Bye Bye Billy

We recently made the decision to butcher our male boer goat, Mr. Billy Goat, aka Billy or more recently, Butthead. 

Of the seven kids he sired, only one was male. The point of raising boer goats is to provide meat for our family and possibly sell some to our friends. We can only keep the male kids for meat purposes and have to sell off the females as we don't want any inbreeding going on. Or breeding when the girls are too young to take place. 

Maybe had Billy been willing to live in a pen with just his son, Pierce, things would be different, but that didn't work out so well. We tried, it lasted all of 12 hours before he jumped the fence to get back to the ladies. And recently several other reasons presented themselves as it was time to say good-bye and fill our freezer. 

1. Billy was getting Big and we no longer trusted him. He could be a bit of a butt and literally head butt you if you gave any one else attention outside of him. The girls weren't allowed in the goat pen at all after he tried to eat Sydney's hair, scaring her pretty good in the process. He'd even hooked me a couple of times after I had been giving him attention and then walked off. Those were some knarly bruises. To be honest, I no longer felt safe in the pen with him and tended to carry a club with me as protection the few times I did have to go in there without Cameron. 

2. After Murray's coyote attack, the rains finally showed up. We had to return Murray to join the rest of the herd because the crate was not rain proof. We had re-inforced and raised the fence line of part of the goat pen to put the goats up in at night for added protection particularly for Murray. Billy learned that he could head butt the door and let everyone out on his own thus nullifying the safety aspect for Murray. 

3. We got Moet, one of our new pigs. Billy liked to assert his dominance over her, head butting her and pushing her around. He especially did this during feedings or at 4:30 AM. Having a pig squealing at 4:30 AM tends to wake you up into a panic, especially after the Murray/Coyote encounter. Moet did get some payback on Billy though - she ripped half an ear off in the first day and a half of moving in and proceeded to eat it. 

4. Goat meat, while consumed by 70 percent of the world, is still too foreign to our friends and acquaintances to be interested in purchasing it. Which is why we are switching to pigs. Who can say no to bacon?!

6. The buyer for the last three remaining daughters fell through. So again, we didn't want to risk any inbreeding or early breeding taking place. 

5. I love Pierce, the only son he sired, and didn't want him to become food (at least any time too soon). Don't worry, he's wethered so he won't be siring any kids with his sister or half sisters. And by being wethered, he won't stink like Billy. As long as he doesn't get unruly like his dad, he gets to stay. 

Cameron ensured Billy had a quick, painless death. I'll admit it was still hard on me to some extent. At one time we both loved Billy. But while Cameron took care of Billy, I was able to cuddle with Pierce which I hadn't been able to do in quite some time. And in the days since Billy's disappearance, the whole herd seems a little more relaxed, especially Moet. So thank you Billy for the kids you sired and the meat you will provide us. 

This kind of life definitely isn't for every one, and I am sure some will be harder than others, but I'm proud of the way we are raising our girls to understand where their food comes from. 

An Open Letter to London for her 8th Birthday

Dear London,

You are no longer a little kid. You’re now much closer to double digits and your tween years now that you are 8! And I can hardly believe you are 8 already! I see pictures of you when you were little and I realize just how much you have grown over the years. You’re going to be passing me in height in no time! You’re already at my shoulders.

You’re still big into reading. You’re one complaint at Christmas was that you didn’t get as many books as you had hoped for. At the same time, you find a book you like and read it over and over again. These days those books revolve around the Dogman series or Ninjango. You want to be the green Ninjango, Lloyd, for Halloween, though I am trying to convince you to be Uma from Descendents 2 since we already have the costume. You chose it for when we go to Disneyland in November for the Bibbiddi Bobbiddi Boutique.

Now, if I could just get you to read all the other books I have purchased for you in the playroom. That’s my goal with you this summer – to read at least one chapter from a non Dogman or Ninjango book each day. Right now we have you working on Beauty & The Beast – you started it ages ago - and then you will move on to Descendents 2, another book you started shortly after Christmas. Then we will work on the others.

You’re tom boy side has truly come through this year. You’re not into wearing skirts or dresses hardly at all, though you do like a cute pair of shoes. Sounds just like me. You really got into baseball this season, I think from feeding off the boys on your team, since Coach-pitch was co-ed this year. Your dad was the coach while I coached your sister’s T-ball team. Even with the season over, you’re still wanting to practice.

