Cuzco is most definitely looking forward to the North American Packgoat Association Rendezvous this year! I was preparing to load the trailer with gear, and the moment I opened the door Cuzco jumped in and stood there with an eager look on his face that said plain as day, “I see I have a private apartment this time. Close up! I’m ready to leave immediately!”  

Seeing the picture of Ruthanne milking Petunia reminded me to post something that has been forefront in my mind for some time, and that is God’s abundance. Not just His grace or mercy or provision, but His overwhelming abundance.

Petunia will have been in milk for 52 weeks next Tuesday. We had six people in the house enjoying her milk every day for a week while Phil’s family was here. Yet this single goat who gets milked only once a day provided plenty for all with enough left over for me even to collect cream from some of the milk. In the weeks before the family arrived, Phil and I had been enjoying all the milk we could drink, plus providing milk to a local man with health problems that prevent him from tolerating most food or drink and no dairy aside from goat milk. Even with all that I had enough milk to save several tubs of cream in the freezer so that we made three batches of ice cream, a batch of whipped cream, and two batches of cream biscuits while the family was here! The skim milk from my cream collection has been going to feed my neighbor’s pigs and now an orphaned calf (supplemented with calf formula to add fat, of course).

But this is all from ONE goat! ONE goat who gets milked ONCE a day and whose udder I thought I might lose to mastitis last year. The udder healed and is completely normal and milks evenly on both sides. God does not just provide for us–He blesses us with greater abundance than we could ever have imagined or hoped for.

I finally have a moment to post photos from when Phil’s family visited us at the end of May. We had a great time and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the goats. The babies were an especially big hit, and it was obvious that our visitors were a major source of entertainment for Sledge and Hammer too.

The boys developed a particular taste for hats during this visit.

Tigerlily wasn’t so sure about all these strangers, but she was forced to put up with a lot of fussing and petting because of course everyone wanted to hold her.

Uncle Steve was especially fond of the two rascals. He spent much time sitting on a rock or laying in the meadow and letting them climb all over him like a jungle gym and nibble his hat, his shirt, his arm hair… Uncle Steve is always a big hit with kids!

Ruthanne concentrated very hard and got some milk out.

…we paid $25 cash and came home with a new best friend.

I still say it’s the best $25 we’ve ever spent. 

In all the excitement of new babies, we can’t forget the older goats!

Pac-Man is always amusing us with his rolling and scratching antics. Half the time he looks like a colicky horse the way he paws, rolls, twists, and stretches out on the ground. Today he was plowing his head into the grass.

“What? I’m gorgeous!”

Finn is also gorgeous, and he’s the first goat I’ve seen since Cuzco who is completely aware of his own looks.

Delilah lets me know what she really thinks about all this picture-taking!

And we wrap up with a picture of our two big boys grazing serenely together in a vivid green pasture. Incredibly, these two have been getting along lately. I don’t know if Cuzco is getting too tired to fight, or if he’s grooming Pac-Man to be the new herd king, or if Pac-Man has simply matured enough to be allowed into the upper echelon, but they have actually been sharing a shed recently and hanging out together more. It’s also possible that this is a strategic move on both Cuzco’s and Pac-Man’s part since it protects both of them from the more aggressive Finn. Finn is constantly harassing and challenging Pac-Man, but he’s not yet bold enough to go after Cuzco. On the other hand, I know (and Cuzco probably knows) that if Finn actually did challenge him seriously, the old fella would have a hard time winning at this point. Perhaps the big boys have formed their own alliance to keep Finn in his place a little longer.

These two guys are becoming the clowns of the herd. They’re running around like racehorses and getting into all kinds of mischief these days.

It turns out they are very appropriately named. Unlike Snickers and Sputnik, who were always pretty good little buddies, Sledge and Hammer can get into some pretty serious fights! The hackles stand up, the necks stiffen, and the next thing you know they’re churning around the yard like a tornado and smacking each other hard enough to give me a headache!

Hammer also likes to pick fights with Delilah. Ever since he “pushed” her off the rock wall, he’s under the impression that he can beat her in a fight and he keeps trying to score another victory. From the look of her ear set, Delilah appears to be taking these challenges pretty seriously!

Phil still managed to get both the boys up on his lap, but he won’t be able to do this much longer! Even one of them is starting to be quite a lapful!

Sledge and Hammer are right in the middle of that adorable but annoying jumping and chewing phase. “Up! Up! Up!” they say. And then when you pick them up, they squirm around and try to eat everything in sight–your hair, your sleeves, your buttons, your arm hair. So you put them back down where they promptly step in mud (or worse things) and then jump their filthy little toes all over your clean pants. Still, there’s nothing more amusing than ticklish baby goat feet drumming on your backside while they tug on your shirt or braid and clamor for attention.

It’s been raining and raining all this past week, but the sun finally came out and I went wild with the baby goat pictures. They’re all too cute for words right now!

