Surprise Visitor

Wildlife is everywhere on a farm so I shouldn't be surprised when it shows up in the yard.

 But this one was a bit of a shock.

 Considering we are on top of a very high hill, way above the creek, I just didn't expect a snapping turtle in the yard.

 He was a cute thing and not all that shy about getting a picture taken.

But he was also pretty quick.  When we came back from feeding the goats, he was gone.  Hopefully, he made it back to the water.

Almost A Vacation

J and I have been working a lot of the cattle by ourselves the last couple of years.  But yesterday V and M came to help out with one of our spring calving groups. 

 I didn't have to work the head gate any.   V had that covered.

 Or give any of the shots.  M took care of that.

It was just like I was on vacation, sort of.

A Man And His Goats

This picture was too good to not share.

As you can see, Striper, Bunny, Crazy, and Mary Lou are still getting their bottles.  I have been working on trying to get them to eat grain but no go yet.  If they ever start eating some we can start weaning them off the milk replacer.

Next Adventure

E has only been home from college for a week before heading out on her next big adventure.

 She has been a big help for the little time she was home, feeding the goats,

 and doing some yard work.

 But then she packed up the Rav and headed west.

She is doing a 9 week summer internship though the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center. The title of her research project is - Alien Invaders: Investigating a novel and recent invasion of an Asian Corbiculid clam in Illinois’ Great Rivers  hosted by the Illinois Natural History Survey.  After a week of orientation in Alton Illinois she will then travel to Champaign, Illinois for the remainder of internship.  For anyone interested here is the description of the project,

Project Description: The genus Corbicula consists of moderately-sized freshwater clams native to the temperate/tropical regions of Asia, Africa, and Australia and contains some of the most common and successful aquatic invasive species to North America. Previously, only one species (C. fluminea) was common in Illinois and found statewide, but a second Corbicula invader was discovered in 2008 (C. cf. largillierti). The Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS) recently discovered a putatively new Corbicula in the Illinois River near Marseilles, Illinois in 2015. Preliminary morphological and molecular assessment have supported the presence of three alien Corbicula invaders, and additional research is critical to stanch their spread (Tiemann et al., In Review). We propose a two-part (field and lab) study: 1) to conduct presence or absence surveys for the novel and recent Corbicula invaders at several locations (determined by habitat characteristics) across the state to determine geographic distribution of the three forms. Locations will include up to four sites near the confluences of major rivers (e.g., near the Missouri/Mississippi confluence, the Kankakee/Illinois confluence, Ohio River), as well as other promising locations known to harbor Corbicula. 2) Specimens collected will be subjected to a robust geometric morphometric assessment and leveraged to develop species-specific environmental DNA (eDNA) assays.

Miss you already E, have a great time.

Feed Sack Tote Bag

I normally don't feed the horses grain.  But this past winter with Hank having lost weight and having a weanling that needed some extra nutrition, I ended up with several feed bags.  I have seen different places where people have made totes out of the old bags so I thought I might give it a try.  

 I picked the most picturesque bag and this is what I came up with.

 E said I could start taking it to the grocery store to eliminate the hundreds of plastic bags that accumulate here. (I do reuse and recycle them)

I thought it might make a nice gift bag at a horse function.  Either way, I think it's a winner.  Looks like they run about $10 on Etsy.  Guess the picture on the bag is going to be as important as the contents in the future.

Teaching Big Sis

 Draper has been so fun to work with.  I have yet to find anything that upsets or spooks her.  She is very curious but also respectful when I ask.

Otoelene however, has always been afraid of plastic.  She will work with it when I ask but has never really been accepting of it.

 Since I have them both hanging out in the barn lot together I thought maybe Draper could teach her big sister a thing or two.

As you can see, Draper is not shy about taking the lead in this situation.  

And for the tarp, I think Draper was an excellent role model.  She is truly "unflappable."

First Ride

The farrier was late last week.  We already had the horses caught.  I told J he might as well go ahead and ride while we were waiting.  

 I have ridden Brother a hand full of times this year but this was J's first time on since last fall.

 I think he was pleasantly surprised at how well Brother did.   He acted like he was ready to go to a show and win western pleasure.  One little bobble about being suborn about loping once but other than that it was 30 minutes of pleasure.   J had to ask a couple of times, "are you sure he is trotting?"

Now that he has his shoes on maybe J can work out some more times to ride.

And for her second trim, Draper was an angel again.  She acted better than some of the big horses.

Just Kit Sunday #119

We have be letting the bottle goats out of the barn during the day in hopes that they will start to acclimate to the herd after we wean them.

 The other goats were off elsewhere but Kit Kat had come to the barn for a visit.

 Mary Lou was very interested in Kit.

 My advise is to watch those squinty eyes.

 There it is.
 No goats were harmed in the filming of this event.

 And on a different note, Happy Mother's Day

What says Happy Mother's Day better than peonies?

In Bloom at the 4Rs

Between the warm April, tons of rain and now a cold May I thought the flowers might be confused.  But looking back through other years they may be only 7 - 10 days off. 

Old fashion iris,  

 peonies, 

 coreopsis, 

 variegated weigela, 

 more bearded iris, 

 Dutch iris, 

 poppy, 

allium.

The yard is full of color.

The Thinker, 4RRanch Style

So today, I thought we could do something a little different, an art comparison.  

Everyone is probably familiar with the famous statue of "The Thinker."

But here are the 4R's we have our own version, "The Goat Herder Thinker."
Compare and Contrast...

Goat Yoga Anyone?

J and I worked the goats Saturday which involved baby goat proofing the barn (so there were no escapes) rounding them all up, banding the boys, deworming the nannies and trimming some of the worst of the foot problems.  It was a tough hot couple of hours but we got through it.  Then on Sunday M and J stopped by.  After a wonderful time on the cruise they wanted to help with some farm work.  

 The point of going ahead and working the goats was so we could get them turned out of the field they had been in for the last month and a half.  They are happier and seem to do better when they can roam around more and get to more brushy type plants.

M and V did a great job helping me round them up to drive them out of the field.  

 I'm sure most of you have already heard about the goat yoga craze, but in case you are behind the times, here is a YouTube clip on the up and coming sensation.

 At $22 per person with a long waiting list, V wanted to see if our goats might be good at it.  This little one was more interested in V's hair at first.

 But finally jumped up on her and patted around for a minute.  

If anyone is interested in paying to have goats jump up and down on you I will do what I can to be accommodating.

Second Swarm

Coming home from Church Sunday I noticed something funny in the little maple tree in Draper's lot.

 On closer inspection we saw that it was another swarm of bees.

 They are  amazing little creatures, hanging on all day through a terrible wind and rain storm.  We were just not prepared to deal with another swarm and our regular bee man didn't want them but gave us the name of someone else.

 So a new bee man came out to get this swarm.

 He said it was just the height he liked to deal with.

At this point J decided he was a little to close to the action.  After a few minutes most of the bees were crawling up into his nuke.  He offered to get it back to us but we didn't have a new hive.   Guess I will have to order another one if we want to keep expanding.  Maybe we could even learn how to do splits to avoid swarming.