2001
AUGUST Our niece Katie visited us this month. She is an
animal lover, and budding artist. When visiting she likes to build llama
character, and thus this year they went to the beach for a beach walk.
JUNE 4 & 11 Well another animal species, Chinchilla
laniger, is being added to the menagerie. Magic was born in March to Sasha
& Stubby. When he was old enough to venture off on his(?) own he came
to live here. The week he came, the snake La Snakums died due to complications
of egg laying. So, I traded the male corn snake for Lookums,
an adult chinchilla. Before Irma Bow Bunny came to live with us, we thought the cats
were soft to pet. Then we thought the bunny was softest to pet. Well
the bunny has been relegated to second place. The chins are by far and
away the softest to pet.
1st Place
Magic
Lookums
Magic
2nd Place
3rd Place
4th Place
MAY 2001 - A TRIP TO JAPAN We at Woven Time spent 13 days in
Japan. We saw parts of Tokyo, Takayama, Kanazawa, and Kyoto. It was
a wonderful trip. The weather was perfect. The sites
interesting. The food wonderful. Stephen even learned to use chop
sticks. Susan had hoped to do a lot of little watercolor sketches, but
that did not happen. Instead she did sketches in her journal. Of
course we took lots of pictures, and collected many postcards of interesting
sites and copies of woodblock prints.
MARCH, 2001 - SPRING HAS SPRUNG
When spring arrives sheep and angora goats need shearing, and cashmere
goats need combing. Sheep and angora goats have lost the ability to shed,
through selective breeding, and need to be sheared. The cashmere goats are
double coated, and thus they will shed the cashmere fibers, which is their
undercoat. The shearing usually occurs at the convenience of the owners
and the shearers. Seasonal factors are considered, and some owners will
shear at different times of the year.
In California the rainy season ends in the spring, and usually lambing has occurred
by now, and the pastures are starting to dry up and go to seed. So now is
a good time to take the fleece off the animals. They no longer need it for
protection from the weather, and you want to harvest it before it gets full of
seeds and stickers.
This is Ivory before and after shearing. I learned how to shear sheep
using hand shears.
The cashmere goats will start to show signs that their undercoat is loose and
ready to be combed. These signs include rubbing on the fences, and looking
scruffy.
In these picture you see Daisy rubbing along the fence. The thin white
lines behind her are where the cashmere fibers are wrapped around the fence
wire. In the second picture you can see where she has pretty much shed
under her neck, with some loose fibers hanging off to the side.
This is a picture of Cookie half combed. For some reason this year the
front fibers have not yet loosened up. So I have not yet taken the time to
finish combing her. When the fibers are loose they come away in the comb
very easily. If they are not loose, the goat really fights being combed.
Now these goats are pet goats. They are used to being around people and
even liked being scratched and petted. But when it comes to being combed,
that is a different story. Thus the STANCHION! This devise,
invented by mankind to induce the cooperation of unwilling participants, is
pulled out in the spring when it is time to comb the cashmere goats. ( In
the dairy goat world, the goats are willing participants at milking time, since
grain is usually fed during milking, and
the stanchion provides more of a place for the milkmaid to comfortably sit while
milking then as a containment devise for the goat.)
In the center picture you see the stanchion, with the center bars open ready
to have a goat's head enter. On the left is Lookout (still uncombed), and
Moonbeam checking it out. On the right Cookie is ready to be combed.
These are pictures of Daisy after being combed.
MARCH 5, 2001 - BATTLE FOR THE BOX
When my son moved back to California last fall, he brought the house bunny with
him. Her name is Miss Irma Bow Bunny and she is a rex cross. Having been
a house bunny for most of her life she is box trained, and uses a litter box for
her bathroom. When she first arrived, she was using the litter box in her
cage (a large, wire, dog cage about 2' wide, 2' high, and 3' long).
She came with a second litter box, which we set up in the room where she would
be allowed out of her cage. This same room also contained the house cats'
litter box, and for whatever reason, Irma Bow Bunny decided she liked their box
better then her box.
In the beginning both cats, but especially Kanab, were rather cautious
around her. To the point that I put a third litter box on top of her cage,
for Kanab to use, if he felt too threatened by Irma Bow Bunny, using their
litter box. Imagine our surprise when we walked in and found her on top of
her cage sitting in the new litter box.
On litter box cleaning day, the clean box generates lots of interest. Usually
the first one in is Irma Bow Bunny, who scratches and digs. I think she is
taking her digging desire out in the clean cat litter. Next are the cats,
again followed by the bunny. Sometimes there are even a few standoffs, but
not often.
FEBRUARY 26, 2001 - AND THEN THERE WAS ANOTHER!
On Wednesday the 21st the second kid arrived. It was a buck kid, born
to Daisy. These are his birthday pictures, he is still damp, and probably
less then 5 hours old.