Oh, and I have not captured any photos of this, but Petunia has been the BEST babysitter ever! I frequently see her laying in a shed with all the babies while the other does are out to graze. She especially loves her nephews, Sledge and Hammer, and she’ll go out of her way to rustle them up for play time. The other day she was up on the water trailer with them, and she was letting them jump all over her while she gently butted heads with them. She likes to let them “win” the fights, then she turns the tables and will push them off the ledge (as long as it’s not too high), then let them run up and jump on her again. She’s definitely the “cool aunt” that every kid wants!

Today we had a great time watching Petunia, Delilah, and Hammer play on the goat castle. Hammer and Delilah have a funny relationship ever since three days ago when Delilah climbed up our rock retaining wall and met Hammer standing on the ledge up top. He head butted her and when she went to get him back, she lost her footing and slid down to the bottom. Hammer’s little baby hackles stood straight up and he strutted across that rock wall like he was all that and a bag o’ chips! Delilah jumped up the wall and pushed him back, but he hasn’t forgotten his victory and has been challenging her to duel ever since. Delilah is bottom of the pecking order, and I think she sees this as her one opportunity to beat someone up–even if he is just a baby. When she and hammer started going at it on the goat castle, Petunia jumped between them and laid into Delilah as if it were her own baby. Delilah knows it’s not Petunia’s baby and she fought right back in an effort to get at the little squirt. Nubbin was oblivious to the whole drama, and Hammer kept jumping back and forth between the two does, thrilled to be the cause of all their ruckus.

Who’s this little fur ball struttin’ the wattles?

Why, it’s Tigerlily! After a week of nonstop rain, she was thrilled to finally be able to go out and explore this big, new world!

“I’m off to look for adventure!”

“The big boys are so much fun! I want to play!”

Tigerlily has no fear of getting rough-and-tumble with Sledge and Hammer despite their larger size! She’s a bold little thing!

First kiss…

Jezebel says, “Enough of this! You stay away from those boys! They’re nothing but trouble!”

I’m afraid poor Tigerlily is leading a pretty sheltered life so far. You know what they say about mothers who start too late in life… they act more like grandparents than parents, and that fits Jezebel to a T. The poor baby is constantly getting herded along, micromanaged, and told “Don’t touch this!” “Don’t play with that!” “Stay away from them!” “Sit in that corner and don’t move!” She desperately wants to play with the other baby goats, but Jezebel invariably herds her away from them or bites their ears if they come in for a closer look. I actually had to hold Jezebel out of the way to get these brief shots of Tigerlily playing with the boys. In fact, in nearly every shot of Tigerlily, I had to crop Jezebel’s head out of the picture, since she was constantly coming in to sniff, lick, and check for problems before pushing Tigerlily out of the action. She doesn’t want anyone near her baby, including me and Phil. The poor kid is going to end up a social pariah if this keeps up! It’s a good thing the little baby has a mind and legs of her own, and she’s fast learning to use them. Tigerlily is going to learn real soon that if she runs quick enough, mama won’t be able to keep up.

We’ve decided to namer her Tigerlily in honor of her grandmother. Lilly’s registered name was “Stargazer Lilly”. Also, this little one looks a bit like a white tiger from the back. 

You gotta love it when the goat compliments the decor. I feel like such a fashionista with my matching accessories!

Tigerlily has one straight Alpine ear and one that flops a little. It will probably straighten, but I hope it doesn’t.  OH! And she has WATTLES!!!

She also has black spots around the edges of her ears. I wonder if she’ll eventually grow black hair there? That would be so cool! Her eyes are blue right now, but I’m sure they’ll be brown in a week or two. This one eye looks like it has eyeliner on it!

At least, she kinda looked like a piglet with that pink nose and those pink ears!

She looked less like a piglet once we dried her off, and boy were we surprised by the color!

Shortly after noon, Jezebel began “marching around Jericho” as Phil likes to put it–circling the pen and baa-aa-ing. She did that for a few hours and finally got down to business around 5:00. She looked like she was having a bit of trouble pushing this kid out, so I grabbed the feet and helped pull. Phil held Jezebel still after she jumped up and tried to run around the shed in circles with the baby’s legs hanging out, and between the three of us we delivered a healthy 9 1/2 lb. doeling!

She’s very strong. We haven’t had one this lively since Petunia was born. She was up and nursing almost immediately. She’s got a healthy set of lungs too! This one won’t quit talking! Now I only hope Jezebel has enough milk to keep up with her. She’s got a really good appetite, but Jezebel has only a small udder and it’s already been sucked dry. I’m going to have to keep a close watch to make sure this little one is getting enough to eat.

The babies love to “hide” under the table when we bring them into the house. I guess all kids love furniture forts, regardless of species.

First the eyes began to droop and the head to nod…

… and then he conked out completely. Office work is so boring!

We plan to sell these little guys for packgoats when they’re weaned, so I thought I’d set them up in front of a non-distracting background and get some good “ad” photos. I stood Hammer up in front of this nice, white wall and asked him to strike a pose. Boy did he deliver!

We fell apart laughing and never even managed to try to get Sledge to set up nicely for us. Oh well. Maybe another day.