Hello!

I see I have not blogged in a while:( Sometimes life just gets in the way I guess.  Anyways, we have been quite busy lately!  Fall is well under way, although you would never know it the last couple days, I think we’re having our Indian Summer.  Today is supposed to be 79 degrees!  Our gardens are done producing now and it’s time to prepare for a long cold MI winter.  Back in the spring a local grocery store replaced their fruit and veggie stands and gave away their old ones!  This was a great score!  Hubby has been working on plans to modify 1 of them (we got 2) and turn it into a chicken coop.  Really won’t take much because they are already in the shape of a house, so all that’s really needed is a weather proof roof, some doors and some nest boxes.  The other one will more than likely get turned into a goat house for those goats I’ve been thinking about getting.

Our newest baby alpaca continues to do well and is sweet as ever!  She still needs a name though.  Her Momma is being bred to a new herdsire this time around and we are very excited to see what kind of results we get from him since he is not proven yet (not proven means, he has no babies on the ground).

As for the dogs, as luck would have it, or shall I say lack thereof, Cherokee went into heat just before her 2nd birthday (which was yesterday), so we will not be expecting our first litter of puppies from her until next spring now:(  We still have to get her OFA and CERF tests done (hips and eyes), these have to be done after 2 years of age, so now that she’s officially 2, we’ll be getting those done so she’ll be ready to breed on her next heat cycle.    STAY TUNED!

Now, you heard me mention goats, and if you follow us via Facebook, you know this is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.  We have a small piece of property, so a cow is out of the question, but having goats would allow us to make one more move to living self sufficiently too.  So the Nigerian Dwarf breed is what I have my eye on.  I’m still learning about the little cuties and I’m sure the best way to really do that is hands on, so I will definitely learn more about them by having them.

Well, there you have it, and this is just the farming end of our busy lives lately:)

I want to welcome and encourage you all to share with us any tips, advice, suggestions or what have you on raising goats, especially the Nigerian Dwarf breed, and if you have a cute and clever name you would like share with us for our baby girl alpaca, we would be most appreciative.