summer summary

Summer, mostly over, and everything a blur of hot humid days.  Here is what we are up to...

The girls are growing so fast I could probably chart the differences day by day.  Ms M went though a shoe size in a week!  They drink about a half a gallon of cow's milk a day (thank goodness we have a cow) so that could have something to do with it.  They are in the language explosion stage and I love it.  Lu is already starting on a few words at 1 1/2 years old, but Miss M is in the accelerated growth stage of language.  A few months ago she was trying out one word at a time, and now she turns to Lu and says quite clearly, "go away now."  They have 15 minute periods scattered throughout the day of actually liking each other.  The rest of the day I mostly feel like a referee for angry territorial cats.  There is a lot of shrieking in this house.

I spent quite a lot of time this summer making cheese.  We were only milking 3 goats, but that was enough for about 5 pounds of cheese a week! I did a fun cheese swap with some facebook friends in San Pedro-- I sent cheese (by plane!  I felt very sophisticated... this is what my life has become) in exchange for some organic cocoa powder and a whole pile of fabric, most of which Miss M has claimed for "pretty dresses."  Most of my cheese I sell locally, since I am actually one of the few people in the entire country who makes and sells goat cheese.   That is not something I ever expected to be known for...

We've also aquired some new creatures, namely a pair of fluffy dwarf bunnies

and a goat named Snow who was raised in a kitchen (NOT mine) and thinks she is human.

 She sleeps on our doorstep each night and faithfully follows Daniel around the farm each morning. Whenever I open the door she walks right into the house with an attitude of absolute entitlement. She's pretty gentle with the girls, but will buck them over if they bother her too much.  So basically she fits right into the toddler mafia at this house.

 Nana came to visit a few weeks ago, bringing tutus and fairy wings and lots and lots of chocolate.

We went to visit friends who live deep in the jungle, where a family of howler monkeys came to observe us as the babies splashed in the jungle stream.

Mom was convinced the monkeys would pee on her head, but she escaped unscathed.  Our friends say they are fascinated by children, and come to watch every time the kids swim.

On the farm, it's baby goat time.

In one of the crazier things that has ever happened in our goat experience, we discovered a brand new baby goat deep in an ant nest tunnel.  The mama goat delivered a set of twins on a leaf cutter ant nest, which is a nice clear sandy mound and must have seemed like a good choice.... until one of the babies fell into a hole.

Fortunately we found him quickly, but we had a crazy time getting him out.  The tunnels can go 10-15 feet down, and the little guy was stuck in a bend about a foot from the surface.  The good news was that part of the nest was abandoned by the ants, so they didn't swarm and kill him.  The bad news was other unsavory things like to move into abandoned nests.  This fact didn't occur to me until I had both arms past the elbows squeezed in the tunnel trying to basically deliver a baby goat out a small dirt hole, and Daniel warned me not to put my hands all the way under the goat.  That was the point when I really got motivated.  It was a tight squeeze getting him out, but we managed with only a few scrapes and he is just fine.

His twin sister is 1/3 his size, and the tiniest baby goat we have ever had.

Which makes her the perfect size for the girls to play with.  And by play I mean practice being "gentle" while repeatedly pointing out "EARS!!!"  A baby goat with long ears is very exciting when you have just discovered ears.

Finally, Lu's teeth have started to come in... but only the canines on the top, not the front teeth.

We love her adorable baby vampire look :)

springfield

Daniel, the babies, and I went on a little road trip a few weeks ago in search of goats.  We have a goat who is a very good milker, but is also a terrible bully.  Now we can add "murderer" to her description, because she pushed our best milker off a cliff (they like to eat around the edge of a limestone quarry we have on the farm).  So off we went in search of another goat.

There are many Mennonite communities in Belize.  They vary in how conservative they are, but they all focus on agriculture (here is a little bit about another community we've visited).  We headed to a community that we have bought goats from before hoping for good luck-- this is a very conservative community, so we couldn't call ahead.  I always forget how beautiful this part of Belize is.  If it weren't so far from Daniel's job, I would work really hard to convince him we should move there. 