You also recently attended your first 4-H show – the 2018 4-H Spring Fair, where you showed your pygmy goat, Murray Xmas, for the first time. You purchased him almost a year ago. You did a great job and it was a great experience to get you ready for fair at the end of July. Of course, watching other animal showings at Spring Fair has you more interested in horses than ever before. You’ve been asking for horseback riding lessons but the lady down the street doesn’t have a pony that is ready for you yet. I’ll probably be looking elsewhere soon. Luckily, when you head to Tucson later this summer, your grandparents were kind enough to sign you up for a week-long horse riding camp. You’re dad and I are in trouble I think. I’m sure you and your sister will come back wanting horses. We can at least make sure you continue riding lessons.

You still talk about being an artist, teacher and scientist. And you definitely have a talent for drawing at this young age. I hope it continues as it is a great outlet. You are also interested in music, particularly piano and singing. You love to sing with me in the car, always asking me to add songs you hear on the radio to our USB drive and now that we have Grammi’s piano, we are looking into getting you lessons.

You are also showing your older age with the TV shows you are interested in – no more Disney Junior or Nick Junior for you, if your sister lets you, you’re watching Disney Channel, Disney XD and shows I approve of on Nickelodeon.  This has definitely resulted in some squabbles between you and Sydney as she does still appreciate the Disney Junior programming. You also are bit remote control happy. You flip around constantly from one show to the next when commercials happen and pause if you have to get up for even two seconds. We’re all working on taming these habits and making sure everyone is happy when the TV is on. At the same time, you really only get to watch TV on the weekends if I can help it.

Outside the TV habits, you’re a pretty amazing big sister. Just the other night, when your dad and I came in from the garden to tuck you two in for bed, we found you reading to Sydney. And you’re good when we ask you to listen to Sydney read. You’re both still sharing a bedroom, but I’m not sure how much longer this will last. You definitely have a sense of what is yours and what is hers and what is shared. I hope we can squeeze a couple more years out of you.

On Presidents Day this year your Grandma and I took your sister and you to get your ears pierced. Given Black is your favorite color these days, you chose medium sized black “diamond” studs. Honestly, I am a bit surprised you even went through with getting this done. You had really not shown any interest at all until you heard that McKenzie had gotten her ears pierced. Sydney had been asking for months and finally you said you wanted to do it to. At the mall, Sydney went first and I think the initial look on her face scared you. You decided that you wanted to get your hair cut first. The procrastination paid off because when we got back to the store, two people were now working so they could pierce both ears at the same time. You were very proud of yourself once it was all over. And for your birthday Grammi got you what you really desired – Jack Skellington earrings!

Jake still seeks you out for cuddles when he can – we had to install a door knob on your bedroom so he couldn’t keep breaking in at night, letting the dogs out in the process. Gibson is still the dog you prefer to have in bed with you most nights (if he can calm down.)

More and more you are loving living on a farm. I think for the most part it’s the space you given to roam the property now and you do love to head outside to check on all the animals. We’ve added 3 KuneKune pigs to the mixt this year and expect to have piglets in 3-4 months. While we sold Sunny’s babies from last year, she blessed us with 2 more this year. One we traded for one of the pigs, but the other, Cutie, we still have. Roxie also had two girls this year – Sally & Aurora – and we have decided to keep them as well. And instead of saving Pierce for butchering, we said goodbye to Billy on Sunday. Mainly because we couldn’t allow you and Sydney in the back with the goats as Billy was getting to be too aggressive. Even I didn’t like going in to back with him anymore. The final straw was when he kept head butting Moet, one of the pigs. Not that she couldn’t defend herself – she did eat half of his ear, but your dad and I didn’t appreciate waking up to a pig squealing in the middle of the night. It gave of flashbacks of the night a coyote attacked Murray – luckily we got out there quick enough that Murray was more or less unharmed (he had a few puncture wounds in the neck). But that is also why Murray and your sister’s pygmy goat, Jack Jack, live in the backyard with the dogs and are crated up at night (at least until the new pen is complete).

We repeated your birthday party from just after kindergarten this year. Besides having the water slide, per your request we had water balloons as well. We’re still picking up from that mess! And this year you helped with the planning, particularly with all the “water” themed food. The biggest hit were the Sea Snails – little smokies wrapped in crescent roll dough and baked. We held the party the Sunday before school got out which was a week before your birthday. This was partly because we wanted your friends to have a better chance at coming and also because your dad and I had a wedding to attend the day before your actual birthday.

You actually woke up at Grammi’s new house on your birthday. You were very relieved to hear from us that morning – particularly when you found out that your scout elf, Snowie, was waiting for you on  the new mantel. He would have gone to Grammi’s but he wanted to make sure the new mantel was up to Santa’s standards. You were concerned that the new mantel wouldn’t be installed before your birthday – mainly because you were concerned Snowie wouldn’t come without one.

