BACK ON TRACK

Okay, the tone of my last post was definitely not a cheerful one. I'm more on track today, though. I just came in from a fun time out in pasture with all the horned ones. We let the triplets outside for the first time today, and as always happens, they were comically fabulous to behold! They ran and leaped, and bleated, and generally had a rousingly great time investigating everything in the goat yard.

We have some "toys" for the goats to play on. These include a great big street sweeper's rotary brush, a Little Tikes play scape, and a large igloo doghouse. All these are in constant use: The doghouse and play scape are both sleeping space and king-of-the-mountain climbing places, and the rotary brush is where much of the personal grooming takes place. Imagine a person who can't reach that itchy place in the middle of their back leaning back as far as she possibly can and ruuuuuubbing that itch on a nice, rough corner jutting out. Then you'll you get a visual of what it's like seeing a goat leaning over and just ruuuuubbing herself along the entire length of the brush.

The babies checked out the house by going inside, so of course when they do that, Mom can't see them and starts panicking. She grunts her special "come here" grunt that brings them all running. When one of the babies gets too close to a larger goat, sometimes the big one butts them a little (not hard - usually they are pretty gentle with the little ones), and when they are scared, they have to go running back to mama for a little quick nurse of milk. This is like a pacifier to them and Mama seems to allow this.

She has been regulating the nursing activity. I suppose because they would nurse all the time if she didn't. Right now it looks as if our fears of her abandoning the little doe are unfounded since Daisy is full of energy. But we are still keeping a watchful eye because it takes a very short period of time for these little ones to go downhill. We keep feeling her belly to see how full it is.

No new babies yet, though! Oy Vay! The size of that nanny! I hope she is a better mother than her twin, Psycho. Psycho (real name LuLu) was sold with her baby earlier this winter. She only had one good teat, and she kept having twins. That is not good. She actually managed to almost raise twins after her first pregnancy. She quit feeding one of them, and we almost lost that baby, but luckily, she was just starting to eat grain and hay a little when Mom stopped feeding her. We had to give her supplements, and she was the one who was sick in February, so she has become very tame and loving. New issue with her (Little Sister): I saw Birthday Boy mate with her yesterday. I think we will have to watch her very carefully because she is so small from all her tribulations that she may have a hard time carrying a baby.

Thank goodness the weather has turned a little warmer for the weekend. I know I'm not the only one this winter has begun to wear down. My students are tired, too. Wednesday I felt incredibly tired all day, like I could just lay my head down, thunk! on my desk and go to sleep. On Thursday, one little boy who was still suffering the effects of this stuff going around fell asleep twice back at the reading table. It was around three-ish, he was sitting by the window, where miraculously the sunlight was streaming through, and he had on a hoodie. All these things conspired to make him just so drowsy he couldn't stay awake. Which says what about my instruction?

The year has flown by in a blur, as usual. After the Achievement Test at the end of April, for all intents and purposes, the year is over. We go to camp in mid-may for three days and boom! the end of May arrives and we are out of school. Too soon! I'm not done! I still have tons to teach!