The New Goat Dating Game!!!

And now, for a special blog feature, we have 3 very interesting goat bachelors for all our goat girl readers.  These three sexy singles are anxious to meet some goat girls because Lucky Nickel is definitely NOT interested in any of them!  That means their warm, woolly hearts are open to you!  Now, don't all come visit at once - please make appointments!  Let's go now and meet our bachelor boys, shall we?!

Oh, um....boys....can you all wake up now please?!  It's time for your blog debut!

We'll give our boys a few minutes to get ready...they have just recently arrived from the Canadian province of New Brunswick and have been brought to the farm in Nova Scotia where they are sharing a barn with Miss Lucky Nickel.  Miss Nickel does not appreciate this arrangement, but she will learn to deal with it.  They are all full angora goats, 2 white wethers and the black badgerface is intact and will probably be used as a breeding buck someday in the distant future.  I think they're ready for their interviews now...

Bachelor Goat #1, what is your name please?
"Hi Ladies, my name is Westley, and I'm an angora goat.  I'm 3 months old and I'm totally ready for the goat dating world."

Well Bachelor Goat #2, how about your name?
"Oh, charmed to meet you, girls!  My name is Inigo Goatoya, you sheared my father, prepare to.... errr...wait...that's not it.  Well anyway, I'm Inigo and I am an angora goat, I think I might be 4 months old, and I'm what they call a "badgerface" because of my beautiful markings and my stunning fybur coat."

And Bachelor #3, please introduce yourself!
"Oh!  Um....hi!  I'm....um....I'm Fezzik.  My new lady calls my Fuzzypeg too.  Ummm...I'm very little."

OK, thank you bachelor goats, and maybe bachelor #3, you could speak up a little bit?  Now we're going to get into some interesting questions so the lady goats can learn a little more about you.  First, tell us about your ideal date with a doe, and we'll start again with bachelor goat #1.

"I think a day of fun in the sun is a nice first date.  We'd start in the barnyard with a little snack, go for a nice walk to see some of my favourite grazing and browsing spots, and eat some fresh raspberry canes for lunch.  I would like to show my lady goat the best that fine goat dining has to offer here in Nova Scotia."

Bachelor #2, your dream date?

I'm a very active goat.  I like to get physical!  I'd take my date on a woodpile climbing adventure, and then we'd do some afternoon yoga.  Hey....are you lookin' at my spare brain?

MOVING right along....goat bachelor #3?

Goat bachelor #3???

"Oh!  Um, me!  Right.  How about....um.  I'm not sure, I haven't been on a date before.  I'm only little!  Whatever she'd like to do I guess.  Maybe the library?"

Bachelor #1, what is your best feature?
"Certainly I have a lovely curly-whirly coat that drives the goat girls wild!"

Not to mention I also have a really nice rear view!

Wow!  Beat that, bachelor #2!

"Oh baby, I'm all about the rear view!  You know what I mean?!"

I'm also an excellent problem-solver and I can help you with anything you need!

And bachelor #3, what's your best feature?

"My best....welllll....probably my blue eyes, I think."

Well bachelor goats, I'm sure the ladies will love reading all about you.  Anything else to say?

Bachelor #1:  Well, I'm all about hanging out with the ladies, so I know you'll have a great time on your dates with me.

 Bachelor #2:  It's all about the beautiful fybur, ladies.  I'm your man!

Bachelor #3:  "Kisses."

Goat with Barrel

I am a lucky goat. Do you know why? I have a big huge barrel in my new boudoir! My lady and her beau did a very nice job on making me a good place to stay here at the new farm. It is very comfortable. I have several exciting "features" in my new home.

First, I have excellent grazing and browsing areas.  Did you know that there is a difference between grazing and browsing?  Sheep are mostly grazers - they eat grass and other stuff at ground level.  Goats like to be browsers.  That means we eat shrubs and other taller things that sheep might not want to eat because they are too high up.  Here I am being a grazing goat.  There are lots of yummy weeds in my new yard!

 I also have a wonderful log pile that I can climb on.  This is very good for my exercise and keeping my girlish figure.

 I can also do stretches on the log pile so that I can reach the apples and apple leaves hanging off the tree.  That is browsing!  Here I am browsing and stretching.  Notice how I like to decorate my back with leaves.

