One Maid a'Milking

I don't often post about our little farm life because there's really not much change over the course of weeks.  Sure, baby animals are cute and they tend to start coming about this time of year, but we don't have very many animals.

But today, things were just a little different.  This red mamma goat lost her kid a couple of days ago.  With no baby to empty her bag, she was miserable, so we decided to help her.  Richard held her and Jolie milked her.  We have another baby goat whose mamma is not able to provide enough milk, so we're hoping that we can convince her to nurse on both females.

While we were outdoors, I thought I'd take a few pictures and update you on the state of affairs at the Marcotte farm.  This video shows Jolie milking the goat for the first time.  In fact, it's her first time milking anything.  She was a bit timid at first, but as you can see, she got over that fairly quickly.

Meet Chanticleer.  I'm really the only one who calls him that, but he surely meets the description.  Yes, his tail feathers drag on the ground.  The brown feathers over his wings don't reach the ground, but it's pretty close.

The baby goat that Jolie tried to convince to nurse on the brown mamma.

This lamb is Kevin.  I have no idea why she has that name.  I'd have called her Coon because of the black rings around her eyes, but apparently I don't get to name the new babies.

Since all the animals (except the mean ones) are free to roam the pasture, it's difficult to get a picture of just one at a time.  Here is a video showing Jolie catching the baby goat and trying to get it to nurse.

I don't know the miniature horse's name.  We have two and this is the female that joined our menagerie just a few weeks ago.

One of the hens decided that a feed sack would make a good nest. She hasn't begun setting yet, and I don't know whether she will, but since we don't know how old the eggs are, we're leaving them for her to decide what she will do.

And that's our farm at this point in time.  Who knows what will change in the next day or week or month.  Richard sort of does his thing and I just check in from time to time, so I never really know what's happening.  I drop in to see the new babies playing, or sometimes to pick eggs, maybe just to walk around and chat with Rich.  For the most part I find out about things when Rich tells 
me--just the setup for me!