Getting Ready for Babies! (Not Mine, Thank Goodness!)

Well, lots of exciting stuff is happening here on the farm. First and foremost, of course, I have the two does that are due to kid soon. Harmony is most likely going to kid sometime in the next few days *me biting my nails*, and Tierra is due on February 5th, only about a week and a half from now. I got my husband to pick me up a used baby monitor at the consignment shop in Charleston 3 days ago, and we've been sleeping with it on in our bedroom, just in case. And yes, our bedrooms walls are orange, and it is awesome. You can even see the gold glitter in the paint in this picture. ;) Thank goodness the goats bed down and keep it quiet at night or I'm not sure I could be quite as vigilant a goatmother! As it is, I already sleep with cotton balls in my ears (picture this: a loving husband mouth breathing in your ear all night.... guhhhhh... guhhhh... guhhhh... you'd sleep with cotton balls, too).

I'm so nervous and excited about the impending goat births that I just about don't know what to do with myself. I try to remember life before pregnant goats and I just can't quite fathom it. I know I did it for 27 years, but I don't think I could have enjoyed it very much. I've compiled all the things I need for my girls' kiddings:
1. Iodine- to dip the kid's navels
2. Bed pads- to wipe the gooey kids down with
3. Gloves- in case I gotta go in!
4. Industrial size tube of KY Jelly- so my goat doesn't hate me if I have to go in!
5. Dental floss- to tie the umbilical cords if needed
6. Nutri-Drench- electrolyte supplement for weak kids/moms
7. 2 kid nipples and one clean ginger ale bottle thanks to Jacqui and Jerry- in case I end up needing to bottle feed somebody
8. Flashlight- obvious reasons
9. Molasses- to give to mom in warm water to help her recover from the stress of kidding
10. Camera- oh, yeah, you guys are gonna have some interesting pictures!
11. Vet phone number- just in case...

There's more, I know there is, but thats all my sleepy brain can regurgitate for now. I've watched so many kidding videos on youtube and read so much about it that I feel like an expert minus the hands-on experience. Not the best place to be, but certainly not the worst.

I've been keeping busy while waiting for all these babies to start raining down on us. I pounded 22 t-posts into the ground by myself yesterday, and man am I feeling it today! For those of you who don't know, a t-post is the metal posts that you see holding up fencing, field fencing in our case. You stick this really heavy metal tube thingy with handles on it over the end of the 6 foot high post and proceed to pound it into the ground about a foot. Yippee. Yeah, so, now that you know what that is I'll just let you digest the fact that I did 22 yesterday. I set all the posts for the very large existing goat pen fence, a buck pen, and even a separate quarantine pen to be used as needed, but especially if/when we get a new goat and need to keep it separate from the others for a while. I've decided to take the electric goat netting down that encloses their pen and replace it with more permanent field fencing, because I'm tired of the electric fence always shorting out from 6" of weeds or drifts of dry leaves bogging it down. I'll reserve the electric fence for rotational grazing in the back pasture in the spring. The guy from my local feed store delivered the fencing and posts on Monday, and when I finished setting the posts yesterday I had to go there to pick up some vaccines and other things they'd ordered for me. He recognized me and asked about the fence, so I told him I was exhausted because I'd just finished setting all of the posts. Oh, you should have seen his face! He actually sputtered a little and his eyes got big. I guess he doesn't come across many women who tackle these jobs. When he was here to deliver the fencing he told my father-in-law that he'd have to take my husband out to show him this really great way to build a chicken coop, and my father-in-law said, we'll you'd want to take her. And the guy said, "No, him because he'd be the one building it." My father-in-law laughed and said, "No, she built that" and pointed at the barn. :) How satisfying. So now he probably thinks I'm this manly he-woman who does fencing and builds stuff. So be it. I'm just home more than my husband, more motivated, and capable. So why not me?!

On a side note, I have to tell what Ayden and I found a couple days ago. We've been getting eggs very consistently of late, at the rate of about 7 a day, which isn't too shabby for 14 hens just starting to lay in wintertime. Unfortunately, they've been pretty consistent in their mission to lay eggs all about the property. Ayden of course loves this, and said, "Mommy, its fun to have Easter egg hunt every day!" But when gathering the eggs consists of scoping out the entire goat barn (even found one in the middle of the floor with 6 goats milling all about it!), crawling on my hands and knees under the back porch steps, and fishing through the bushes, I knew enough was enough. On our last egg gathering operation, we finally discovered the mother load. Sixteen eggs under the guest bedroom window. Sixteen. Thank goodness it's been cold out and they were just as fresh as if they'd been in my refrigerator. I've float tested all of them and every single one of them was less than 3 days old. After that episode, I decided it's time to teach my chickens where chickens are supposed to lay eggs. In the chicken coop. So far only one Wyandotte hen would lay in the nest box, and she'd leave it for me in the same box every morning. So now I'm having to keep the chickens locked in their run for a week or so until they get used to laying in their boxes. I feel bad for them, but its just gonna have to be that way. Between them and having Harmony shut in the kidding stall at night and while I'm at work, I'm beginning to feel like a jailer! I'll be happy when everybody can be out running amok as God intended.