 Yes, I am a very picturesque goat!

I also do my yoga and ballet moves on the log pile, to keep myself flexible and agile.  What an excellent log pile I have - it is making me very happy.  Sometimes, little apples fall off the tree and wedge between the logs.  I like to eat those.  It's a good yoga snack.

 Also, there is a pile of smaller cut pieces of wood, which I can jump on, or which I can stare at for my goat meditation sessions.  "Be the wood...ommmmmm...."  I can also do my own bum scrubbies by rubbing my bum on the logs.  I think this is a very well planned log pile.

Inside my special boudoir, I have a barrel!  Did you think that it was in case I get thirsty?

Of course not!  That is what my water bucket is for!

The barrel is for jumping on, of course!  Truly, it is my little stage, where I can do my tap dancing or my speeches or whatever I want to do.  I don't need that chair to get up here.  I just get up by jumping onto it.  I am a very skilled jumping goat.  It is a very large barrel.  My lady says she doesn't know what they used to use it for, but she has never seen such a big barrel in her life.

Also, my lady and her beau did some tree trimming and of course they gave me all the tree bits because I love to eat leaves.  Some of the bits are from the apple tree and there are apples hidden in the leaves and I have to find them.  Yummy!!!  You can see how much tree I have because it makes me look small, and I am a big goat now!

Also, there is a nice sign on the door that says WC.  My lady says that is so I will know that I am supposed to go outside to pee.  I think she is nuts.  Naturally, WC stands for "Warning! Coyotes!!"  This is to remind me that I don't want to go outside at night, but should keep the door closed so I will be safe from the nasty coyotes and bears and other creatures who like to eat goats for supper.

 Oh, I forgot to tell you about the chair.  Like I said, I don't need the chair to get up on the barrel, but sometimes I like to get down using the chair. 

 It gives me a good viewpoint to survey my tree bits.

Incidentally, in case you would ever forget, I am a Princess Goat, and also a Queen Goat, so it is only befitting that I should show you my proper publicity photograph of me with my crown and my laptop, ready to blog to you about my life.  Thanks to help from my fellow goat AngelBaby Shelby for assisting me with my publicity shoot.  Love and kisses to all my subjects and fans!

I'm HOME!!! Maaaaaaa! Maaaa! Maaaaaaaaaaaaa! Maaa!

Hello my dear fans and all my special friends all over the goat world!  I am so happy to be able to blog to you again and maaaaa to you about all my news!  It is sooooo wonderful to be back with my lady and have my rightful place on the farm.  I came to the new farm on Friday!  Here I am in the back of the truck just waiting to get out of my special traveling box!

I have to say, I was a little bit confused.  I didn't really know where I was and I hadn't seen my lady for a loooong time.  I saw her three times since April 13, and mostly for just a few minutes, so at first, I was all mixed up about who was who and where I was.  Then my lady maaaaa'd at me and I began to remember things.  Then I met Izzy the cat, and I remembered that I used to play with her before in the other place.

But the house was different and I was still confused.  I had to investigate.  I sniffed out familiar things.

My lady says I am looking very pudgy.  I think she forgets that I am actually Rubenesque.  I had to check out the computer connections to be sure that I could blog to you all.  See how long my horns are now?!

I checked out the new kitchen and pretty much nothing was familiar.  The table was different, the floor was different, in fact....it's pretty much a mess.  It's nothing like my lady's other kitchen which was very nice.  I was really confused by that, but she says it's going to be better soon.  There was a package of drill bits on the table.  I was hoping for chocolates but no luck...

My lady let me sniff the dog bowls and I had some of the dog's water because I was thirsty.  I don't like the dog's food at all.  It's yukky.

Anyway, I am glad to be with my lady, but I had a nice time where I was staying temporarily.  I was at a place called Hatfield Farm and I was visited by lots of nice people and children.  I had my feet trimmed and all sorts of hay and grass to eat and I made friends with other goats and donkeys.  The farmer there was kind of frustrated with me because he said he never knew a goat who could jump 6 foot fences before.  I am very good at that.  He had to build something he called "goat alcatraz" for me.  It took extra work and my lady was quite upset that I was trouble for him.  The thing is, I prefer to be with people and I liked to get away from the other goats and be with the people, so I just go over the fence.

