We Have New Kids!

Born on Friday, June 14, 2013 at 6:30 and 6:40. The first born is a Doeling and she is naturally polled (no horns) like her Mother. The second born is a Buckling and we aren't sure yet about whether he will have horns or not. I really hope he doesn't because I hate disbudding, but we will have to wait and see.

Here are some pictures that I took of Hazel kidding, so if you are squeamish about this sort of thing turn back now or just close your eyes.

 Hazel needed a little help with the clean up process and Angel needed to make sure everything was alright and that anything that might draw in predators was cleaned up. She also needed some bonding time with her new charges.

The Doeling has erect ears like her Saanen Daddy.

The Buckling has floppy ears like Mom.

48 Degrees

Cool enough for a sweatshirt this morning while I milk. Now if I can just find those sweatshirts.

Calico has fallen into a great milking routine. She is giving more milk now than she has in past years. She has fully recovered after having mastitis in late June. It was my first experience with mastitis. It was my first experience with a single kid, she had always had twins before. He was getting enough milk from just one side and was not nursing the other side. I was milking her once per day but I guess I should have been milking her twice per day. 

Collette is due to kid on September 8th, so we are getting close. I don’t think that I have to worry about a single with her unless something goes wrong. She is surely carrying multiples, not sure how many. She had Triplets her first kidding but I didn’t see her before she kidded so I don’t know how big she got. I need to get some pictures of her now for future reference.

A Kid Is Born

Calico was due on Saturday the 15th. So, she kidded on Saturday the 15th. Goats are very reliable like that, if you see them bred and write down the breeding date.

After waiting for 5 months for the blessed event, I missed it. I never go anywhere but did go to a graduation ceremony on Saturday evening. When I got home and walked into the barn, I heard a little "maa".

My DH was standing there and I started asking questions; Yes, it is a buckling, No, she didn't have any problems but he did assist her, No, he hadn't stood up yet and he hadn't nursed yet.

We then waited for her to lay back down and have the second kid. She never did! This is a first for me, all of my goats have always had twins. I have never had a single before. I am not complaining, this means that I will have milk much sooner than I expected. There is no way that he will be able to drink all of that milk.

I had to milk her Saturday night and then again last night. Today she has really come into her milk and she will probably have to be milked twice today. The bad thing is that my Husband just bought a gallon of milk. Her milk won't be good to drink just yet but it should be good in a few days. The dogs and chickens will be happy until then.

His Mother lost him and started yelling for him, he wouldn't answer. I finally went out to see what all of the noise was about and I couldn't find him either. He had safely hidden himself inside the hay feeder and his Mother and Aunt Collette had eaten over the top of him and covered him up with hay. I moved the hay back and found him. Now he keeps getting in there and his Mother can't figure out where he is and starts yelling again. Who said Goats are smart?

The Answer Has Come...

For those who read my blog regularly, you know that Collette has been driving me crazy. I have posted about her several times. I finally asked for opinions on March 18th. You can see the pictures of her in that post: Doe Opinions Please.

The answer came last night. She hadn't been eating well for the last couple of days. When I started to bring her to the barn for the night, I noticed that she looked like someone had deflated her somewhat. I thought at first maybe she had just dropped but on closer inspection, she just looked a little thinner.

I tied Calico at her feeding station and put Collette in the stall with her grain and she wouldn't touch it. She just stood there and cried. I waited for awhile and kept an eye on her. She doesn't like to be separated from Calico but she is used to it at feeding time.

I commented to my DH that she just might be in heat. I finally went out and put a lead rope on her and opened the gate to see where she wanted to go. She drug me towards Rancid instead of going the opposite direction towards Calico. When we arrived at Rancid's pen, he didn't act that interested at first because she has put him in his place too many times. I decided after watching and waiting for awhile that she would stand for him.

I took her back to her stall and asked my Husband to bring Rancid to the barn. We put them together in the stall and we discovered that she will kid on September 9th, 2010.

More Eggs, No Milk

It is Spring Break for some of our Grand-kids, so they have been taking turns staying overnight at Papaw and Mamaw's house. I have walked several miles with them around the farm and Papaw has walked several miles with them on Mr. Shorty. Poor Mr. Shorty has earned his keep this week.

Our hens are finally laying a decent amount of eggs. We are getting anywhere from 4 to 9 eggs a day. Then occasionally my DH goes into the loft and finds a nest, that makes our egg production number jump.