I am also proud to report that you received your first Panther award at school on the last day. Mrs. Miszti, your amazing teacher over this last year, awarded it to you for creative writing – not only do you write great stories full of details, but you also take the time to make sure the words are spelled right! Your dad and I were able to come to the ceremony and you were quite shocked not only to get the award but then to see us there.

This summer should be a little more exciting than last year. You are returning to the Prestige Academy for June & July and they have a ton of field trips planned which I plan on signing you up for as many as possible. We also have one camping trip planned, a day on the lake with friends planned for another weekend and you have those 2 weeks with Grandma and Grandpa in August. Your dad and I will come out at the very end of the trip to fly you and your sister home. And there will be swim lessons of course.

And of course, we have our next Disneyland trip planned for November – you’ve already requested we do the 30-day countdown to Disney activities again. And better yet, I’ve got it all planned out already! By the time Disneyland gets here you may be tall enough to drive the Autopia cars by yourself!

And maybe slow down a little in how quickly you are growing up, please? I still need my kids wanting to cuddle with me.

Love,

Mommy

An open letter to Sydney on her 5th Birthday (A few months Late…)

Dear Sydney,

This letter is a tad bit late – and it’s my entire fault. I was traveling for work on your actual birthday and then the holidays happened, and well, I just plain forgot until now. It doesn’t help I pretty much took a year off from updating the family blog as well.

Shortly after your birthday last year, we moved you from an in-home daycare to another structured pre-school setting. After the expected “settling-in” time period we know you and are sister need to adjust to new routines, you began to thrive. We were more than confident that you were ready to start TK this past Fall.

At the first quarter Parent/Teacher conference, Mrs. Tudor informed us that while technically you are a TKer you are doing Kindergarten work. At the time we reserved the right to decide whether you will move up to Frist Grade in March, but chose to keep you on the kindergarten curriculum and standards. We recently were leaning toward having you return to kindergarten next school year and even emailed Mrs. Tudor our reasoning along with some questions we had for her. She quickly asked to meet with us where she informed us that you need to go on to First Grade – you would be so bored doing kindergarten again. Your dad and I were very pleased and proud of you as we walked out of both those meetings.

You love riding the bus and going to the same school as your sister but you’ve also made some new friends on your own, which is wonderful to see. And now that you are at Pleasant Grove School, you get to participate in 4-H. We’ve got you signed up for baking (which I lead), arts & crafts, gardening and wildlife. Next year, we’ll likely get you involved with showing Pygmy Goats – we’ll see how it goes with your sister this year.

Last May you got to travel with me to Tucson. I was heading to Phoenix for work and we decided you and I could go out early so that you could spend a week with Grandma and Grandpa all by yourself. That weekend you also got to meet my Aunt Maryanne, my cousin Adam’s wife Amber and their daughter Stella who is just a few months younger than you. You two had a blast together and you still speak about Stella today. The best part is you get to see her again in April!

You and your sister are getting along much better than a year ago – so much so that you two share a bedroom now and London’s old room was turned into a playroom. This still doesn’t prevent the bedroom from being destroyed by clothes, blankets and all the toys & books you still bring back in there! And you two do still have squabbles from time to time and require alone time or 1:1 time with Mom & Dad.

Being strong-willed is a hallmark of your personality still. The tears when you don’t get your way have subsided some but not completely – especially when you are tired.

These days you are into Play-doh. Any time you can convince me, the play-doh comes out. You also enjoy coloring and painting, and your latest obsessions are LOL dolls – the IT toy of 2017 – and finally, Legos. It took your dad getting me a BB-8 Lego kit for Christmas to get you interested but now you are on a roll building every kit you have ever received.               

You are still very good at playing on your own but prefer to have someone with you. McKenzie recently came over for a sleep over and the two of you could not get enough playing in. You two come up with some silly stories.  


We love you!

A Close Call

This morning Cameron and I were awoken at 4:30 AM to the screams of one of goats. We were up in an instant opening windows to look out back. In another instant, we were running for the backdoor and watching a coyote dash out of the goat pen. And in a dark spot on the ground was London's pygmy goat, Murray.

Given I failed to post and write at all in 2017, I never introduced Murray here. We purchased him in June of 2017 and the second we asked London what she wanted to name him, she instantly responded with "Murray Christmas!"

Murray and London had just spent this past Sunday at our 4-H Club's goat group working how to show the goats. And it had been a nice afternoon for the two of them. Away from his normal herd, Murray had looked to London for guidance, just as he should.

