Riversdell

This First Kidding award goes to Artemis, on February 23rd. This yearling gave us one sweet little buckling who is quite light in color. We named him Louie [Note: corrected 5/12 for gender]. His color also tells us that the dad is saanen Puck rather than Arte’s sire Toggenburg Pistol Pete. (Depiste our best management efforts this past rutting season our two bucks got out several times, so we have a few wild cards this year — a version of “Who’s Your Daddy?”) In this picture, most of our other expecting does are quite intriqued as Louie takes a nosh.

This past November my cousin came for a visit. Being Scandanavian, a visit means you must “help out” in some way. If a task isn’t provided by the host, the visitor feels all at sixes and sevens. The visitor will often desperately look for a way to help, which can often be discomfitting to all — that’s just the way we are.

Fortunately, I had just the task for my intrepid cousin. There was an old aluminum flat-bottomed boat marooned by Isabel across the river near my home. Although retrieving it meant wading in swift moving waist-high water — in the rain — we did it with gusto. A little hosing off and it made the perfect goat-feeding trough. The partitions make it hard for bullies to butt others out of the way for more than their fair share.