The weather was awful today, but it cleared up enough this evening to let them out for a while.

Banjo:

Cosmo:

Moon:

As I begin to write this, we’re traveling North on I-35 in Hinckley with three goats in the back of our Expedition (I usually refer to it by its model name rather than vehicle type because I hate the word “SUV” and truck to me means pickup).  They’re in a dog crate with straw in the bottom.  We just picked them in Hastings from a very nice family with a beautiful farm.  I found them on Craigslist and conversed via e-mail with their daughter about buying them.  They raise goats and show them, but they show females and tend to get rid of the males to keep their herd size down.  Ours were the last three without homes, and they were destined for the meat market if they couldn’t be placed.  We’ve been planning on getting goats at some point, but probably not for another year or two.  But these little guys were so adorable that we couldn’t say no, especially now that we have the fence set up for Cowboy.  Two are Oberhaslis, born April 3rd and April 21st.  One is a Nubian, born April 2nd.  We named the Nubian Banjo, but haven’t yet named the Oberhaslis.  The Nubian is very friendly and followed us all around their yard, very much like a dog.  The Oberhaslis are more skittish due to nursing longer and less bottle feeding.  Hopefully they’ll take to us and be friendly also.

Como Town

We left this morning around 7:30, hoping that if we left early that the kids would go back to sleep in the car.  No such luck, and Delia had been up late the night before, so we were a bit nervous about how the day would go.  We arrived at Comotown around 11:45 and then spent about an hour trying to find a place to park.  Lesson learned: weekdays are better for popular attractions.  The kids had a lot of fun riding the rides there and the lines weren’t even that bad considering how crowded it seemed.  Delia was afraid to ride this rotating wing ride, but she finally gave it a try and then wanted to ride it another five times.

We left the park at about 3:45 and arrived at the farm a little after 4:30.  They have a beautiful place, with chickens, a lot of goats, and a couple of llamas.  Their goats ran right up to us and stuck their heads through the fence to see the kids.  Ours were in seclusion so that they’d start to bond together a bit before leaving.  We fell in love with Banjo right away.  He’s so friendly and sweet.  The two Obers are more skittish, but should warm up to us once we begin bottle feeding them.

We just stopped at McDonalds to get Henry more McNuggets and the kids got out of their seats to play with the goats and feed them alfalfa.  Henry just squealed and giggled because he turned around and rubbed up against the cage and Banjo nibbled his back.  He kept repeating it until Banjo lost interest, and now Henry is saying “Dando, Dando!” trying to get him to do it again.

Our plan is to put them in a horse stall tonight and then figure out what to do with them tomorrow.  They’ll eventually be in with Cowboy, but we may want to keep them in a stall or the old chicken run until they get acclimated or even a little bigger.  The people we got them from gave us alfalfa and grain for them to eat and a gallon of goat milk to bottle feed them.  We also bought three gallons from some people in Embarrass the other night.  I hope they’re thirsty!  We’re going to try to feed them milk tonight when we get home.  Unfortunately it’s supposed to be very cold tonight – around 25.

They’ve been sleeping back there, but now they’re standing up and bleating.  The breeders told us they’d probably get hungry around 9:30 and it’s 9:35 right now.

The plants we planted yesterday don’t look so good, and we don’t know why.  The stems are still looking okay, but the leaves are shriveled and/or brown.  It’s almost like they froze, but it didn’t get below freezing last night.  We’ll see what happens.

Emily and I switched hours with the kids today.  That means I worked this morning and played with them in the afternoon.  It was quite nice.  It’s a lot easier for me to relax and spend time with them when I’ve already gotten work out of the way.  When I have them in the morning, I feel like I need to be working.  It also meant I got to spend some one on one time with Delia, which I haven’t been doing much of lately since Henry requires a lot of chasing.  We made a kite out of a garbage bag and willow stalks that didn’t work very well (but was fun anyway) and we shoveled manure out of Cowboy’s paddock.  That may not sound like fun, but it was.

Henry continues to speed all over the place on his 4 wheeler.  I can’t believe he’s only two when I watch him ride it.   This evening we heard the four geese that have been visiting our pond coming from down Norby Rd (we hear them before we see them) so I told him to watch them land on the pond.  They chose to land on our shallow swampy pond instead, so he didn’t get to see them and was disappointed.  He ran over to his 4 wheeler and took off.  It’s really rough terrain around there, but he was determined to see the geese, and amazingly, the 4 wheeler made it!  He finally got stuck right near the pond, but I ran over and got him out.  He yelled “bye deese!” as he rode back to the driveway.

I need to read about geese.  I know they make strong pairs, but this year we have four that are always together.  Originally it was two and then the other two came.  The first two would try to chase them away, but after a while the second pair fought back and held their ground, and then I guess the original ones gave up.  Last year we had lots of ducks and this year I’ve only seen one or two on the pond all spring.  We seem to have one sandpiper that spends a lot of time on the banks of the pond too.

Today we planted the first things in the garden.

Two tomato plants – a celebrity and something else more heirloomy, can’t remember the name.

An orange bell pepper plant.

3 pumpkin plants on one hill.  They say good for jack o’ lanterns or pies.  We’ll see…

Two hills worth of pickling cucumbers.

Tons of “great lake leaf lettuce” seeds.   I forgot to keep some to sow later in the year for another crop – I’ll just get another packet if it grows and is yummy.  All their romaine lettuce plants were sold out, or I would have gotten one of those as well.

I also got green bean seeds and sweet corn.  Green beans like it warmer, so we’re waiting on those, and I haven’t looked up corn yet.

The plants and seeds were a little under $20.  I just hope it doesn’t all die.  Getting over $20 worth of food from it will be a bonus.  We won’t worry about all the time spent…  I just am not sure I’m converted to the idea of gardening yet!  It’s a lot of work!

I’ll make a better version of this after I shoot a little more video of him riding, but for now:

“Someday, if we ever meet a builder, one that’s better even than Papa, way way way better than Papa, if we meet one like that, I’m going to ask him to build me a dinosaur robot that I can ride.  A nice one that won’t bite me.  Someday.”

The sun is shining, the temperature is perfect, there’s no big wind.  Geese visit in the pond and honk when we get close.  Cowboy the pony is a pony!  In our yard!  Delia’s building – a stool out of wood, and various tools and weapons and toys out of sticks and string.  Caveman style.  Henry’s drawing with chalk on the driveway or zooming around on his four wheeler.

Ryan’s putting new handles on our Freecycle wheelbarrow, or putting a latch on Cowboy’s fence, or changing the oil in the lawnmower, or zooming around on a four wheeler.   I’m pulling grass out of the flower garden, feeding Cowboy carrots while I try to comb his mane, or zooming around on the lawnmower.

Sure, we’re kind of harried chasing the kids and animals around, and the house is a mess because we come in to eat and head right back outside again.  But overall, the past few days I’ve almost constantly been thinking how wonderful it is to live out here.

I’m working downstairs today, but each time I’ve gone upstairs, I’ve seen Henry in a different place around the house, cruising around on his 4 wheeler.  We have the turbo hooked up now, and when he kicks it into high-speed mode, he leans way back, which makes it look like he’s going twice as fast as he is.  It’s just hilarious seeing him riding all around the yard – behind the garage and out, down the road toward the mailbox, etc.

Cowboy has been tied out in three locations on our lawn, and in those three locations, there’s a perfect circle of short grass from where he ate.  Emily mentioned to Delia about how we wanted to move him around to keep the grass short, and she said, “Hey, he’s my riding mower!”