We haven't milked Calico for a week or so and she is about all dried up. Collette is still being Collette and I am still unsure of what is going on with her. Our neighbor and fellow goat herder said that she had a goat deliver a kid the other day without any signs at all. She thought that she was a long way from kidding. She had no udder, no puffiness or swelling. Goats are all different and they are always planning new ways of fooling you.

I was planning on selling my Buck as soon as both does kidded this Spring but now I will probably have to keep him until fall. Once I get both does in milk, I am going to keep milking them as long as they will produce milk or until I get tired of milking. No more breeding and kidding unless I get lonely for some new kids.

Doe Opinions Please

The picture below was taken September 24, 2009, nearly 6 months ago.


These two pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago.



This picture was taken a couple of days ago.


Is she bred or just fat? I thought she was bred 6 months ago and stopped milking her, so I have lost confidence in myself. I thought I felt movement months ago, her ligs feel loose but she has no udder or changes in her udder, no swelling or puffiness on her tail end. If she is bred, it was an oops breeding because the Buck got in with her. I know he was with her in December but I thought she was already bred at that time.

Running Low On Milk

Calico's milk production has fallen 50% in the last six or seven days. She is just drying up on her own like she did last year. My plan was to dry her off in a couple of weeks but she got the jump on me.

I thought that I would look back through my blog to find out when she started weaning me last year because I remembered blogging about it. The date of that blog was March 2nd. She is very consistent, isn't she?

She was due on May 10th last year and she kidded on May 11th. She is due on May 15th this year, so she is on schedule. I am just not ready to give up the milk right now. This is going to mean having to drink store bought, watered down cow's milk.

I was hoping that Collette would have already kidded by now and I would be getting close to being able to steal a little milk from her babies but I am about to give up on her.

I have no idea when she is due and the experts who have looked at her have been wrong too. Maybe she is just really fat. She keeps getting bigger and is starting to lay around more. I need to turn both of them outside for some sun and exercise as soon as possible. Saturday is suppose to be sunny and 52 degrees.

Collette 2010

Yes, I have accepted the fact that Collette is indeed expecting kids who were fathered by Rancid. Let me be perfectly clear on this matter, it was neither planned or authorized by me. I have no idea when the blessed event will take place and she is not being very forthcoming about it. But here for the perfecting of your prognosticating talent, are her official portraits.

The Sun Has Arrived

The Snow has stopped and the Winds have ceased. The Sun is shining at our house and all is well. Our driveway only has one serious drift and it is only a couple of feed deep. We plowed through it with no problems yesterday going in and out of our drive.

My DH on his mail route enjoyed busting through deep snow drifts to deliver the mail yesterday. Unfortunately, the drifts ended up in the back seat. He learned his lesson, you don't plow through drifts at high speeds with your window down.

Collette looks so close to kidding but still no changes in her udder. It is suppose to get down to 6 degrees tonight, so that means 0 or -1 for us. I hope she holds off until much warmer weather.

On the lighter side; I wore some new cologne to Church last night and when my DH got in the Truck with me he asked, "Do you smell Diesel?".

How about some pictures?

Our new $300 hay feeder.

Going to Roost!

The beginnings of a storm.

Winter Storm Watch

Thanks to those who were concerned about me. December and January were not great months. December was lean in the pocketbook for us, plus I had the flu during the first part of the month then my DH got pretty sick towards the last part. I spent a couple of weeks on the couch with a pinched nerve in my back around the first of January. I think that I have had a little of the winter blues. Nothing much to write about and I just haven't been inspired.

However, I feel a little inspired today. As I sit here waiting on the big winter storm that is about to engulf Indiana tonight and tomorrow, I was thinking of Spring. Our groundhogs did not see their shadows and Spring is only a few snowstorms away. I know this because my hens have gotten back on their nests and gone to work this week. After months of one egg per day. We got two eggs, then six eggs, then zero eggs, then four eggs, then one egg. I can't wait to see how many eggs we get this evening.

The actual truth is that I had read somewhere that giving your hens Cayenne Pepper would make them start laying. I tried it and about three days later got six eggs. So, yesterday I fixed them up with some leftovers drowning in Cayenne Pepper. I will let you know how it goes.

Collette is huge but I don't think that she will have triplet doelings again this year. I think that she will probably have twin spotted doelings. I still have no idea when she will kid, but I do know now that the father is my black spotted young buck, Rancid. I didn't think he was tall enough or even knew what he was doing but where there is a will there is a way. He doesn't even stink yet!