After checking out the new house, I began to feel very tired with all the excitement.

 I just could not keep my eyes open!

So my lady let me rest for a while in the kitchen, because it was hot outside and I was tired and I needed to rest.  As you can see, I make an excellent kitchen goat.

Speaking of tired, I am kind of tired now too.  Blogging after so long is so exciting that now I have exhausted myself.  But, I have so much more to tell you, so stay tuned for my next posting.  I will be telling you about my outside explorations here at my new farm!

Love and goatie tail wags to everybody!!  xoxoxoxox

A bit of this and that

This #1
I have apple trees!

I went for a walk a few days ago when it was breezy and cool out (thus, fewer blackflies, deer flies and mosquitoes).  I wandered around on my farm a bit, trying to get to know what sorts of trees and plants I had present that I either liked, or didn't like.  For example, the Virginia creeper has got to go!  I was very pleased to locate at least 6 apple trees, all of which have a good crop of fruit coming.  You can enlarge the picture below to see lots of baby apples coming along!

I am guessing they are all quite old, and they have been neglected for quite some time, so a major pruning job will be necessary next year in the early spring before they break dormancy.  It will take a few years to get some of them into proper form, but I'm just glad to have them.  I hope they might be different varieties - hard to tell at this point, but for example, the one pictured below appears to be different from the first one based on the shape of the fruits.

That #2
The barn that had been earmarked for Lucky Nickel was subsequently found to be unsafe.  We determined that the boards were rotting so badly around the base that the entire thing was unstable.  Furthermore, one corner was being held up entirely by a large metal cabinet.  This led to Plan B, which was to work on another barn area for her.   A nice thing about this barn is that it is closer to the house than the one we had originally selected for her.

That work has been continuing and is approaching completion!  Here is Richard with his Dad last week - they worked hard on securing both the inside and the outside of the barn.

The plan is that Lucky Nickel will have her grand arrival on Friday evening!  I am sooooo excited to have her back!  I am sure she will want to do a blog post to tell everybody about her arrival!

This #3
I've been treated to some really lovely skies lately.  There have been a number of breathtaking sunsets, glorious views of the moon, and a really impressive rainbow at sunset.  I thought I'd share some of the images I've taken lately so that everybody could enjoy the skies I've seen.

Sunset over the big (collapsing) barn.

 Another sunset from the front view looking out towards the road.

 The beautiful moon over Lucky Nickel's originally earmarked barn, now earmarked for barn boards!

 Rainbow at sunset.

That #4
You may remember my trials and tribulations with my "new" kitchen from an earlier post.  We had been keeping an eye out for second hand cabinets that might work well for the space in an effort to re-do the kitchen at a low cost.  Richard noticed a truckload sale of cabinets at a building supply store that had been purchased for a building project that didn't go forward.  They were about 70% off their original cost, so we decided that given their value, we'd go ahead with new cabinets!  I am thrilled, to say the least.  But it gets better!  About a week later, Richard went back to the store to look for something else, and noticed that the price had dropped on the cabinets again!  We hadn't even picked up our order yet, so he took the receipt to the customer service desk and as a result, we saved another $586!  That money savings allowed us to also choose new flooring for the kitchen at the same time.  I am just so excited about having a kitchen that feels like it's "mine" rather than the existing cabinets, which are very shallow and difficult to use, not to mention the fact that they are damaged in places.  I'll also be able to get rid of some grungy metal shelving I was having to use for extra storage due to limited counter and cabinet space.  It's going to be great!  I'll wait for pictures until the project is underway!

This #5
I've been discovering new treasures as I continue working on the house and barns.  Recently, this has involved a lot of antique glass bottles, some of which are pretty colours, unusual shapes, or just lovely glass.  I've been cleaning them up and working on identifying some of them.  I'm hoping to have a display shelf at some point for some of my favourites.  Here are some of the interesting ones I've found so far.

This is a lovely dark green bottle known as a case gin bottle, probably from the late 1800s and maybe from Holland.

 An early "black glass" ale bottle from the late 1800s.

 Some old medicine bottles - one of "diastasic essense of pancreas" (ewwww!) and one from a local drugstore again from the late 1800s.

Stay tuned to hear from Lucky Nickel soon!  Maaaaaaaaaa!!!!