Still Working on Getting into the Christmas Spirit...

I had planned on getting my Christmas tree up this weekend, but that never happened.  The tree is sitting on the porch (in it's box) and that is as far as I got.  It's on my list for this week for sure.  I hope.

It really doesn't help that we're having 70 degree weather here lately.  I shouldn't complain, I know, but it's very un-holiday-ish.

Here's a few more silly holiday animal pics from the archives.  Maybe this will do the trick:

Santa Sassy:

Reindeer Phoenix:

(Angel was always lurking in the background - miss that girl).

Heck, even Gerty is getting into the holiday spirit.

Or not.  She looks like she is saying "bah humbug!".

OK, we'll work on this holiday spirit thing.  Any suggestions?

How do you top a pig post?

I'm having a hard time this week trying to think of something to top my weekend piggy posts. That little porker was pretty darn popular!

I finally decided that it's not about popularity, anyway. I went outside this morning with camera in hand, looking for something blog worthy, and here were these two... "Hi mom! What's for breakfast?"
By the way, Valentine has been behaving herself much better lately. She has yet to tear down the new goat house, so that is a plus. Gerty has thankfully recovered from the dog attack back in February with no problems. Both are fat and happy as, well,.... pigs.

Life is good when you are a goat around this place (or any other animal for that matter).

New Goat House

Rather than spend all day on Saturday building a new house for Valentine and Gerty, I found a used shed for sale on Craigslist (and for a fraction of what the materials would have cost us to build one ourselves).

Not the most attractive looking thing...But a coat of paint does wonders! I had red paint left over from painting the chicken coop and bunny casa (wouldn't want our animals' houses not to match...)

We did have to reinforce the house with plywood on the inside "just in case" you-know-who decided to test the walls out...

So far, the house is still standing. Hopefully, it will stay that way. You never know, though, she looks like she is plotting away.

Stay tuned ...

Gerty Update

Gerty is much improved this week. Her wounds are healing and she is getting up and down better and even trotting over to her feeder in the mornings. (In case you missed the post about what happened, you can read about it here)

You can see the areas on her side where they shaved her...the worst of the wounds is on her rear end where they stitched her up. Poor girl! We have to give her twice daily shots of penicillen for another week. She has decided she is not very fond of them and so now we have a twice daily rodeo... Lee holds her against the fence while she tries to drag him around the pen and I take aim with the needle and hope we get it done in 8 seconds. Ha! Seriously though, she is starting to run when she sees me, so I've been bribing her before and after with sweet feed.

"What is that you have behind your back????"

We did find the owner of at least one of the dogs. We made a report with Animal Control and they are supposed to be handling it from here. Hopefully that owner will be held responsible for our vet bill. They should be, but sometimes things just don't work out like they should... I am just glad that Gerty is healing up and that she is still with us! It could have turned out much worse...

Gerty

We had a bad scare Tuesday night. Gerty, our sweet nubian goat, was attacked by 2 stray dogs in her pen around 11pm. Apparently they squeezed under the very bottom of the panels. Valentine, her goat buddy, jumped out of the pen and went in with the horses and wasn't hurt. Lee ran out and chased the dogs out and then came in and woke me up to help him. Poor Gerty, she is doing fairly well now, but her whole left side and rear end are pretty ripped up. We immediately put her in the trailer and headed off to the vet and didn't get home until 3am. This is Gerty, sharing hay with Sassy... And again, with Valentine, sharing hay with Bandit...

I just spent half the morning securing the fence, but we are still concerned these dogs could come back. We have never had problems with dogs or even coyotes trying to get the goats. I'm pretty upset about the whole thing. Mainly, that whoever owns these dogs would just let them run loose. It's hard to blame the dogs. I hope we are able to find the owners. Gerty is probably the sweetest goat ever and for this to happen is just really sad. I'm just glad that she wasn't hurt worse than she was....

Valentine and Gerty

I've posted lots about the bunnies and the horses, but haven't featured our goats yet.

This is Valentine. She is an alpine. We adopted her as a buddy for our first goat, Gerty (below). We take them with us when we go riding and they trot right along between the horses.

Valentine is the more mischievous of the two...she has learned how to climb over their fence and yesterday ended up on our patio, looking in the front door...

And here is Gerty. She is a nigerian. Definitely the sweeter of the two (although we love them both!). Their personalities are night and day different. Valentine is curious and brave and likes to escape their pen and explore, while Gerty is meek and content to stay within the safety of their fence.

Goats really do have more personality than you'd think!