I check Collette everyday when I milk Calico. She is getting ready to kid, losing her ligaments and has that dropped look, hollowing out in the flanks, carrying low. Still no udder to speak of though. She is waiting for just the right snow or ice storm or just the right sub-zero temperature.

My plans for the rest of today are to get prepared for a winter storm. I need to find a way to store some water. If our electricity goes out we have no water because we have a well with a pump. We do have a nice spring in case of emergencies but it is easier to store some from the well than hauling it to the house from the spring.

We do have heat from a ventless gas heater that provides our heat during the cold months. We do not have lights or a way to cook unless we run our generator. I miss having a woodstove because you always have heat and a way to cook. I suppose we could always build a campfire outside to cook on, I am a pretty good campfire cook.

Where To Begin?

I know that I haven't posted in a long while. But we are fine, I have just had a few health problems, a death in the family, a lot of halter orders to finish and get shipped and too much to do around the farm. I had promised to blog on Sunday night before going to bed but all of my plans were foiled again.

We were getting ready to leave the house for several hours on Sunday evening and I asked my DH if he thought that I should put Paris in the barn stall while we were gone. She was in the goat shed and had not come out when I fed grain to the others. But we had changed feed and she didn't like it anyway so I thought that was the problem. My DH said that I should put her up but that he had looked at her and he was sure that she wouldn't be kidding anytime soon.

Sunday was her due date but after I evaluated her, I didn't think that she was ready either. Her udder was not full or tight and she was not dilated at all.

I went into the house to clean up and change my clothes and was ready to leave when I heard the water pump running, I asked the DH if he had left the water running outside and he said, yes, so I put my shoes on and went out to turn the hydrant off.

I opened the door and immediately heard the sound of a doe in labor. I could see her from the door and she was pushing hard. I turned around and said, "She is kidding!". He said,"You're kidding?" and I said, "NO, she is kidding!". He ran outside and I ran for towels.

Nothing happened, she was in terrible hard labor but nothing was happening. My DH asked me for gloves and I came in to get them, then came back in and changed into my dirty clothes again. When I got back outside, still no bubble. He tried to open her up to see inside and we could see the bubble but she just was not dilated enough.

We gave her as much time as possible without waiting too long and then he went back in to assist the bubble without breaking it. His hand made her contractions harder and that helped more than anything.

After the bubble was out, still no feet, so we waited awhile then he went back in and found the feet and started pulling. The nose came out with the feet, so we knew we were in the right position. He pulled and she screamed with each contraction.

I tried to push back on the skin to work the babies head out but I could feel the head and it was enormous, I was afraid that it was a single and it was just too big. After a lot of pulling and working her big head popped out and when it did her whole body came out too.

He handed the white with brown headed doeling to me and I slung her around a little bit and really didn't expect her to be alive but she was. We wiped her mouth and nose area. Mama didn't get up and so we put a towel down at her head and since it was a hot day and Paris is a first freshener, we let her clean the rest of her up.

We waited and waited and nothing else happened, we were sure that there was at least one more in there. Finally my DH put his hand in again to start more contractions and she popped out a very tiny, black with brown points buckling.

Paris cleaned him all up and still just laid there. The kidlings were wanting to nurse but she would not get up. My Husband finally helped her get to her feet and from there on everything has been perfect. She passed both of her afterbirths and I let her eat them. She is a very good mommy.

We learned a valuable lesson, goats usually give birth on their due date whether they look ready or not.

More later...

Calico Kidded

It turns out that Amy over at Twelve Acres was right on target with her guess of large twins for Calico, hopefully she is right on Paris as well. She didn't guess the sex or color of the babies though.

Calico went into labor at 9:00 last night. It seemed to take her forever compared to the way her mother always kidded. We missed Calico kidding last year, so I didn't know what to expect. She didn't seem to be in any distress at all and was quite calm and relaxed about the whole thing. By 9:30 she had the first big buckling, he is brownish with no spots. She took her sweet time cleaning him up.

After she was convinced that she couldn't do anymore to make the first kid any more comfortable, she started on having the second kid. He was a little larger than the first and a buckling also. I am not sure of his color, neither has spots like their daddy.

Since it was dark and they were still damp last night, I haven't gotten a good look at them or good pictures. This morning they are all curled up together in a tight little ball with hay on top of them where their mommy has been eating.

