Mountain Lane Homesteaders

She came with the name of "Snowflake", we changed it to Tangle (see previous post), but I'm wondering if Houdini might not be just as appropriate!

 The Escapee!

Just incase you're wondering.......goats DO have personality :). Molly has yet to get free from her picket line while Tangle has broken off at least 6 or 7 times. Each time she gets off differently. So far it's been easy to get her back on because she just breaks loose and then stays right near where Molly is. I'm so glad they were friends before they got here so they like to stick together. One evening we were sitting here inside and there was a nice loud goat greeting very close. We opened the door and there stood Tangle just looking at us. Two nights ago it was already dark outside and we began to hear a bang bang bang on the back side of the cabin. Sure enough, Tangle was free again and saying hello. Tangle is what I would call a more "social" goat than Molly for sure! She's always the first to call to us when we open up the door or arrive back home after being away. She will look you right in the face too with those great big goat eyes. As for her relationship with Molly? Tangle seems to be the one trying to get Molly to play while Molly acts all diginified. As if butting horns with Tangle is something she will agree to begrudgingly! Tangle can be seen standing back on her hind legs to put her whole body into a head butt while Molly just gives a small tap and goes the other way. I have a feeling Molly is something of an aristocrat while Tangle is more of a commoner!

I mentioned in my last post that Tangle is an Alpine and Molly is a Toggenburg. I was looking at some pictures of the different breeds on the internet and now I'm wondering if they aren't some kind of mix. The goats were given to us and the guy didn't really give us a lot of information. He said they were given to him. I think Molly looks like a Toggenburg except for her ears. They are not straight up like the ones I see in pictures. They stick out all goofy on the sides.

I am wondering if she might not be a mix of Toggenburg and Nubian. Anyone have any thoughts? As for Tangle, I just can't tell whether she looks all Alpine or not. For our purposes it doesn't really matter I guess since all we really plan to do is learn about milking them but I am just curious.

We are now back down to only the two outdoor cats. Two kittens were given to the same home several days ago and the three newest baby kittens are no where to be found. At first we thought Baby had just moved them but now we are wondering if something might have gotten them. Baby is back to spending her days underneath the windows with Mama outside so we think she has no more kittens to look after. We are all a little sad about losing the kittens. The kids already had each one named of course.

My garden is looking better each day. It's still been quite cool here so the tomatos and peppers haven't grown much yet but they have recovered from their transplant shock. The broccoli, cauliflower, and especially the brussel sprouts look wonderful. I guess they are liking this cool weather. I read that one plant can make up to 100 brussel sprouts. I have 4 plants. My kids are groaning :). I also made a smaller raised bed inside the fence that is made out of stones. I made it quickly to move some flowers inside that the deer were gobbling but I decided to plant the jalepeno peppers and some salad greens right in with the flowers. Hopefully the jalepenos won't kill off the flowers! In the main garden I've added in some lettuce seed as well as a few melon seeds. We'll see what those do.

We are busy getting ready for our vacations coming up. We have two trips back to back starting at the end of next week. We'll be flying to Maryland for a whirlwind family reunion and then coming home for 5 days and leaving again to make a drive to Iowa for another reunion over the 4th of July. We're certainly getting excited!

Well, seems like the day has begun around here so I'm off. Many thanks for all the welcome back comments!