The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Artemesia's dates

Cute goat

So, I've been tearing up the virtual pavement trying to find Artemesia just the right date. There was that nice Mini-Nubian buck who wanted her to come stay over for a month...but Abigail and I begged our darling doeling not to go since we would have missed her too much. A high-class Dwarf Nigerian offered to meet Artemesia for a quick hookup, but he never told us his phone number and didn't call back after he saw her online profile. (Poor Artie felt so jilted.) Then there was the blue-collar guy who I was trying to set her up with...until I took a closer look and decided maybe I needed to be thinking about another sort of date entirely.

Goat pooch test

Goat from aboveTwo weeks, ago, the pooch test appeared negative. But now, considering this lineup of goat butts, I'm suddenly 50% sure Lamb Chop actually managed to do the deed in June after all. Meanwhile, my post on a goat forum resulted in two expert opinions, both in favor of Artemesia being knocked up.

Artemesia is a lot rounder lately too, but she and Abigail have been eating more hay since the weather turned wet and I cleared the old stuff out of the manger. I'd say our doeling appears just as big on the right side as the left side at the moment --- inconclusive.

The biggest point in favor of a possible pregnancy is that Artemesia doesn't seem to have come into heat at all this fall. Abigail has --- our usually quiet goat yelled like crazy this week and sported mucous under her tail. But Artie --- usually the chatty one --- has been mild-mannered and quiet for months.

Goat friends

So maybe I have a first freshener on my hands, not a doeling after all? This would be wonderful news --- winter milk starting up just about the time Abigail dries off, plus a doeling who will kid while fat and happy on summer browse.

Depending on whether a Mini-Nubian counts as a standard breed or a miniature breed, Artemesia would be due between November 5 and November 10. Gulp. I'd better start training her to enjoy butternuts and carrots if I want to keep that healthy layer of fat on her back. And if the signs of pregnancy continue to look positive, we can buckle down for the next step --- guessing how many kids will pop out.



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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