Trying to Woo Dottie Belle

I am such a fine looking buck.

Just look at my beautiful blue eyes.

I've tried whispering sweet nothings in her ear.

But she just jumps on top of the igloo.

Being the herd stud is harder than one thinks.

Too Much Stress--Smaller Brain

There was an article in the local paper yesterday about certain types of stress has been shown to cause ones brain to shrink.  Things like death, divorce, job loss, and cancer.  Then I googled it on line and there were many articles about it.  Here's one that I read http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/09/study-stress-shrinks-the-brain-and-lowers-our-ability-to-cope-with-adversity/

All I can say is "Don't stress me out!  I need all my brain cells.  Maybe we should be kinder and more in touch with people and things that don't stress us out.

This and That

My dear husband works a lot of hours - that's 70 hours one week and 32 the next.  This is after his 3rd job played out.  So this past week he took off--that's the little 32 hour job.  He needed some time off!  Good for him to take care of himself.  So we did a few things I had on my honey do list.  
First we hung the adorable signs that my friend, Sharon, made for me.

Same sign, I just took the picture from 2 angles.

The girls weren't sure about it and tried to eat it.

Finally 

We bought lumber and made a box for our raised bed vegetable garden project. I'm going to set it in the ground, dig out all the weed infested dirt, put down a thick ground cover and fill with bagged soil. I am so tired of growing vicious weeds that strangle everything I plant.  Wish me luck. 

The rest of the time, Don got to do what he wanted to do, well mostly.

I Won!

My husband has heard me say that more than once and is always quick to correct me.  Well, I'm talking about e-bay.  He says, "You didn't win anything. You bought something."  Of course I know the difference, but I still get excited.  My e-bay purchases have been few and far between the last 5 years.  But here is one find that I searched for over 6 months before I found a 3 leaf clover butter mold for a decent price.  I found a couple before, but they were trying to sell them for $60.  No way.  There are many "antique" molds to be found on e-bay, but I had to have the 3 leaf clover like the one we had when I was growing up.
 
My mother milked our cow twice a day.  Often times, the only thing in our refrigerator would be a very large bowl of milk.  Food was either growing in the garden, in a pen, in the freezer or in jars that Mom had canned.  We didn't go to the grocery store and buy produce and such for the refrigerator.
So the milk was in the bowl for the cream to rise and then be skimmed off.  When we had enough cream, it was time to make butter.  We had a glass hand cranked churn.  That thing was too slow for me to stand and crank.  Finally, Mom and I decided that the electric mixer might be the way to go.  It did work beautifully and more importantly, quickly.

I have this fantasy of making butter with goat milk and using this mold.  I realize that goat's milk is homogenized so it will be harder to separate the cream and milk.  I watched a video on the internet that showed how to do this. So it does seem possible to do this.  

BS believes Dottie Belle enjoys the chase.

Right now I need one pregnant goat.  All 3 of my does went into heat this month, so there will be no May kids; therefore no milk or butter.  Little 4 month old Billy Shakespeare seems to be a kid prodigy in the mating department.  He is just too short.  But he is growing everyday.  I'm only putting Dottie Belle in the pen with him.  I want only 1 goat to kid at a time.

A Visit With the Grands to the Red River National Wildlife Refuge

I have to admit it; I was not looking forward to having all 3 grandchildren today.  The schools were closed for MLK day, but their mother had the choice of going to work or taking the day off.  I told her if she wanted to stay home, that I could keep Kennedy Thursday.  She normally works Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  I love spending time with them, but a cold rainy January day stuck in the house with 3 children who are so different in age is not a good arrangement.  So last night she decided she would go to work.  The Wildlife Refuge just opened a fabulous visitors center last week and the weather was predicted to be 75 degrees with a good chance of rain.  So I crossed my fingers that the rain would hold off for a trip to the refuge.  It was very overcast but warm.  The grands were a joy to be with and I think they learned something also.

There was a huge alligator gar.

First we viewed the exhibits.  They are excellent.

We found deer footprints on our hike.

All ages enjoyed the hike on the levee.

Though the sky 

was darkened with clouds, 

they held back the raindrops

until our adventure was over.

My Farm Name is Official

This one has the best logo.

About 6 months ago, I joined the ADGA.  Then I realized that wasn't the association that I meant to join, because all the shows around my area are sponsored by the NDGA. I have such a terrible handicap when using initials. My brain mixes up the order of the letters. Oh well, my goats will be double registered. So just before Christmas, I completed the on-line application to join the Nigerian Dwarf Goat Association and get a farm name and tattoo for the goats. I received my membership packet in the mail yesterday.  I had to enter 3 possible names for my farm.  The one I wanted was Thornhill Acre, after the name of the street I live on.  I got that, so now my blog is Charlotte's Menagerie and my little goat farm is Thornhill Acre.   To have an official certificate for my mini urban farm is fun.

Friday the 13th

Well, it's not over yet, but it's been a good day for me.  I slept very late.  I was determined to stay under the warm covers until well after the 24 degrees was a thing of the past.  About one o'clock I ventured out to the grocery store.  It had not crossed my mind that it was Friday the 13th.  I bought a buggy full.  As the fellow was pushing my buggy out the door, the ground beef that I bought to make chili, fell out and he ran over it with the buggy.  He was quite upset and started listing all the unlucky things that had happened to him today.  He had quite a list. He asked where my car was and for the keys and asked me if I would run back in and get another package. As he handed me the ripped package, I said, "Is it okay for me to just run in and get another pack?"  He said, "Oh sure."  But he looked in a bag and gave me the receipt just in case.  I could just see my bad luck of being accused of stealing hamburger.  Anyway, I went behind the meat counter and handed the lady the damaged pack and got another one.  But as I was walking straight out the door with the new pack, I was quite anxious about being stopped.  Good thing I was quick, because he was still upset and was having trouble figuring out how to open the back door of my truck.  He said he was going home as soon as he finished with me.  He really believed that his day was jinxed.

Useful Gifts

Along with some very nice Christmas presents, I received two gifts that I requested. Both are to make things better for my 4 Nigerian Dwarf goats.  I've already blogged about the aluminum milking stand we ordered from http://www.birchridgefarm.com/goatstands.html.  I got the silly idea of opening it at the end of our Christmas gift exchange and confusing 5 year old Connor by saying that it was for him so his mother could trim his toenails.  Well, here is the video.. 

Honey Bunny getting her first pedi on the new milk stand.

 Then the next item I asked for was a hay manger.  I gave my son-in-law, Trinity, 3 pictures of hay feeders I found on the internet and told him to take the best features of each.  Wow, did he do a great job.  Here's the video of them wheeling it down the street from their house to mine.

They kept it a secret, so I was not videoing this.

The top opens and it will hold a bale of hay.

The girls and I have really enjoyed it.  Even Kennedy has tried it out.  I just hope her mother doesn't see her little LSU tiger eating goat pellets.