Just because

Two boys chilling on the Cadillac bed. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Visiting goats and goat visitors

Little goat boy is sporting a pink jeweled collar to go for a ride. 

I had promised all the newspaper folks that I would bring a kid for a visit— it was Bring Your Kid to Work Day yesterday! If you look close you can see Kathy, Larissa, and Tara reflected in the window with The Freeman's Journal behind them.

Little goat boy is supposed to be adopted by friend Dr Julie, so she will have the pleasure of naming him once he moves to the Neighsayer Farm. :)

And friend Roberta came by for a visit with the little ones on one of those nice warm days we had this week. Let's just say she was dressed too nicely and probably needed to do some laundry when she got home.

And the TFJ office might need a carpet cleaner.

At least the Kia was relatively unscathed.

Black dog and black chair :)

Sorry folks, I can't help being silly most of the time...

It's fairly unusual in mid-February to have a warm day that's nice enough to sit outside and watch the sun go down. It wasn't all that warm, and there was still plenty of snow that hadn't melted, but still.

Woody was not interested in hanging outside with Cyrus and me for the sunset celebration. He stayed inside for a nap on the Cadillac bed with his buddy Monkey.

More cold and probably more snow on the way, but we are all happy for the warm sunny days in between.

Black heads and black birds

When these 2 boys sleep next to each other, I see they have the same black on their handsome heads—both ears, part of the nose—it makes me smile. They are both about 14 years old. Woody's black parts are fading, and his brown parts are almost all gone. Willie looks young as ever. I guess cats don't fade...

I'm not ready for Part 4 of the Bird Buddy series, but it is starting to look like spring is on the way. New birds are joining in the fun. 

The starlings are back in force feeding on whatever goodies they can find on the ground now that the snow is melting.

And this Common Grackle found the feeder for the first time today. 

He scared off all the little birds, probably because he looks so scary with those yellow eyes!

Unfortunately, our lone squirrel, Steve, showed up at the feeder last week too. And he brought a friend. 

I am not happy about that!

Enough people asked the BB team to adjust the AI that IDs the birds so that it could ID their most common visitor as well. Pretty cool that they succeeded.

At least, so far, they are not my most common visitor.

Cold enough for ya?

Frigid and blustery—temps in the minus teens for the past 24 hours—thank heavens we have the heater out in the bigger goat barn.

Stella, the last possible pregnant doe, is still holding out. Not sure if she's got a kid in there or not.

It's supposed to make it all the way up to 40° tomorrow, so come on out for goat kisses, like Dr Julie did last week before we froze. She is still trying to figure out which 2 kids they are going to adopt.

Birth days, and a birthday

It's a kid storm! We've had 11 so far, and only 1 more expected. I am writing all their little birth dates in here for my own purposes.

Susan had 1 girl/1 boy 01-11. Lizzie had 2 boys 01-12. Rain had 2 boys 01-14. Rosie had 2 boys (pic #1) 01-15. Snow had 1 boy (pic #2) 01-18. Bridget had 1 girl (pic #3) 01-22. Shirley had 1 girl 01-28. Her twin Stella is due, we think soon. Frankly we don't know which one is Shirley and which one is Stella...they really are twins!

The little girl with Farmer Tim in the picture had a birth day on his birthday. Happy Birthday to both of you! (wrong kid, it was Shirley's girl, not pictured, who shares Tim's birthday)

A bird obsession: Part 3—The Northern Cardinal

I've been busy birthin' babies (goats) and taking care of other critters here at Lester's Flat. We now have 10 kids, and a probable 2 more sometime soon. HA! #11 was born while I was writing this post.

More pics of all the kids as soon as I get a minute. All I can say is—Thank heavens I retired! This farming thing is exhausting!

I wrenched my back convincing Miss Rosie, of the overly large udder, to let me milk both sides.

And Cyrus somehow cut his foot yesterday while going crazy inside the fence after a deer who was outside the fence. He came home from the vet with 6 staples in his foot and a cone of shame. The cone didn't make it through the night. I couldn't stand it more than he couldn't stand it. No sleep for me until I figure out how to cover up the foot so he doesn't mess with it for 2 weeks until the staples are removed.

Back to the birds:

The Northern Cardinals have visited the Bird Buddy about 500 times thus far. I think there are at least 2 pairs. They are excellent posers compared to the smaller birds that don't show their best angles...