At first I thought that they were identical but the second one is darker than the first.

How Many?

So how many do you think that they are going to have, what gender and if you are real brave, what color? Calico is the dark one who is due today and Paris is the mostly white one who is due on the 31st.

All was peaceful and quiet until someone called the other one fat, then a fight broke out. It must be hormones.

General Update

Spring is a busy time for us even when we aren't having any foals. It seems like I don't have much time to blog anymore. I have taken on the new responsibility of Collette and her three doelings. I separated them for the first time last night. My plan was to try to milk her this morning but since the milk stand wasn't ready, I decided to work on that today and try to milk her in the morning.

I fed and watered the doelings and then took some pictures of Collette's strutted udder in case anyone who might be interested in her wants to see it. It is a little lob-sided with the left side being larger than the right but she has a lot of milk. With the three kids nursing her I had no idea what her udder looked like when it was full.

I put her back in with her babies after I took the pictures and they were happy to see her. This is the first step in the weaning process, spending the night apart. Hopefully she won't give me too much trouble in the morning when I try to milk her. I will post the results tomorrow.

Angus is doing great and eating us out of house and home. He is dying for a playmate and tries to play with the doelings, that doesn't work very well, when Collette tries to fend him off they get into a head pushing competition that he always wins. We have to keep a close eye on them.

I still do not have any broody hens and I don't understand it. Last year they all wanted to go broody and this year no one does.

Calico is due on Sunday, Mother's Day. I have her and Paris in the foaling stall right outside our door, I put them in there for the first time last night. She is getting very close by the looks of her. Her udder isn't strutted tight yet but is getting very full, she is very indignant when I touch it. She thinks that I am going to milk her and she knows that just wouldn't be right. I have to touch it quickly to check it because she anticipates my move and out maneuvers me.

Paris is definitely bred also. I don't think that I have posted that my doubts about her have been erased. She isn't as big as Calico but she is big and is in the process of making an udder. She is due on the May 31st.

I have a ton of work that is going to have to be done. Cooter destroyed my dog kennel, that is where I usually separate the kids at weaning time. I have repaired it before and it is a big job. We need to get a bottom strand of wire put up around the goat lot so that the babies don't just walk under it like Angel does.

Sky, our new filly is growing more beautiful everyday. It has been raining so much that I haven't been able to get out there and play with her and take pictures.

I am not complaining about the rain because rain brings grass and our pastures need grass right now for the amount of horses that we have. Of course, the yard looks awful and since our miniature horse, Mr. Shorty has already foundered once this Spring, he has lost his job as our official lawn mower.

Trouble, our Cushings Disease mare, hasn't shown any signs of improvement. I started her on the Chaste Tree Berry Powder on April 24th, so it has been two weeks today. Maybe I am being too impatient. The article said that we should start seeing results in three weeks, so I'll try not to be discouraged yet. The first result is that you will notice they are drinking less water, but she is sharing a big water tank with our large herd, so there is no way for us to notice a difference. Her long curly hair is still hanging on for dear life. We plan to shave her as soon as we get a decent day.

Due Dates

Everyone is having babies and I am getting a little jealous. At this time last year We already had one set of twin kids and a set of twin foals. I checked my due dates again just to make sure I was clear on when to expect some action and was surprised to find out that somehow I had my dates mixed up on when Calico got loose with Cooter.

After referring back in my blog archives, I realized that she got out with him in December instead of November. So her due date is May 10th instead of April 10th. Now that is even more disappointing. She is getting so big that I fear she might have triplets.

I checked our mare's foaling dates also and it looks like Jetta will be the first to foal. She is due on May 4th and is huge.

This is Dandee last year on the day before she foaled twins on her actual due date.

And this is Jetta last week. This picture really doesn't show how big she really is. But she sure looks bigger than Dandee did to me. She also looks like she is going to foal earlier than her foal date. Her hips are already hollowed out and her tailbone is pronounced. She isn't strutted yet but has a good start on a full udder.

The possibility of having another set of twins after having twin foals last year is nearly impossible to imagine and it is scaring me to death. My DH says not to worry that when the first one is born he will know whether it is a twin or not by its size and will try to get the next one out as quickly as possible, to avoid the problems of last year.

If this is a single foal, I am afraid that it will be a very large foal and that could also cause problems. Below is another picture of Jetta after we cleaned her up today.

