Remembering Donny 1999-2009

Well... it's been a long time since my last post! Shame on me! I really wanted to keep this going on a regular basis, but life just seemed to get so busy, and before I knew it, it was June! However, I feel compelled to pay tribute to a good friend who left our farm to cross the Rainbow Bridge last Saturday evening.

Donny came to live at Cattail Meadows last September. His previous owner (my great friend and Pygora mentor) tragically passed away last July, so he and many of his goatie, sheep and llama pals came to live with us on our farm. They are a wonderful group of animals...each having a truly special and unique personality. It's been fun and very rewarding getting to know them all individually.

Donny was the oldest (and biggest) goat of the group. With his super-soft, thick white fleece, and rotund stature, he reminded me of a loveable old polar bear! He, and his best friend Rusty, were the very outgoing "keepers" of the wether pasture, always greeting me at the gate every morning and evening as I checked their water, handed out treats and tidied their shelter.

Donny was a very gentle giant. He loved to have his head rubbed and his back scratched, but was never pushy or rough when other goats came up to me for some special attention. He would patiently wait for his turn, knowing that I wouldn't leave without properly acknowledging him. He was very much the "gentleman", and didn't have a "mean bone" in his body.

Last Saturday was a very warm day in Deer Park. While the goats and llamas contentedly grazed in the sunshine, then quietly relaxed in the shade while chewing their cuds, my husband Mike and I were busily working on our next (and quite possibly never-ending) pasture fence construction project. It seemed like a beautiful spring day on our farm. It wasn't until after dinner, as I was doing my final check on everyone for the evening, that I found my sweet Donny had quietly passed away in the pasture surrounded by his goatie and llama friends. It was completely unexpected since he was his usual happy-goat self that morning, but not entiely surprising since he was 10 years old... however, I feel a quiet sadness knowing that his friendly face won't be at the pasture gate to greet me each time I head down to the barn. I sincerely hope that his journey across the Rainbow Bridge was wonderfully peaceful. I miss him so much already... even though his spirit will remain with me always.

Snowed In!

It’s been awhile since I’ve written, and guess what I’ve been doing? Yep! Pretty much what everyone in the Pacific Northwest has been doing these past several weeks…digging, shoveling, and plowing my way out of over four feet of snow…so far! I used to consider myself a winter person. I don’t much like the super hot days of summer. When it hits 80 or 85 degrees outside, that’s plenty warm enough for me! However, with this year’s repeat of last year’s nearly record-breaking snowfall, I’m ready for summer. And, the goaties and llamas couldn’t agree more. They're all going a bit stir-crazy since they can’t stand to set foot in that cold, wet white stuff. All have pretty much become constant barn-dwellers for the past month. And, it takes us a good day or two to clean up around the barns after a significant dumping of snow. So far, we’ve been getting anywhere from 4” to nearly 2 feet of snow every couple of days…so that means constant snow removal for the past several weeks. And, I’m suddenly realizing this year that my 42-year-old body doesn’t move quite as well as it did a few years back. Oh well, this month's record-breaking weather seems to be the talk of everyone lately…it’s pretty stressful for all. I just keep telling my sweet, impatient, little barn-dwellers that spring is just around the corner…and delicious lush green pasture grass will be their reward for enduring this long, snowy winter!

What To Do?

What shall we do on this wintry Sunday afternoon on Cattail Meadows Farm? There’s a bone-chilling dampness in the air, after all…and last night’s bitter freezing drizzle makes patrolling the grounds particularly disagreeable. So…I guess we’ll just have to find something to do indoors today!

That Stunning Pygora Fiber!

Okay, if you can’t already tell, I LOVE PYGORAS! I love everything about them…their fun-loving personalities, their sweet, people-friendly dispositions, their happy goat “chatter” as I putter around the barns at chore time, and their very amusing attention-stealing antics…but, most of all, I love their luscious fiber! I’m about a third of the way through my fall shearing, and I’m excited! I have such lovely colors this year, between my new spring kids and the arrival of my newcomers…black, various shades of gray, browns, reds, lots of caramels, and natural whites…YUM! I sent my first batch of kid fleeces off to the processor this past Thursday, and I can’t wait to see what I get with all those wonderful Pygora, Merino and Silk blendings. Here’s a glimpse of some of my “babies” just prior to their clippings…

The Madness Continues...