The way of life in this community is so appealing to me.  There is no electricity, no cars. It is just peaceful.  The stoves are wood-fired, and everything else is horse-powered, including the saw mill.  The houses are simple and spotlessly clean, with rows and rows of canned fruit and veggies and meat lining the kitchens. Porches are wide, with hammocks and swinging benches, and everyone we have met is so friendly and inviting.  Even though we interrupted their day with no warning, friends we haven't seen in over a year all gathered to chat on the porch, and invited us to stay and eat lunch. 

And yes, we did find a goat, who was very indignant at being stuffed in the trunk of my car and hauled home.  She's happy now, though... and we are keeping a close eye on our assassin goat.

dairy-ing

Our goats are producing a ton of milk this year.  Last year we had enough to drink and for the Babe's bottle, but this year we are getting 2 1/2 liters a day.  Thats a lot of milk. It's a rather fantastic problem to have.

  I finally  made some good batches of chevre, which I had tried multiple times in the past with no luck.  This year, I watched a very zen cheese-making video on youtube, and then made my first batch.  It was SO easy once I learned the proper technique.  I find myself saying that a lot about making things from scratch.

This is how you make cheese:  warm milk, add culture and rennet, let sit for 12 hours.  Drain whey, let drip in cheesecloth for 8 hours.  Done.  Told you it was easy.

This house is stuffed full of baby things.  I needed a way to hang the cheese to drip, and this mobile was handy, so....

I'm also making 2 or more batches of yogurt a week, and I still have extra milk.  So I'll be branching out to frozen yogurt, custard, yogurt muffins...  anything I can think of. 

fresh yogurt.  We add  jam for flavor

chevre

I'm kinda surprised at how much I like cheese-making, I guess it was always  a mystery, and figuring it out has been quite satisfying.  Eating the cheese is even more satisfying :)

This one has developed a deep love for yogurt.  Besides the eating part, she also likes to use it as a belly rub and hair conditioner.  Yum.

spring babies

We have a new crop of baby goats, two sets of twins and one rather large singleton.  They are, of course, the cutest things ever.  My 6 year old niece put herself in charge of naming the goats.  Therefore, all my nieces and nephews---Mary, Mark, Michael, Johanna and Rafael-- now have fuzzy, bouncy namesakes.

We are bottle feeding the smallest two.  They stay with their mom during the day, but the second we come home they run to us for a bottle.  If you don't immediately comply they latch on to any available body part.... which is usually the top of a boot, since they are only about 12 inches tall.  

It never stops being funny to me when I look out the window and see Daniel, followed by a string of baby goats.  Adding to the fun is our miniature rooster, who runs after Daniel all morning as he does chores.  A rooster running is one of the funniest things you will ever see.  We may not have tv, but we always are entertained....

poodle

We haven't had much luck lately with our goats.  For several different reasons, 7 goats have died in the last couple of months, and sadly 5 of those were new baby goats.  So we were very excited when a little male was born healthy and strong.  He was promptly named poodle.

When he was 3 days old, he disappeared for more then 24 hours. We seriously considered that he might have been eaten by a boa constrictor.  Yep.

The next afternoon, when we came home from work, he was calmly standing by his mom, non the worse for wear.  We have no idea what happened, but we'll take it!

well, I married a farmer....

so what did I expect?

When I got my new car,  two rules were immediately instituted:

1. no borrowing by (crazy driver) brother-in-laws

2. NO ANIMALS in the car.

Yeah, that didn't last long.  The list to date:  3 rabbits, a rooster, and a goat.  Who screamed bloody murder the whole way home.  We put all the windows up when we were driving through town because we were afraid we would get stopped for kidnapping.

Henry

Dear Henry,

We love you, but we also love sleeping past 5:30 am on a Saturday morning.  Please keep in mind that several of your cousins have been... well... barbecued and eaten.  Just saying.