For those who have goats and want to calculate due dates, if you will look at the bottom of the side bar on this page you will find a Goat Gestation or a Doe Due Date Calculator. All you have to do is put the last date your doe was bred in the first text box then click the Calculate button for the due date to appear.

Drying Calico

I have not quit blogging, I have just pushed it back a little ways in my list of priorities. It seems life is getting a little bit more involved with the prospect of Spring. I have had to organize my thoughts and figure out just when these two does are due. I have been struggling with a very sore shoulder and arm plus I had to spend two weeks at the neighbor's house taking care of their animals and wood stove.

My shoulder is improving and I hope that I can get all of my goat and horse rope halter orders completed and shipped out this week. The reason that I had to stop everything and look at my calendar was because Calico's milk production has cut itself in half. It happened overnight, she has just decided to quit producing. She is not even wanting to jump up on the milk stand. She is healthy and doesn't have any problems with her utter.

I looked at the calendar where I write down everything and found that Cooter had gotten loose and with the girls on October 10th. So, that would make her due on March 9th. I don't really think that she could be due that early by the looks of her but if she is carrying a single it could be possible. She got loose on November 11th, which would make her due on April 10th, I think that this is more of a possibility.

Paris and Calico both look bred and neither has come in heat this year, so I guess I will just have to wait and see. If I dry Calico off right now and she isn't pregnant, she is in big trouble. To dry her off I am not milking her completely out and am only milking her when she looks very strutted.

We will desperately miss the milk, I don't think that I can drink store bought milk anymore. The best case scenario would be for her to kid soon with only a single.

In a Fog

Not only is this the most stressful time of year but it is also the time of year that I chose to get sick. Stuffy, foggy, watery eyes, runny nose, headache, can't sleep and grumpy. I woke up like this yesterday morning, then was fine during the day but as soon as night approached it all came back. I went to bed at 8:30 after taking two NyQuil Sinus liquicaps, slept well until around 1:00 am, then tossed and turned, couldn't breath. I am hoping it will pass when the sun comes up.

I would like to be down and depressed, everyone I know has high speed internet, they tell me all the things that they can do online. I continue to sit here in this seat, click on a link and wait and wait and wait. I have no control over that though, nothing that we can afford comes to our area, nothing comes to our area period. Our only option is Satellite and it is too pricey and too unreliable.

I also need a new computer, this one is on it's last legs. I need a new camera, we need to sell horses (our constant money drain), my DH needs a permanent job, we need a house. I need some socks.

We were reading a local article online the other night about a 6 yr. old girl who told someone that she didn't believe in Santa Claus because he had never brought her anything for Christmas. Of course, the person that she told this to went out and bought her a bunch of stuff. We laughed about it because my 5 yr. old Granddaughter had recently told me the very same thing. My Son commented that Santa had never brought him anything either. I said that in all of my 50 years, Santa Claus had never brought me anything, people sure are gullible

Then there were my plans of milking Calico all winter and having Paris kid in the spring, then start milking her after her babies are weaned and breed Calico to kid in the fall.

A perfect plan, except that Calico is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and is able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. She got out of her barn stall, somehow got out of the barn and lured Cooter through his electric fence. I found them together happily eating what was left of my little pine tree in the yard.

Like I said, I would like to be down and depressed but I am reading "The Last Full Measure" by Jeff Shaara and reading about what those men went through during the Civil War makes it a little hard to feel sorry for yourself.

Just Confused

Others that I know who have goats know exactly when their does are in heat. I have always had trouble with this. It seems that my does do not show obvious signs. I turned Cooter in with five does last winter and when spring rolled around I only had three does who looked bred, the other two were questionable. Two of the does had twins and the other was carrying triplets when I lost her and all three babies.

The other two does never produced any kids and I never seen them show signs of heat. I also never seen Cooter breed any of them. After the babies were all born and I was ready to put their mothers back into the goat lot, I took Cooter to the pen up the hill. Then tied him out every day to eat grass and weeds.

One day in October, Collette who was always a trouble maker and tried to be the herd Queen started acting submissive and quiet. She also showed an interest in going to visit Cooter, so we took her and she stood quietly while he bred her. I sold her not long afterward and also sold Cinder as a doe in milk. I was milking Calico at the time so I kept her in the barn stall and put Cooter back in with Paris.

So, this is where we are today, Paris looks bred but I have been fooled before. On Saturday, she had a long string of goo and so I thought that she must have gotten out sometime this summer while I had Cooter tied out eating grass and went to visit him.

