Where are you?

I have a suggestion for all who are creating a farm site: clearly put your farm's location on your site, and make it obvious to any of your site's visitors.

As a teacher I can't help but "instruct" people. Truthfully, though, I not only teach students how to make good websites, I am also a consumer of the internet, so I know what I'm talking about. I am always searching farm sites for information and photos and ideas, and I cannot tell you how often I stumble upon sites that do not give their geographic location, only a phone number or email address. Is the farm nearby? 'Across the county? 'Across the country?? It seems like a small thing but it's not.

Okay, I'm done with my web design lesson of the day :)

This map isn't really related to this post but I did find it interesting :)

Biz Card

It's official: Lake Orchard Farm is registered - complete with tattoos for future goats - with both the Nigerian Dwarf Goat Association and the American Goat Society. This is so exciting! The farm will have it's first "ad" on St. Andrew's Lenten Fish Fry place mats this year even though we don't currently offer any goats for sale. I guess I'm just proud of the fact that I live on a real farm which has been a lifelong dream of mine :)

LBGs!

Little Baby Goats - or "LBGs" as coined by our sweet friend - are selected and will be arriving on site in late June and early July!!! I cannot wait.

LBG shopping is all about Googling and Googling and Googling, contacting farms and meeting new people via e-mail, pouring over hundreds of photos of beautiful goats and their humongous udders, checking out the stud-ly bucks, trying to balance flash with quality, attempting to keep the driving distance under a six hours, trying to avoid $500 doelings without feeling cheap, coordinating the timing with my summer vacation, and finally MAKING FINAL DECISIONS. After you think you have a plan and reservation then the momma goat has only bucklings. Back to square one.

I will not lie: I love every single second of LBG shopping. Literally I will close my eyes at night and see goats and kids and udders (the udders I find to be a little disturbing - they look painfully large - but I guess I need to grow up and put my farmer shoes on). It's a commitment if you want to do it right, and even then it's a crapshoot. Then there's the waiting: waiting to hear back from the busy breeder, waiting for them to send photos, waiting for website updates, waiting for the kidding itself, w  a  i  t   i  n  g    for the baby to be    w  e  a  n  e  d  ...   ... ........

I found two amazing doelings! Two gorgeous doelings are currently busy "growing up" so they can leave their mommas and join our farm this summer. WeberWood Acres Annabelle and RebelWood GJ Butternut are from great lines of high quality milk producers, and they will become our "foundation" does. 'A beautiful tricolored stunner, and an adorable gold and white sweetheart. I am still partially looking for a black and white doeling with blue eyes - Jim doesn't know that yet but I'm sure he will be okay with it :) If one happens along then great, but I am not combing the countryside for her.

So it is official: I am going to go from "I have pet goats" to "I breed goats". Of course that means I will have many more hooves to trim, so I invested in a milking stand. Jim is not a carpenter, so I shopped around and found a very well-made and reasonable at Fire Fly Farms Woodworking.

**5.14.14 Update: We will now be adding a third (and final - I swear, Jim!) doeling this summer: black and white, blue-eyed beauty RebelWood GJ Desert Bramble!! **

photo of milk stand from the Fire Fly Farm site

Doeling Wanted

It appears that this spring has brought a huge surplus of Nigerian bucklings!

In the process of looking for our future baby mommas, I have had the great pleasure of contacting some lovely and like-minded goat people. Facebook has added a new dimension to the usual website photos and e-mail contacts, so that has been nice. I have one definite doeling coming to us from my favorite farm on the planet, Weberwood Acres, the same farm where Jasper and Sal were born. I traveled there Saturday and spent a pleasant morning letting sweet baby goats hop on and off my lap as I tried tried desperately to decide which one was the "right" baby for our farm. It was so difficult! Each was a lovely as the next, and each had a unique yet perfect personality. Finally I selected the most perfect baby goat, and now I just have to wait until early July to bring "Chloe" home. That's such a long time. Sigh.

The second breeding for which I had a formal reservation produced bucklings only :( so now I am back to the drawing board of contacting farms to see who might have a colorful doeling that will be ready to leave their farm around the same time as Chloe. 'So many doeling reservations already, and so many bucklings being born, but I will not give up.


** 5.11.14 Update: The name "Chloe" already belongs to a WeberWood doe, so we have changed our baby's name to "Annabelle". 'Just as sweet, but it also has a family connection as my great aunt was Annabelle Washburn. Here sisters were Della and Gertrude - maybe future doe names? :) **

Here is momma Clementine with Chloe giving her a kiss, and her other two doelings hopping around. So sweet!!

Official

As we are planning and building our new house and new barn, I decided it was time to officially declare the name of our farm. Future plans include the addition of chickens, a mini donk and/or an alpaca, and a new Nigerian Dwarf doe for 4-H breedings. I have been concerned that somebody would snatch up the domain name before I did, so I took the plunge.

lake orchard farm. I like it.