I’m thinking about words this morning. I’m thinking about the phrase “got your goat”.
Some linguists believe this phrase has its roots in horse racing. Who knew? Thoroughbred racers are notoriously high-strung, so trainers used to put a goat in their pens to calm them down. Maybe they still do. If someone got your horse’s goat before a race, your horse would be freaked out. And you would be mad.
While I was researching this, I randomly came across a discussion of the goat emoji. The GOAT emoji stands for Greatest Of All Time. YES! Goats ARE the greatest of all time.
This is Petal. Definitely one of the Greatest Of All Time!!
In our goat news this week, Mothra reached her 30 days before delivery, and Phoebe is three weeks away. They are getting amazingly wide, and they don’t seem to have any sense of how much space they take up any more. If you happen to be standing in between a goat and a person offering peanuts, you can get knocked down by a goat who doesn’t know where her sides end as she runs past.
Our pregnant does seem to want to do nothing but lie in the sun now:
In other exciting news: Jan ordered a bunch of day-old chicks on-line!
First of all, who knew you could just order chicks on-line. They’re going to come in the mail! Twenty-Five of them! (That’s the smallest amount you can order). It reminds me of when my first husband used to get bees in the mail. If you build a new beehive, and need a swarm to populate it, you just send away for bees, and they get delivered by your (now irate) postal carrier in a little wooden box with screens on two sides, and a tiny crate inside that houses the queen.
Jan has gotten day-old chicks in the mail before - she says that our local post office is great about calling immediately so we can come get them. Possibly they’re glad to rid the post office of a whole bunch of peeping chicks who have presumably filled their mailer with poop.
But, our current chicken coop is full, so we’re working on turning our old gardening shed into a new chicken coop. We’re working on it every weekend. So far we’ve just cleaned out the shed. But, now we need to add a window - chickens need to be able to see when it’s getting light outdoors. And, we’ve got to put in nesting boxes and roosts. She ordered 25 hens, but at one day old, it's hard to tell their gender, so we're prepared for an accidental rooster or two.
Our chickens have increasingly been laying eggs in the shelters we’ve put out for the feral cats, and we really need to provide the new chickens with nesting boxes they like. Although, with our current hens, we’ve finally thrown our hands into the air, and when we check the nesting boxes every afternoon for eggs, we also check the feral cat shelters. Sheesh.
But, we are drowning in eggs already. And look at the rainbow of colors we're getting! Blue, green, brown, even pink! So, why would we get more chickens? (Jan writes the date they were laid on the shells in pencil).
Currently we have two types of chickens, australorps and ameraucanas. But, when Jan went on-line, she ordered Brahma chickens. She's always wanted a yard full of Brahma chickens. If you google them, you'll see why. They are gorgeous. They grow feathers on their feet! They are especially large and enjoy being cuddled by humans. These are my kind of chickens!
Brahma chickens were the most popular chickens in the US between 1850 to 1930. And back then they were enormous. The roosters weighed in at 18 pounds, and the hens at 13. Now, roosters average ten pounds, and hens eight. Even so, that’s a big chicken.
Another interesting thing about Brahma chickens is that they prefer to lay eggs from October to May, which is when other chickens lay fewer eggs.
But, what are we going to do with all the eggs?
Our baby chicks are going to come in July. So, they won’t be laying until next year. Still, I’m going to have to look into having an egg stand at the farmers’ market next year.
In fact, perhaps I’ll learn to make goat milk soap and have an egg and soap stand.
That's all for this week. That, plus this spectacular sunrise over the Monzanos.