The month of November brings with it another kind of madness here on our goat farm…BREEDING SEASON! Anyone who raises and breeds goats of any kind knows too well about the “special” madness that runs rampant throughout the males of the specie as the shortening days of fall arrive…a madness affectionately known as RUT! As a new breeder, I’ve actually only experienced this phenomenon twice, but I must say, it’s a unique and highly entertaining event! Never before have I seen a group of males act quite the way mine do this time of year, all for the sake of “getting a girl” (well, maybe when I was in high school) …grunting and snorting and making oddly human-sounding noises, with their tongues wagging out the sides of their mouths…and hey, what’s that SMELL??? Throughout most of the year, my bucks are a very gentle, mild-mannered group of men who are happy and eager to see me as I walk down the road toward the pasture for their morning and evening feedings. They greet me at the gate with gentle nudges and kisses in anticipation of the head rubs and back scratches they have come to expect from me. However, just like clockwork, when autumn arrives, everything changes! Suddenly, they don’t care about my presence anymore…”Just drop the hay in the feeder and be on your way” is the clear message they’re sending as they follow me around with their slurpy-sounding tongues flapping and foul, malodorous, stenches. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my bucks! Their antics really are the “life of the farm” and I wouldn’t trade them for the world! But, I’ve learned that during the autumn breeding season, it’s definitely best to stay out of the way of their stinky “love sick” madness!

Shear Madness

On our small fiber goat farm, autumn is one of the busiest times of the year. It begins with preparation for the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival in September, and continues with fall shearing and breeding during the months of October and November. In fact, that is when the real madness begins...
As a fiber goat breeder, the task of shearing the herd can be challenging, to say the least. In past years, it has always been a race with time for me to harvest each fleece at its prime before it mats or felts on the goat. (Sadly, I am very experienced with this dilemma!) This year is no exception. However, for the first time since I started raising these wonderful goats four years ago, my herd size has nearly doubled to 36, so that’s a lot of potentially ruined fiber! Now… there are several things for a fiber goat herd keeper to consider when it comes to shearing, and for me, living in northeast Washington state, the weather is at the top of my list of concerns. It plays a huge role in the timing of my harvest. The changing weather conditions always seem to interfere with my best laid out plans. It seems that every year, just when I’m ready to brandish my shears, the evening temperatures drop below freezing and all of my prime harvestable fiber is ready to be shorn all at once…NOW! (I really think Mother Nature gauges the drop in temperature by my shearing schedule.) However this year, with so many new animals, I’m trying harder than ever to beat her at her own game, and so far (to my amazement) I seem to be winning with the help of my very cooperative herd. To my great delight, they’ve kindly decided to come into “prime fleece” one goat at a time. Hallelujah! What could have been a potential shearing nightmare, is turning out to be one of the most pleasant fall harvesting experiences I’ve had…simply by having the luxury of shearing one or two goats each day. I’m not sure what’s causing this miraculous phenomenon to occur, but I’m thankful for it! This year especially, I’m truly enjoying the quality time I spend shearing each of the animals I love so much! I know…I must be crazy!

A Small Victory

The Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival in Canby, Oregon is a highly anticipated event for fiber enthusiasts in the Pacific Northwest. For the past few years, we’ve packed up a few of our beloved goats, and made the pilgrimage south to Canby in hopes of having a fun-filled weekend of socializing and showing off our finest animals and boxed Pygora fiber. In the past, we’ve done quite well in the presentation of our boxed fiber, and have been very pleased with our fiber show results. (My dear husband has declared this to be the result of my meticulous, and apparently annoying, habit of “primping”!). However, the highest our goats have placed in the show ring was 2nd…not too bad, but… I was ready to do better! The day prior to our departure, I spent several hours grooming my show kids in preparation for the BIG EVENT! Their fiber was blown out and brushed until they looked like angelic balls of super-soft fluff. Then, out came the tweezers! Nothing else I’ve tried works quite as well for picking out all those tiny little hay and straw seeds from that downy-soft fleece! All three kids looked beautiful. Now, if I could just keep them that way for the road trip. It was then that I decided to put sweatshirts on them to keep their fiber clean…and surprisingly it worked! After 8 hours of traveling on a bed of straw, my kids arrived and needed only minimal grooming before the show…a small success in itself. The following day, my first-born Cattail Meadows kid, who had now grown into a very handsome young buckling, placed first in his OFFF Junior Buckling class! I was ecstatic! For many, this would be considered a small victory… but for me, it was as good as an Olympic gold-medal win! I can’t wait till next year…