headed to Pine Bluff Arkansas to look at some really top quality Alpine dairy goats. I feel like I've come full circle, back to my goat start. I'll let you know what we find.

Nine Rules for Milk Barn Harmony

I love dairy animals. I love the relaxing routine of milking. I love producing clean healthy milk. I've been a dairy farmer since 1979 when I got my first goats from Finley Nelson. And in the intervening years, I've learned a few things. As I was milking this newest batch of yearlings, I thought of trying to list why I like milking and why it is such an integral part of my life.

Rules for Milk Barn Harmony

1. Keep anger out of the milk barn. It has no place there. Goats are just goats, there is no reason to get angry at them, they won't waste the energy on getting angry at you. Anger saps your energy and makes any task less enjoyable. And bringing anger in from outside will only make life unpleasant for you and your milkers.

2. Say "hi" to your goat before you slap a wash rag on an udder, whether your way of saying "Hi" is to talk, or brush their head as you do up the head gate or run a hand over her side, treat her with respect and say hello before you grab a teat.

3. Treat your goat's skin like you would your own. Do not use harsh chemicals on udders, keeping that skin soft and supple is a joy for you and a comfort for your milkers. If something is too hard on your hands, just imagine how it feels to your goat.

Henna and Harley are my current yearling milkers.

4. Keep a regular schedule. You know how off you feel if your morning routine is interrupted? Same is true for your goats. For both of your sakes, establish a routine and follow it as close as is humanly possible. You can make that routine your own. I have a friend who milks at noon and midnight. That works for her. I have another friend who leaves the kids on the goats and only milks once a day at about 7:00 p.m.

5. Realize you are committing to a relationship when you have milk animals. Being a steward of milking animals is a commitment. What ever schedule you establish, you are committing to milking once, or twice or three times a day, every single day. Few human relationships require this level of commitment.

6. Enjoy milking. This is a time you need to truly enjoy. The rhythm, the feel of an udder emptying under your hands. The shush of the milk. The sights and sounds and scents. Enjoy milking.

7. Don't keep dairy goats that you do not like. An animal whose personality does not mesh with your own, is just going to be an irritation during your peaceful milking time. Try to work it out, but then give yourself permission to pass that animal on to another herd. She might just be the next person's favorite goat. I've had that happen more than once.

8. Don't play games you don't enjoy. A week or so ago, my two little yearlings decided that jumping the fence into the front yard was far more fun than going from the goat pasture to the milk barn. The first morning's tour was interesting, and they did end up going into the milk barn without hurting themselves on any fences. But when they decided to play that game again that night, I decided we needed leashes to walk to an from the pasture to milk barn. Now I'm not frustrated, and the girls are learning to walk on lead, something they may need to know for demonstrations or just to go to the vet.

9. Listen to your goats and be willing to adapt to what makes them comfortable. Henna likes her personal space. I sit on the milk stool and milk her. Harley likes to be snuggled. She wiggles all over the milk stand, unless I sit up next to her and put my shoulder against her side. It doesn't matter either way to me, and there is no reason to make an issue out of what makes them comfortable.

I may organize these a little better when I have some time... leave a comment if you'd like to add your own ideas or "rules" to this list.

Spring arrives on the Farm

Spring arrived this week. It was nothing gradual, Spring came on Wednesday, like a person walking in through the door.

Suddenly, I did chores without my Carhartts for the first time in months. I didn't need my gloves to hold the frosty metal grain bucket handles, because they weren't frosty.

Yellow, purple and blue poking up in the front pasture.

I could get in my car and drive to work, without having to scrape the frost off the window.

The front pasture suddenly turned purple and yellow and blue.

Suddenly, I just had to make a gallon of peppermint sun tea.

Hundreds of robins flocked to City Park as I drove by on my way to work.  I saw cardinals as I did morning chores.

All of a sudden, on Wednesday, Spring arrived.
                                                               

Harley's little doeling

Then, on Thursday, my little yearling Lamancha diary goat Harley had her first kid. This little girl will be going to live with Linda P. when she is a bit older.
Suddenly, I had to remember to santize the milk pail for the first time since November. And the dishes left on the counter became part of my morning routine, along with milking. On Tuesday, goat milk will go back to being the mainstay of my diet. Ah, Spring.

 And then my favorite little yearling ewe presented us with her first little ewe lamb. Hocus Pocus is a sweet, friendly darling of a sheep. I think her wee little Incantation will be as sweet as she is adorable. She has a tight little curly coat and I love rubbing my cheek over her soft side.

Suddenly, Spring arrived on the farm this week. I hope your week was delightful.

Harley's little doeling a few hours later, all cleaned up.

Hocus Pocus and her little ewe, Incantation

Incantation's better side. Boomer is her daddy.

Geo Rural

 As we head toward sustainability on our five acres in the Ozarks, I have to grapple with the questions of how many animals our land can support, and how many we need to live the way I want to. One of the reasons we moved to the Ozarks is because it is legal to sell goat's milk here, direct from the farm to the customer. I love my dairy goats. Milking is my morning and evening meditation. But, I really only need two milkers to supply our family's needs

Geo is a great mommy and she has the nicest udder to milk.

My favorite doe is Yampa. She is half Oberhasli and half Lamancha. She looks like a big Ober. Born in 2003, she had twins every year until we moved to Arkansas. Then, she wouldn't settle. She milked for four years and finally bred last year to Footsie, our yearling half-Lamancha, half-Saanen buck. The results were Geo and her brother, who found a new home as an infant. 

Harley is two days old. She's sure that she is big enough
now to climb up the roof like Auntie Ginger.

This winter, with hay being hard to find and time seeming to be an ever tightening resource, I decided to sell most of my dairy goat flock. I kept three does, Yampa and two yearlings, her daughter Geo and little Ginny. This Thursday Geo had two big, strong girls. We went through obvious H-names - Honey, Heidi, Heather.. and none of them fit. My son Juna suggested Hydro, to go with Geo. I've always appended "Metro" onto Geo's name, so Hydro just didn't work for me. 

Saturday afternoon, while we were fixing fence I was watching the little blonde baby, two whole days old, trying to follow her Auntie Ginny up over the roof. The little one could get up on the foundation log of the hoop house, but she can't quite reach the tarp, yet.

Harrah's quite the wee showgirl. She thinks Pequena llama
is a good, long-legged role model.

And the little red baby is so, Red. What's H for red? 

These two little girls are so independent, they are little enough that they go right through the fence, so they are as likely to be in the sheep pen or following the llama as they are to be hanging out with their mama.

Geo Metro, Honda? Nope. Suddenly, it hit, the blonde is Harley!

But red, who was visiting with the long-legged llama. What a show-off. She's a so red, Henna!

Naming is not usually this much of a struggle. Maybe it's a good thing we won't have a lot of to name this year.