Best Laid Plans!

Had quite the day here on the farm. A friend brought her 2 goat kids over for disbudding. She had her adult Downs son with her in the passenger seat, the 2 goat kids and their mama in the back seat which she had lined with a big towel to catch the poops. They are Nigerian Dwarf goats so they didn't take up much room, and the big towel idea would have worked if the next thing that happened didn't happen. You know what they say about best laid plans!

She parked in our parking area, turned the car off, got out of the car and closed the door, intending to go right back after she told us she was here. Are you starting to follow this and see where she went wrong? Can you guess what step she neglected in her best laid plans? Yeah, she left her keys in the car thinking she'd be right back to get them and the goat kids. Meanwhile, her son, who is deathly afraid of dogs (he wasn't too happy about the goats in the back seat either) heard our dogs bark and locked the doors. She tried everything to get him to unlock them. He wasn't having any of that. I'm sure he was thinking if he unlocked the doors she'd try to make him get out. He's nonverbal but does understand some sign. She signed for him to unlock his door and he pointed to her door as if to say, "No, you go open your door". Then she signed to him that her door was broken and needed him to open his door. Nope, he wasn't falling for that trick. He just turned his head and ignored her.

We called the police to see if they could send someone over with one of those tools. They don't cover my town but gave me the state police number. Called them and they don't do that anymore so would send a wrecker if we wanted. Called my neighbor up the road who has a towing company but he's in SC visiting family. This is why God invented AAA - the first thing they did was thank me for my 21 years of membership. While I appreciated their appreciation, I was more happy when they took my information and agreed to send someone to unlock the car. The company they were sending was about 45 min away, but I guess we couldn't be too picky.

So we waited. She went out every once in a while to try to get her son to respond to her desperate pleas to unlock the doors. The goats in the back seat were getting restless and scuffing up that towel so it no longer covered the seat. Meanwhile, we sent out for pizza and waited for the AAA guy, and watched the goat poops begin to get into places they weren't intended. When he arrived he was a little confused because he saw someone sitting in the front seat and thought we had resolved the problem without canceling our service request. She explained the situation so he wouldn't think he'd driven 45 minutes on icy roads for nothing. It took him less than 10 seconds to get a back door unlocked. When he opened that door he was face to face with 3 goats and looked even more confused. I can only imagine what was going through his mind at that moment, but it probably had something to do with unkind comments about backwoods rednecks!

And here's the real irony - She had left one of the back door windows open about an inch. My husband tried to stick a long pole in to reach the front door lock, but couldn't reach it. The reason it took AAA guy such a short time is that he put his tool in straight down to reach the lock on the back door! When it was pointed out that it could have been unlocked from there, hubby admitted he didn't see that one! In his defense, maybe he couldn't see past the goat heads that were trying to nibble on the pole. Guess that's why we have AAA.

We gave AAA guy a tip for getting here so quickly in a freezing rain storm, my friend gave him a big hug of gratitude, we finished our pizza and accomplished our original goal of disbudding the goats. My friend drove home, arriving safely even though the roads had gotten worse in the time she was here. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful and seemed almost blah by comparison. But I'll bet she'll be finding goat berries all over that back seat for months to come!

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No Kidding? Yes, Kidding!

The 2019 kidding season has begun with the arrival of triplets on Monday, April 1. They are mini-Nubians, mom being Nubian and dad being Nigerian Dwarf. It's cuteness overload with 2 females and 1 male. These pictures were taken when they were only hours old. I'll update with more pics in a few days, if I can get them to hold still! Mom and kids doing well. And how am I, you ask? After a day crawling around the floor of the milk room helping them get born, drying them off, and getting them nursing, I'm exhausted. Only 5 more does to go before this kidding season is over. I can do this!

Stanley - male

Mona - female

Melody - female

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It's Been A While!

Wow, I can see it's been a while since I've blogged! My intention is to get back into it. A lot has changed, such as - I have more goats, I don't have sheep anymore, we had to send our old Pyr over the rainbow bridge, our older gal is now retired, and we have 2 Pyr pups to replace them. Life does go on.

And I just created a farm website! Yeah, OK, so that's a long time overdue. Being technologically challenged, things like the internet strike fear into my very being. With the help of an awesome friend who went to school for 3 years to learn how to design websites, and some really cool free software she found, I was able to do it with minimal help. Well, I thought it was minimal but maybe awesome friend thought I was a pest with all the questions of how to do this or that. Anyway, it's up and running, although still a work in progress. Check it out at americanwayfarm.com.