As he lay there motionless this morning I froze in my attempts to run to him. I feared of what I was going to find and see. How would I be able to tell my daughter that her pet was brutally murdered in the night.

Luckily, when I got to him he made some noise again. I felt around and he fought at me a little, felt wet, but not sticky. And when Cameron shown a light on him, Murray popped up and ran to the other goats. Upon further inspection we could tell he was unharmed physically. Definitely scared and in shock but otherwise alright.

We walked the perimeter of the pen and discovered where the coyote had gotten in. Cameron has fixed it as best he can but this was too close a call for me. Unlike the other goats, who I admit I love like pets, Murray truly is a pet. So tonight, he's going to be put up in a crate with towels in the backyard with the dogs. And I'm thinking he will be sleeping in the crate most nights. I also hope this will help him and London bond even more in preparation to fair. I have been worried that he hasn't bonded to her well enough (but we also have 6 months until fair.)

When the girls got up we told them what had happened. They were relieved everyone was alright and wished that daddy had killed the mean coyote. This is definitely one part of farm life I don't think I will ever get used to. And we will be taking more precautions on securing the pen and warding off coyotes in the future over this next weekend. We're expecting one of our females to have kids by the end of February.

Happy 2018!

2017 went by so quickly, I wasn’t prepared for the holidays this past season and barely even got around to ordering New Year greeting cards for our friends and family!

While at first I felt not much had changed on the Homestead this year, looking back, we had quite a few new additions. In January, we added a male boer goat, Mr. Billy Goat, which resulted in our females having babies in June. Sunny had twin girls on June 10^th (London’s birthday), both of which we sold off to be family pets. Roxie had a lone male kid (June 2^nd), who we have kept. We also added a wethered pygmy goat for London, who she named Murray Christmas. She will be showing him this summer for 4-H. The last addition to the herd was an unexpected surprise. We had a random Ram show up early one morning but he won’t be around much longer. We estimate him to be between 15-18 months old, which means he’s about ready for processing.

Our garden was almost a complete loss this year. We literally, as a family, played the live version of “Wack-a-mole”. First, we planted late due to all the rain. Keeping up with the weeding proved to be a challenge as well and soon it was over run over by mice & voles. Poor Sophie couldn’t keep up. All the flooding last winter caused all the vermin to move closer to the house. As we begin to think about our 2018 garden plan, one thing we need to resolve is the rodent problem. At least we have another barn cat. We had a young orange tabby show up on our property over the summer. He was so skinny at the time that we didn’t have high hopes, but we started to leave food out for him and Slim is no longer so slim. He now let’s us get within a few feet of him and even Sophie, the anit-cat cat has adjusted to his presence.

The chickens from last year have survived and we again raised a couple of turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner again. The taste of the fresh eggs and turkeys just can’t be beat.

In the Fall, we said goodbye to full time daycare (at least until Summer arrives). Due to Sydney’s October birthday, she qualified for Transitional Kindergarten, better known as TK. Because the girls’ school is so small, the TK class is the Kindergarten class. And we were pleased to hear at our Parent-Teacher conference in October that Sydney was doing well, so well in fact that she is actually doing the full kindergarten curriculum and will continue to be graded as a kindergartner throughout the rest of the year. We’re still not sure if we want her to move on to 1st Grade next year as we still question her maturity level. We’ll make that decision in March.

Sydney was also able to start officially participating in 4-H this past Fall. I continue to lead the Baking project which both of the girls thoroughly enjoy. We meet about once a month. Both girls are also involved in the Arts & Crafts and gardening groups. We’ll get Sydney started in Pygmy Goats in a year or two, though she goes to the meetings now anyhow. London was part of that group last year, but this will be her first year with an actual goat to take to meetings.

London is doing great in 2^nd Grade. As her teacher started our Parent-Teacher conference, she is one smart cookie. She is testing near the top of her class and above average for the state. She’s reading at almost a 4^th grade reading level and loves to read too. Sometimes the house will get real quiet and I will find her with curled up with a pile of books beside her. And now she has several series of chapter books to work through. Over the summer London traveled by herself for the first time, flying to Tucson to spend a week with my parents. She spent several days at a Hotel/Casino with them swimming almost the entire time – I think she only went inside the hotel to sleep!

We, as a family, joined the world of organized sports last spring. Cameron and I coached the girls’ T-Ball team. We had a tiny team, literally. Several of the girls on the team turned 4 the month before we started the season and even the size Small shirts looked like dresses on almost all the kids, minus London and two other girls who will all move on to a coach-pitch team this spring. 

