The Temporary Goat House Solution


Mayday, Sweetbread's favorite milking doe :)

Our timing for the move to Tennessee was seemingly perfect. Winter was officially gone (although it never really came), the grass was greening up, the days were getting longer, and baby goat kids were popping out of pregnant does everywhere. That meant we could get a couple milking does and their kids pretty much right when we moved in, and we did. The only problem was that we didn’t have much infrastructure to properly house the goats. We have some plans in mind for what our final layout will look like, but we needed a temporary solution. Thus came the temp goat house project.

The Temporary Goat Barn
We probably committed a crime worthy of capital punishment in Tennessee. We turned a man’s garage into a goat barn. Complete with milking stand and hay feeder. I get a good chuckle every time I think about the day that he comes to visit and sees what we did to the place. It hasn’t happened yet, but I know it will. Probably a couple weeks into me not mowing the “lawn”, he’ll roll up to say hello and damn near have a heart attack. Old guys that lived in places for a really long time like to see things the way they left them. Well, now you have a goat barn surrounded by natural goat food growing out of the ground. It’s a good thing these goats like fescue and clover or I might even have to reseed it!

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All About The Goats

Our Herd - (from left to right) The Buckling, Bridget, Springbok, Mayday, and SabineThings are moving along at the pace of a spring river and it has become a bit trickier to keep everyone up to date. Every time I talk to my parents, even though it’s only been a few days, I feel like I could go on for hours about everything that’s gone on since we last spoke!

I feel the same way about the blog, so get ready for a hefty read! Like I said, there's so much going on that it would be almost impossible to cover it all, but here’s an update on the goats to get you started…

We’re really beginning to settle into life with a herd and it’s hard to imagine that less than a month ago we didn’t have one! Milking and “goat walks” have become part of our routine, each enjoyable and relaxing (well, when everyone’s behaving, that is). We drink their milk every day and, just this weekend, have been enjoying our very own chévre and ice cream. Ah, life is good!

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Little Seed's Microclimate: Cedar Glades and Wildflowers

We don't have unexpected visitors very often in our neck of the woods, so when a neighbor pulled up the other evening I was sure I'd accidentally done something un-neighborly (Sophie has taken to patroling/barking at 4am every night recently) and was about to get a talking to. Instead, I was asked if he could have permission to take pictures of a flower at the front of our property. He told me that this flower is very rare and only found in our area. In fact, there are quite a few rare and endangered plants that grow in area, referred to as the Cedar Glades. One of these we just happen to have at the front of our property along the road's edge. This was all news to me and pretty exciting news at that! It was already evening, too late to go down and take a look for myself, so I did a bit of googling...

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