In this picture, you can see that the licking is not yet complete. There
is still a little birth fluid on the kid's rump.
In this picture you again see why the tail end is more important to the
mom.
FEBRUARY 19, 2001 - THE KIDS ARE HERE!
Yesterday the first kid arrived! A little black doe with a white spot on
her forehead. At this moment in time her name is probably going to be
Moonbeam. Chris, our oldest son, walked up to feed the animals and
found one of the goats in pain. He came back to the house to ask
Stephen if this goat might be having a baby. The answer was yes, and by
the time Chris returned to the barn, the kid was out, and getting licked all
over by her mother, Lookout. Chris assisted in drying her with old towels, and
dipped the umbilical cord in iodine to help dry it out, and put them in the
kidding pen. The mother and new kid's) spend the first several
days in the kidding pen, so they can bond, and not be bothered by all the
others. This also makes it easier to go up and cuddle the kids, as you
don't have to chase them all over the place. In these pictures Moonbeam is
3 days old.
Baby goats are usually up and walking within an hour of birth. It is also
important to get that first drink of milk, to start giving them energy to keep
warm with. In many of the pictures you will notice the mom is smelling the
kid's tail. From their point of view this is the important end. It
is mostly by smell that they identify their kids, and when the kids are nursing,
it is the tail end that is convenient for identifying them. If it is the
wrong kid nursing, it is butted away.
FEBRUARY 12, 2001 - YARD DOGS (& cats) Having lived on the
farm for over 20 years we have seen our share of dogs, both our own and the
neighbors. Like people, not all dogs are made for country living.
Some dogs are too hyper, some too mean, and some just down right
dangerous.
We expect our dogs to be alert and bark as needed, but not biters or chicken
killers. We expect our dogs to have manners and not jump on people.
We expect our dogs to stay home, and if the gate is open to stay on the inside
of the yard. And most importantly we expect our dogs to get along with the
rest of the animals.
It has taken several tries to figure all this out, and to find the kind of dogs
who do well with us. And learn to teach them the manners we want.
Over the years, we have found that if we keep the new puppies penned up, and let
out only with supervision they learn what is expected. They learn not to
chase cats (even the neighbors cats who we would just as soon they chase off),
they learn that the geese and ducks are not to be bothered, and they learn to
sit if they want to be petted.
FEBRUARY 5, 2001 - AND LIFE GOES ON In the spring new life
starts. I breed the goats to have the kids arrive at the end of January,
hopefully in February, and on into March, depending on when the goat comes into
heat. The first of this year's kid should arrive at the end of this
month. Part of preparing for their arrival is the annual booster shot for
the does (female goats) and the ewes (female sheep), and bucks (male goats) and
rams (male sheep).
Coffee
or tea?
When young, most cud chewing farm animals get shots for tetanus, and Clostridium
Perfringens Types C & D. Tetanus, is also known as lockjaw.
Clostridium Perfringens is an intestinal bacteria, and is commonly preferred to
as 'overeating disease'. There are several types, with the two most common
types being C&D. After the initial vaccination, and 2 to 4 weeks
later a booster shot to establish immunity, an annual booster shot is all
that is needed. These shots are usually called C D & T, since all
three are combined into one shot.
Common practice is to give the annual booster shot 2 to 4 weeks before the
expected arrival of babies, so that there is a high degree of immunity in the
mother. This immunity is passed onto their offspring through the colostrums
or 'first milk'. This first milk is very thick, and full of energy
and the mother's antibodies. The babies have the ability to absorb
the antibodies for the first 24 hours of their life. These antibodies help
fight off any disease the babies might be exposed to until they have a chance to
develop their own.
Friday was shot day at the farm. It involves penning the goats up so we
can catch them. One person holds the animal, while the second person gives
them their shot. This is also a time when I trim feet. Because we
live on a soft, sandy soil the hoofs do not wear down and several times a year
we trim feet. So now the waiting game begins - I am waiting the arrival of
the new babies, who are oh so soft and cute.
JANUARY 29, 2001 - A BAD DAY ON THE FARM On a typical bad day on the
farm, you wake up planning to go to a meeting, or to work, or out with a friend
or something away from the farm, walk up to the barn and because of an animal emergency,
your plans are changed. You end up staying home and dealing with the
emergency.
Today was a typical bad day on the farm. I woke up planning to drive to Davis to
see a friend's gallery show. When I do chores in the morning the
first outside animal on the list is Duster, the macaw. He gets several
pieces of banana, and I eat the rest.
The
banana peel is taken on up and given to which ever goat wants it, when I take
their hay to them. This morning when walking the hay up to the goats, I
noticed that Haiku was laying down, but did not think too much about it.