In April, Cameron and I snuck away for a week-long vacation to Dominican Republic with several of our friends and friends of friends – who have since become dear friends too. It was a trip two years in the making and was designed to replace our annual wine trip to celebrate all our birthdays. That is because Cameron and several others turned 40 in 2017! We had a blast on the trip, which started by flying first class, for the first time. We took a red-eye so we mainly slept our way there. We stayed at Excellence El Carmen, an all-inclusive that had only opened in September 2016. Our suite had its own private pool which I enjoyed relaxing next too. We ventured off property a couple of time. We toured a cigar factory one day, went horseback riding on the beach another and zip lining through the jungle on a third day. It’s a beautiful country but the poverty levels are unbelievable. It was nice to see that our resort provided quality housing for its employees on the actual property.  

This seemed to be the year of travel for me. On New Year’s Eve, as I reflected back with friends, I realized I had traveled every month of the year except for January, July, August & November. And only two of those trips were for pleasure. I attended conferences in Omaha (June), Charlotte (September) & Houston (October), attended an offsite meeting in Napa (March) and three weeks of leadership training took me to Seattle (February), Phoenix (May) & San Diego (June). My leadership training was an amazing experience and I met some great people from other Cat Dealerships throughout Arizona, California & Nevada. But gosh did all the travel make for one crazy quick year. Because of the traveling I never got into a good running routine, and only ran in one race this year, my 5^th Run to Feed the Hungry 10K on Thanksgiving. This year I am resolving to run much more, working to establish a training schedule at home and scheduled to run a 10K on Superbowl Sunday.  

With my trip to Phoenix, I was able to head out a few days early. I took Sydney with me and we spent the weekend with my parents in Tucson. Sydney stayed for the week with them, getting to meet my Aunt Maryanne, cousin-in-law Amber and her daughter, Stella, who is just a few months younger than Sydney. The two had a blast and Sydney can’t wait to see Stella over Spring break in April.

The first week of December, Cameron’s mom, my parents, the girls, Cameron and I headed to Hawaii to celebrate an early tropical Christmas. This time we went to the island of Maui, staying at the Wailea Beach Villas, in an amazing 3 bedroom penthouse with great views of the ocean, Molokini and the sunsets each night. We even saw whales jumping and spraying from our lanai. With a fully stocked kitchen, we ended up eating in most of the trip. We spent most mornings down on the beach and afternoons by the pool. The place was pretty quiet so most days we had the pool and spa to ourselves. One day we did venture out to the Maui Ocean Center, an amazing aquarium. It turned out to be the perfect day since it was very windy. After lunch we headed up a winding road to Maui Winery, where we tasted a wine made out of fermented pineapple juice. While it definitely was sweet, it was still very enjoyable.

Cameron celebrated his 5^th year with Armstrong Medical. Hunting remains his number one interest with Tulley almost always by his side. She won’t even look at him for a day or two if he heads out without her, and boy does she know when he does that! When it’s not hunting season, Cameron is busy with projects around the property.

He has spent much of his free time this year moving dirt around our property. He is trying to build up a new pasture for the goats that won’t flood when it rains while also slowly digging out a pond in another part.  Little did he realize, instead of digging a pond, he ended up leveling an area for the girls to ride bikes and scooters. London received a new bike from Santa this year and it doesn’t have training wheels. Our driveway isn’t level or a great place to learn but after a walk out back on Christmas, we all realized that this area was perfect. In two short lessons, London was riding on her own. Of course, now as I write this letter, the rain has arrived, so it may be a while before she can get back out again.

Another big change that occurred this year is that the girls decided to share a bedroom and turn London’s room into a playroom. Now they only have to keep one room clean all the time and the playroom only has to be cleaned once a week. This also means that both girls get both dogs each night. Tulley still tends to sleep with Sydney and Gibson with London.

We did have to change the handle on the girls’ bedroom door to a knob. Jake, one of the indoor cats, kept breaking into the girls’ room to go snuggle with London at night. This would result in one or both dogs coming to sleep with us and even Sydney sometimes. Two labs on our bed, along with a possible child and Kelsey, our other indoor cat resulted in no sleep for both Cameron & me. Jake must now settle for weekend morning snuggles with the girls. Kelsey remains pretty much the same, preferring the safe refuge of our bedroom and bed 23 hours a day.

I do hope to get our blog back up and running this year. As much as I had adventures and pictures to share, I just didn’t have the time or energy in 2017 with all the travel and commitments. Stay tuned to see if I can keep up with 2018! 

Love,

Cameron, Sarah, London (7) and Sydney (5) Cenedella