Lezlie’s babies have begun doing one of the things I love the most about baby goats: hopping on top of an adult goat and riding around! Well, they’re still too small to do that, but while they’re growing, they’re practicing by piling on top of Molly, when she’s lying in their shelter with them.
I don’t know what it is about Molly, but all the babies love her. Last year’s babies adored her, and when we moved them all into the back pen at the end of the summer, Molly went with them. We brought her back to the milkers’ pen when we bred the does in October and November. Already the new babies are attached to her.
In chicken news, we have developed a theory that Coco may have been partially responsible for last week’s disasters. We had occasionally seen Poofy Face drop into the little dogs’ yard. It’s possible that she dropped in while Coco was there, and Coco chased her till she became panicked and flew into the big dogs’ yard.
That won’t happen again, because Poofy Face was the only chicken who could fly to the top of the fences.
But, Top Hat’s injury may have also been due to Coco - although not really her fault.
There’s a gate that goes between the little dogs’ yard and the chicken yard. Every day at 4:00 I go through that gate with a bucket of scratch for the chickens. They know what time it is, and they all crowd that gate, often thrusting their heads through the chain link in anticipation.
Sometimes, they start crowding the gate long before I arrive with the scratch, and if Coco was in her yard when they were sticking their heads through, it would be irresistible to her - all those delightful chicken heads, just looking as if you could bite them!
So, we’re taking big precautions. Jan ordered some plastic slats that we’re weaving through the chain link. Also, I’m taking another route to get to the chicken yard - not using that gate. Hopefully the chickens will begin trying to greet me as I leave Jan’s front porch, instead of as I go through the gate to the little dogs’ yard.
Meanwhile, Top Hat passed away quietly in her sleep last night. I hope she doesn’t reincarnate as a penguin - after spending a week walking around looking like one.
We are halfway through kidding season at this point, and we have no idea when Elena and Bella got bred - we put them in with Sam for three weeks, and he’s a shy breeder. (Here's Elena):
So, every time we see a hint that they might be ready to go into labor, we react. (Here's Bella, doing that weird pregnancy neck stretching thing they all seem to do):
We’ve now just resigned ourselves to bringing them onto my porch for the night every night. It’s so much easier to check on them every couple of hours when we don’t have to bundle up and get the flashlight and walk out into the pens in the pitch darkness. There have been many mornings that I’ve been convinced they were going to kid, and we released them to their pen for the day, and absolutely nothing happened.
Which brings me to the etymological question of the day: where did we get the phrase, “Just Kidding”?
Baby goats have been referred to as kids since about 1200. Human children have been referred to as kids since 1599. Both types of kids are prone to jokes, pranks, and not-quite-truths. So, the dominant theory is that "just kidding" is just joking around like a kid.
There’s another possible origin of this phrase that really surprised me. Captain Kidd! He was born in 1655 in Scotland, moved to New York City in 1689, and lived - mainly at sea - until 1701. He was accused of being a pirate - although it seems murky whether or not he truly was one. But he was tried for piracy and sentenced to death by hanging. The first two horrific attempts to hang him resulted in the rope breaking. He was successfully hanged on the third try, and the first two attempts were referred to as “Just Kidding”. Grisly!
I have to return, briefly, to Lezlie, with whom I am besotted. Here she is with her son.
It’s so weird, Lezlie was a goat we kind of overlooked, until she kidded. She was just one of the herd. She didn’t make any demands, she wasn’t a special favorite. But, she was such a trooper during her delivery, and she is such a great mom, we’ve just fallen in love with her. Some of our goats, when I walk into their pen to see them, prefer shoulder rubs to peanuts. Lezlie is one. That is so endearing.
And, finally, in soap world, Zach Hodges, our photographer, came to the farm over the weekend to shoot mini-videos of baby goats, which I’m going to post as FaceBook ads. I think I’m going to say something like, “These goats would like you to buy soap from their mamas!” https://www.serenasoaps.com/. Anyway, if my web-site allows me to post a video, here’s the first one!