Lily and other things

We're all on Lily watch right now as she approaches the end of her pregnancy. It's always exciting when new baby goats arrive on scene. We weren't sure how good of a mother Lily would be, but she has turned out to be a pretty good mom. She encourages her kids to eat hay sooner than I'd like, but it didn't hurt them any. The saying around our farm lately is that she is still fat. I'd love to be able to call my husband and tell him that she did indeed kid today, and they are adorable, but it's not quite time yet. Ginger appears to be preggers as well. She seems to be about 2 weeks less pregnant than Lily. Both goats got Freddie going, and they'd stand by the fence separating the two pens making him crazy for a couple of days. It was almost as if they were in heat. If Lily wasn't so obviouly pregnant, I'd believe it, but I've even seen her kids kick. They just acted like they were in heat. Weird. Betsy is just pregnant. She'll probably kid in January. It's not the best month, but better too cold than too warm. Jade on the other hand has Joey (a wether) keeping her from joining with Freddie. It's making him nuts. He's been chasing William (our nubian wether) because he can't get to Jade. She's looking a little fluffy, but not pregnant yet.

We named out peacocks. They seem to both be males, though one could surprise us and end up a female after all. They are Claude (Monet) and Henri (Matisse). I suppose if one ends up being a female, we'll just change her name to Georgia (O'Keefe). The turkeys are doing well. I'm gearing up to get the chickens out of there, but I'd like the other chickens to get over their molt already and start laying eggs. We've finally been getting a couple - 8 to be exact - over this past week. That's 8 total. From nearly 30 chickens. The young ones just haven't started laying yet. The older ones are just starting to lay again. The older ameracaunas (well one of the two anyway) has started laying again. They are 4 and 6 years old. I'm impressed. We won't get rid of them. We'll just let them stay and live out the rest of their lives with us. There is no point in selling them off. They've been rather good to us.