When I returned to the barn and fetched up the llama's hay she was still laying
down and did not get up when I walked by her with the hay. This is NOT
normal behavior. I fed the hay to the rest of the llamas and came back
down the hill to look more closely at Haiku. She was in pain, with
labored breathing and simply refused to get to her feet.
Several explanations crossed my mind. The first was that she had somehow
had a run in with marauding dogs, but there were no wounds of this type on
her. Secondly I thought that somehow she had slipped and hurt her hips, or
a leg joint. Her refusal to get up lent that some credibility to this
idea, but I could feel nothing wrong with her. Thirdly I was
thinking that she had eaten something toxic. If that was the case,
with some help from the vet, she would either recover or not.
I called the vet, and he said he would be able to look at Haiku in a couple of
hours. I did the rest of my morning chores and waited for him to
arrive. He examined Haiku, and could not find anything obviously wrong
with her. He decided to give her a pain killer, a shot of penicillin, to
fight off any infections, and a drench of electrolytes and oil, to re-hydrate
her, and help any toxin pass through her system. He took a blood sample to
see what that can tell him (the results will be back sometime tomorrow
morning). We talked about possible causes of her going down, and the slim
chances she has of making it through this.
After he left, I made sure Haiku had food and water if she wanted them,
which she didn't. As of this evening Haiku was still alive. She had
stood up twice, to pee, and to move a little further up the hill. She had
still not eaten anything.
Tuesday morning found Haiku dead. The blood work indicated an internal infection
which I did not catch in time. She is buried up on the hill. I like
to bury animals that die here under a tree, however Haiku's size prevented
moving her to a tree. So instead of a tree, there is a spot. A
memory spot in the pasture.
JANUARY 22, 2001 - THE NAMING GAME The American Dairy Goat
Association assigns a unique letter & number combination to any animal
registered with it. The ADGA gives a single letter to each year's
registration number stepping through the alphabet, with a new letter each
calendar year. (Except I, O & Q because they are to easily
confused with 1 & 0 ). If dairy goat owners choose to name their goats
using the year's letter as the first letter in the animal's name, they can
easily keep track of the animals' age. They simply remember this year's
letter, and figure backward
through the alphabet to determine the older animals' ages.
In 1979 I bought my first dairy goat - Loverly. Loverly was a purebred
Nubian goat, and was three years old. She was named according to ADGA's
convention. I chose to follow this suggestion in naming my goats. In
1979 the year of "P" we had Penny Ante, Patient Pending, and Pshmell
#9 ( a buck). ((As time goes on you will notice other interesting
spellings. Even though Phantom's name is spelled with a
"P", she was born in 1994 the year of "F". ))
Over the years we have had a lot of fun deciding on the names of the
animals born here, and we continue to limit the choices to ones which begin with
the current letter. I am constantly figuring back through the alphabet,
when someone asks how old any given animal is. (With the exception
of the three old geese who we bought before I bought Loverly; and Hot Dog,
and Rita Mae, who were named when I got them.)
2001 is the year of "M". Any animal born here this year name
will start with the letter "M". 2000 was the year of
"L" so we have Long Shot the cat, and Luscious and Lookout the
cashmere goats. 1999 was the year of "K" and thus we have Kona
and Kanab. And so forth and so on.
JANUARY 18, 2001 - INTRODUCTION Well, we have llamas. There are 3 adult llamas: Rita Mae
who will be 10 this year was our first llama. She is the mother of Haiku,
who will be 5, and Juneau who will be 3. Haiku was Rita Mae fourth cria,
and she was born here in the month of June. Juneau is Rita Mae's sixth
cria, and he too was born here. They were sheared this summer, and when
freshly sheared look very much like a little giraffe.
Duster is our blue and gold macaw. He is 29 years old and we have
had him most of his life. We bought him as a weaned chick. It is
interesting to watch young macaws learn how to use their feet to hold their food
while eating it.
Ducks, geese and chickens adorn our yard. The ducks are here to eat the
snails, slugs and any other bugs they find. The geese eat the grass and
various greenery and act as watch animals. They are very good at raising a
ruckus when anyone walks into the yard. Chickens produce eggs and are the
garbage disposal unit. They love it when we bring the kitchen vegetable
trimmings, egg shells and unwanted left-overs out to the chicken run for them.
Of course there is the dog, Phantom, a gray great Dane. She was 7 this
year.
There are two yard cats, Hot Dog, and Long Shot, and two house cats, Kona and
Kanab.
Susan has three snakes, and thus Susan raises mice. The extra mice are
sold to a local pet shop, and until two years ago Susan was a more successful
mouse rancher then polymer clay artist.
We have cashmere goats: Cookie, Daisy, Lookout, and Luscious. An angora goat:
Ivory, and a sheep: Chenille.
WOVEN TIME