I am curious to see which other species show up when the weather gets warmer. A first-time visitor this week was an American Tree Sparrow. Looking forward to more as spring gets closer.

Kids and kids and bird mates

We knew there were kids on the way, but we never know for certain when they will arrive.

White mom Susan gave us 2 yesterday. The brown one is a girl, not sure about the white kid. And red mom Lizzie gave us 2 boy kids today. I just love the black stripe on the little white guy!

For 2 days in a row, I was surprised to catch both ladies in the act of kidding when I stopped in to feed them at lunchtime. Just look at their proud mama faces posing with their babies!

I was planning to post the red-bellied woodpecker story yesterday as part of my BirdBuddy series, but the goats won top billing. I have had pretty much the same cast of characters at the feeder since I installed it in October. There has only been a single female red belly from the beginning.

Then, just yesterday, this male showed up! I think she found a mate!

The female downy woodpecker was also solo for awhile when her mate was killed by some unknown predator on December 1. Only in the past week or so has another male shown up.

Even without social media, my girls are finding mates. Or maybe the boys are reading my posts.

Meanwhile, the goat ladies share their live-in mate, Walter Becker. He is very polite, and gives them privacy when they are kidding. All of the other goats have been giving them space as well, except for Jack, the old man wether. He has been checking up on his new family members, one mom in each barn.

Mom and Elvis and the Christmas tree

Mom and Elvis shared a birthday on January 8. She was 2 years older than him. I went back to New Jersey to celebrate with Little Sister and Little Brother. Mom was a big fan of Bing Crosby—Elvis not so much.

I probably should have taken down the Christmas tree before I left. I thought a few more days wouldn't make much difference, but I was wrong.

For reasons I do not understand, both dogs have decided it is their dogly duty to help me when I bring out the vacuum cleaner. 

Really Cyrus? Does that feel good?

A bird obsession: Part 2—The House Finch

On Christmas Eve, my Bird Buddy magically started taking videos in addition to the still shots like these. Initially I was very happy to watch the 1- to 2-minute little movies, but now that I am getting 10 or more videos a day, it is getting less interesting. 

It takes a lot of time to go through them all, and most of them have a lot of dead space. There are plenty of great views of the back of my house, with the feeder swaying in the breeze and the birds perched just out of range. I still have to watch to the end though, just in case my amusing woodpeckers show up.

Considering this was part of a Kickstarter campaign where a lot of folks from around the world paid upfront for a product that might never have been completed, I think the Bird Buddy team has done a good job of responding to complaints. 

My serial number is 00000004517. I think I was one of the earliest backers, and I was also one of the lucky 5% who got to test the videos before they were released to everyone. With time, I think the BB folks will work out the kinks and make the videos optional. I liked it better when I was getting more stills. 

There are at least 3 pairs of these house finches, and according to the BB, there have been 551 visits from them—by far my most frequent visitor. It wasn't until I got a close-up look at them that I could tell they were house finches, and not purple finches. The colorful males look very much like purples, until you can see their striped bellies.

And the goldfinches are still here, even after the snow and the cold. The house and goldfinches, and the blue jays are so far the best posers. They bring all 3 of the primary colors—red yellow and blue—to my little neck of the woods. It will be interesting to see what other species show up as the weather gets warmer.

Sorry Sorry I missed the Merry Merry and the Happy Happy

It is true, I have been neglecting my blog readers, whoever they may be...

I trust you all had a nice Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year's Eve/Day, and any other holiday you might have been celebrating. And Happy Birthday to all those who have to share their December and January birthdays with all the holiday celebrations. 

We had a few drinks with Don on the Hill for his 84th birthday on Christmas Eve. Because we missed them on Thanksgiving, or maybe just because, we had a wonderful turkey dinner on Christmas Day with the Fabulous Barnwells. The Singing Hohensees invited us for a New Year's Eve song fest and dinner along with a few other Fast Friends. And The Husband got to play some bluegrass with some other singing friends yesterday to round out all of the holiday excitement.

Now it's time to sit back and figure out what to do with all this free time. I know for sure I will have no problem staying only as busy as I want to in retirement. It is when The Husband retires, hopefully in February, that my full-time job will be training him to relax. This is a job I will enjoy, but only if he is willing to learn. :)