When I seen the goo, I assumed that she was getting ready to kid, so I put her in the barn stall with Calico. She doesn't have any sign of an udder but that is not too unusual. On Sunday morning she had blood all over her tail. But she didn't act strange other than she was crying continually and wanting to go back to Cooter.

Yesterday she had more fresh blood and today she doesn't seem to have any new blood. I have asked the powers that be if this could be a heat cycle and have gotten conflicting reports, some think that she is getting ready to kid in the next few weeks and some think that it is just a weird heat. She has quit crying now and acts fine, her temperature has been normal through all of this, so I am just stumped and don't know what to expect.

If you have wondered why I haven't been blogging lately this is part of the reason, along with a new Grandson, who is just too handsome. Also there have been Christmas programs to go to and the usual fun things to do around the farm this time of year, like breaking ice and carrying water. I have also been trying to do some Christmas shopping and catching up on my rope halter orders.

Morning Workout

I do need to lose weight and had my DH mow me a path around the lower pasture, so that I can walk everyday. I have walked it twice since he mowed it several days ago. I have good intentions though.

This morning I got more workout than I bargained for. I was still in bed when I heard the sound of horse hooves running around the barn/house, with a groan I got up and got dressed. This only happens when my DH is at work. When I finally got outside there were five horses out, Seville, Buddy, Cougar, Naylor and Darth. They weren't too hard to put up but then I had to find the hole in the fence and fix it.

The fence was down in the upper pasture at the farthest end. I got all of the fence back up and then followed the electric wire all the way back around the top field. I figured that there would be a break in it and there was. So I fixed the break and started back to the house.

When I came past the goat lot, I decided to lower one corner of the wire. I had been working on electric fence all morning, so I didn't think about it being hot. I had unhooked the gate at the top of the hill so that fence would not be hot, but now I was in the valley and I just wasn't thinking. I grabbed the t-post and started trying to unhook the insulator, my memory was completely restored when the jolt came. I hate it when that happens, I feel so stupid.

I also gave in to convenience today. Right in the middle of the horses all running around in the yard, I noticed that Paris, my yearling doe had gone through two electric fences in order to get to Cooter. She was trying her best to scale his woven wire fence. A goat friend of mine kept asking me if I was afraid that Cooter would get loose and go to the does if they came in heat. I told her that I was more afraid that the does would go to him and I was right.

I gave it some thought, then made a quick decision that it would just be easier to put Cooter in the goat lot with Paris and Colette and put Calico in the barn stall. It would make milking so much easier for me and make feeding so much easier for me. But right now I am wondering if I made the right decision because Calico is right outside my living room door and she is screaming her head off. She doesn't want to be alone.

I tried putting Angel in with her and that helped but I can't leave Angel in there all of the time, she would go nuts. Hopefully Calico will adjust or lose her voice before long. This all means that my two does will be kidding in the middle of March while it is still cold and snowy. That should make some interesting blogs.

No Turning Back

Well I made a decision yesterday and there is no turning back. I wanted to wait until December to breed Collette and Paris but Collette was obviously ready yesterday and so we put her with Cooter. The timing was perfect because she stood for him and he got the job done. If she conceives, she will be kidding in mid-March. I would like to have Paris kidding in mid-April. So I will put her in with him next month.

I plan to milk Calico all winter then breed her in the Spring. Putting Collette in with Cooter has also solved my wondering goats issue. Paris and Calico have not gotten out of the fence since Collette has not been there to lead them.

Angel and Abby have finally become friends, they were just tolerating each other but they are finally starting to play together. Abby is just a little more playful than Angel, you would think that she was the youngest.

We enjoyed another nice night under the full moon last night. My DH built a fire under the big Maple tree where our Grandchildren love to play. It is right next to the goat lot. The Grandkids have gathered sticks there for a couple of years and they are always going to the stick pile to play. Their mean old Papaw burnt all of their sticks last night. I told him that he was going to be in some serious big trouble.

The reason that he was burning the kid's stick pile was that we had bought new fence and was going to enlarge the lot to include the big Maple. But while burning the pile and sitting there watching the fire. We decided that losing their favorite spot might give them issues later in life, so we are going to preserve the area and fence the tree outside the goat lot.

We are even going to add a concrete bench to the spot under the tree. The only problem that I see with our plan is that they can no longer call it "The Stick Pile". Unless they get busy and gather a bunch more sticks.