What about our goats?

You may be wondering what a Nigerian Dwarf goat is, what does it look like? Well, Nigerian Dwarfs are a small breed of goat, a dwarf, that is sometimes used as a meat goat, but predominately used as a milk goat. They are gentle and curious and can have brown or blue eyes and many different colors. Our goats are all disbudded, meaning we removed the horns. The horns really present a danger when living in a fenced pasture because they stick their heads through the fencing to reach food, and if they had horns they would get stuck.

As you see, goats enjoy standing on things, and being as high off the ground as possible. This picture is of some of our girls. Right now we have six girls and five boys, but only one of the boys is a buck, the others are called wethers. This middle picture is of the boys.

Last summer we had six babies born on the farm and we milked two goats. First we milked by hand, then we bought a hand milker, called a Maggiedan, which worked great and we got about 2-3 pints of milk a day. Let me tell you, fresh goat milk is the best!

Hello from Belarus. I am well. I believe I will be able to do an update later today with pictures. I am at the American Belarussian Relief Organization building and they have internet here, but no USB, at least at this computer, to upload pictures. There is a lot of snow and wind. The two families that I am staying with do not have internet, and I dont think they want me wandering the streets.

Sleepy Pigs

I went to the barn this morning to feed the pigs, and they were asleep! They were all snuggled together lying in the sunshine. They quickly jumped to their feet when they heard the sound of the feed bucket.

At Dulles Airport

We are hanging out at the airport. Tony and I have been conducting business for one last day - Me with my laptop and Tony with his phone. I am certainly the cooler, more modern traveler. Oh, and I am blogging! And Tony's phone is a bag phone. They tried to make him check it at the ticket counter.

Leaving For Belarus

This morning Jeff left for a two week trip to Belarus. Our friend Tony Morales and his son Evan are also going. They are going with the American Belarus Relief Organization (ABRO). This is an organization that brings children from Belarus to the US each summer to give their immune system time to rest and recovery from the effects of radiation still present in Belarus from the Chernobyl accident in the mid-nineteen eighties. We had a young girl named Angelina stay with us last summer, and Jeff will be staying with her grandparents during his stay in the town of Mogilov.



The weather will be a chilly 0-20 degrees with snow each day.

Jeff hopes to upload pictures and stories of his travels while there, so check back to see what he's been up to.

Pigs!

We have just purchased three hogs. They are going to end up in the freezer next fall. The kids named them Adain, Dobro, and Rhino. Adain is the pink one, Dobro is the black one, and Rhino is the red one.

Some of our animals

We have three gaited horses, a Paso Fino named Cordaro, and Two Tennessee Walkers, Spirit and Nugget. Spirit is big 16.3 hands high (hh), Cord is small 14 (hh) and Nugget is in between.

Picture 1 is Maria on Cord and Leah on Spirit, and 2 is Helena's Nugget.

First Snow of Winter 2009

Last night, December 18th we had a snow storm pass over the southeast. We got about six or eight inches of snow, with some sleet mixed in to add some crunch.

Our Farm

We are a small hobby farm in NC. This blog is mainly just for fun, and to show pictures of our animals.



I will tell you all what we have. We have 10 goats, around 20 chickens, ( We have a couple different breed's. ) 3 horses, 12 pet fish, 2 cats, 1 dog, and 1 duck. Pictures will be coming soon of all the animals. The Goats are Nigerian Dwarf's and we milk a couple of them. The milk is VERY good. The chickens are all multipurpose, (except for the bantam rooster) and the eggs and meat are good.