With love,
the provider of your bottles.

today

I herded goats with my car today.  Which I think officially makes me awesome, because anyone can herd goats, but using a car? That takes skill.  For work I sometimes get sent to Cayo to do errands, and I get to drive! (always enjoyable-  I can't drive our truck, it's standard, so I don't ever get to drive).  On the way back  I stopped at home and encountered all our goats far from our house and heading towards the neighbor's corn field.  I rolled down the window, waved, yelled and honked, which scared the goats into running back towards our house.  Then I smugly drove behind them.  This behavior might seem far from awesome-- perhaps even slightly scary-- to anyone who doesn't own goats.  Trust me, the little punks deserve it.  When I came out of my house they had all surrounded the car.  I think they were debating whether to hot wire it or just carve their initials into the paint. 

why living with goats is never boring

Sunday morning on our way home from Church, Daniel got this text message from our nephew:

Tio u goat is stuck.

Our goats tend to reach for that greener grass on the other side of the fence and get stuck, so on the way up the drive, we kept our eyes open for the stuck goat. Nothing.
Then, when we turned into our driveway, we saw this:

After we stopped dying laughing, Daniel freed Milo the goat.

She was not very grateful.  Goats never are.

Later that evening, we headed out for a walk and saw this:

what?? The mirror needed to be adjusted, I'm doing you a favor!

Lesson:  never underestimate the trouble capacity of a goat.  Also, always carry a camera.

seen from my kitchen

This was the scene by my kitchen door the other morning:

So it would appear that not everyone is happy about our newest baby goat...

little ears

I thought I'd share a picture of my favorite part of these little guys.  Their ears are so, so soft.
Things have been a bit busy around here this month.... but it's ending in a good way because tomorrow I will be getting Belizean nationality! It's been a looong wait....

baby goats for valentine's day

just born

these are the tiniest little guys we've had yet

see how little?  I was checking here to see if he was able to suck yet.  We had to work hard to save these guys, they were really weak when they were born.  The second one nearly stopped breathing, we had to blow in his nose for quite a while.  We had to feed them both from a dropper for a bit because they were too weak to stand or suck.  But now they are one week old and running around like crazy!  Still no names yet- they go by #1 and #2.  I want to call them Henry and James, Daniel is pushing for #11 and #12 (we have 10 other goats).

an unlikely couple

This is Firefly. A couple of weeks ago we sold her mom, and even though she was old enough to be separated, she still ran around anxiously calling and looking for her mom.  It was rather pathetic.

So Daniel decided to give her some company, and stuck Homer in her field.

They are hysterical to watch.  They have quite the love-hate relationship going on.  During the day, they wander together around the field grazing. Every once in a while Homer decides to show Firefly who is boss, and tries to buck her.  She responds by spinning around and smacking him with her hind foot.  This goes on for a few minutes, then they settle back down to grazing.

  

contemplating a kick

But Firefly stopped looking for her mom, and Homer is also much more content now that he has a friend.  He used to wander around getting into trouble and looking for other (lady) goats, but now he is happy to eat all day with occasional breaks for naps in the sun

I like goats.  They are inquisitive and friendly, and pretty smart.  We keep goats for milk, because I can’t drink cows milk but goats milk doesn’t bother me.  Goats milk is great- it is creamy and goes really well with oreos and chocolate cake, which really should be the main function of milk.

Goats, however can be a real pain in the neck.  They are seldom happy where you put them, they want to be on the other side of that fence.  I’ve mentioned before that our goats have eaten probably more then they are worth in decorative plants.  And a few weeks ago, our male goat got in the yard and wiped out two large passion fruit vines in a matter of 15 minutes.

This is Homer.

This is what Homer did to my vine. Notice the lack of leaves.

Homer is very, very lucky that male dairy goats are so hard to find in Belize.  Otherwise, he would have been barbeque.

My mother in law even has a story about how their neighbor’s goats got into their watermelon patch and wiped out about a half acre of watermelons and vines in an afternoon.  But I never believed the stories about goats eating random stuff like tin cans and laundry.  Our goats have had ample opportunity to get into out laundry or eat random tin cans and never seemed interested.

This morning, however, I heard some weird crunching sounds coming from the front yard.  This is what I found:

Notice the teeth marks

Apparently the goat decided a plastic pot was just the thing to satisfy her this morning.  Forget the nice green grass growing around it.  When I tried to chase her away, she just looked at me like WHAT is your PROBLEM? No shame whatsoever.  Goats are very entitled creatures. 

One more example of weird animals:

This is our cow.  In our yard.

Eating the dog food.