Of ongoing interest will be sales of mini-Saanens and mini-Nubians toward late spring and during the summer. So if either of these areas interest you check the "For Sale" page often.

If purchasing goats doesn't interest you, then maybe you should consider getting one or two. After all, maybe your life needs more of a challenge just keeping these critters fenced! Have you ever wondered why, when something aggravates you, you say that really got your goat? Never that it got your dog, or cat, or even cow. No, always a goat! There's a reason for that. If you need more aggravation in your life, then definitely get a few goats. Of course, they're also fun, personable, intelligent, and affectionate, not to mention the cuteness factor of the kids.

I hope to reconnect with friends I've lost touch with. Please re-subscribe to my blog if you've unsubscribed or, if you're still a loyal follower who thought I had dropped off the face of the earth, leave a comment and say howdy!

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Look what I've got!

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Favorite places

There are places, and then there are PLACES! Some places are just there, some have a specific purpose like the supermarket, some are places where you can find your favorite pizza, and then there are places where you can renew your soul and take a break from the world. For Ollie, our English Shepherd, his favorite place is laying across my husband's lap while he's reading in his chair. But dogs are simple. We humans have a bit more complicated needs. I have a favorite tree in the backyard. Sitting under its protective branches which shade the hot sun, I can breath in the healing aroma of Mother Earth, the wonderful scent of damp moss, listen to the sounds of the bullfrogs at the pond bellowing their low serenade, and blank out the noise of life. In this hectic, non-stop life it's more important than ever to take a mini-vacation from the world to renew your energies and return rested in body and strengthened in soul. 

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Opened the chicken coop door this morning and chickens all raced toward the wide open spaces, as usual. Usually looks like a cattle stampede, 150 chickens all trying to get out an 18" wide opening that is only 8" high. But this morning was a bit different. The first ones to the door saw the snow and came to a screeching halt. This caused the ones behind them to crash into their backsides, sort of like a 150 car pileup on the highway! First ones couldn't turn around because of the ones crowding in behind and the ones in the back had no idea why they couldn't get out. So the philosophy was to just push ahead, someone will move. Welcome to black Monday at the Davis farm!

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Great Website!

Ever get frustrated looking around the internet for blogs that would be interesting? Here's a great site that lists blogs sorted by categories or countries. If I count correctly there are 36 categories in 77 countries. That should cover just about anything you're interested in. Our blog is listed in All, Daily Life, Land/Sea/Skyscapes, Pets/Livestock, Photography and the United States. There's even a category for "Unusual". Fortunately we're not listed under that, but I'm definitely going to have to check out that category! So check them out at http://sitehoundsniffs.com/

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God's Artistry

New England in the fall is always beautiful. Warm, sunny days, cool nights perfect for sleeping, the humidity of the summer has become a distant memory, mosquitoes and deer flies have died off, and the foliage turns from green to brilliant golds and reds.

This year, however, God has gone all out with his decorating and the foliage is the most brilliant I've ever seen. Sunlit trees look like they're on fire and other look like they've been touched by King Midas himself. All in all, it's just breathtaking!

Soon the maples, birches and poplars will be devoid of leaves and the tamaracks will be turning gold. All in preparation for a long winter's nap. But for now, the beauty of God's artistry is something definitely worth remembering long after the earth is covered with a blanket of beautiful, glistening snow and fires in the wood stove warm our hearts and hands.

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Apparently they don't understand!

Phone rings. Me: Hello.
Caller: Hello. Could I speak to Mr. or Mrs. Davis?
Me: This is Mrs. Davis.
Caller: Good morning, Mrs. Davis. I'm calling from Sears & Roebuck. How are you this morning?
Me: I'm fine. But I need to tell you that I don't accept any unsolicited or telemarketing calls.
Caller: Oh, this isn't a telemarketing call. I'm calling to tell you that your warranty on your freezer you purchased from us is about to expire.
Me: Well, thank you for telling me that. Good bye.
Caller: Oh, wait. Well, I'm calling to offer you an extended warranty.
Me: So, I didn't ask you to call AND you're trying to sell me something? That qualifies as both an unsolicited AND a telemarketing call. Take my number off your list and don't call again.
Caller: Wait, wait..... 
Me: (click)

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Visitors

They're not mine. Only visiting for the summer to mow a pasture that the goats won't eat. It's a fallacy that goats will eat anything. They're actually rather picky, especially when it comes to grazing. They're browsers by nature but will graze grass if there's no trees to destroy. This particular pasture has what we call swamp grass, which has fairly sharp edges when it matures. Horses don't seem to care - "if it's green, it's keen" is their motto. They do make lovely ornaments, don't they?

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