Tuesday, February 1, 2011

And We Have SNOW!

Last night, we knew that we had a winter storm coming through, but we were just expecting nasty wet sleet. When we woke up this morning, the ground was covered with SNOW! We usually don't get much snow around here, but we have around 1.5-2 inches right now. It's really hard, though, and in high-traffic areas it has turned into ice. It's supposed to be even colder tonight, but we're not supposed to get more snow.

Hopefully it will melt off soon, because our next door neighbors have around 50 cashmere goats who are going to have their babies any time now. One had twins yesterday, but the neighbors didn't know it was out in the woods with its babies, and when we went to see them this morning, one of the babies had frozen to death. The other one was on the ground squealing, and I knew we needed to get it before it froze too, so I went over to grab it and wrap it up in a towel. When I picked up, its hair was frozen to the ground.

Our neighbors had told us that the mother goats can be very protective and that they can try to ram people who get close to their babies, so when the mother goat started coming towards us, I tried to put the baby down to see if she could take care of it, but it couldn't stand up. I grabbed it back up and we ran to the fence. My sister jumped over and I handed her the baby so I could jump over. I took it back and we ran to our neighbors' house and gave it to them.

We went with them and found the mother goat (who had gone back to the herd). We got her into a shed and gave her the baby, and when we left she was licking it, but later when we called the neighbors they said that it died too. We are all really sad about it. :(

Hopefully, the other goats won't have their babies until it is a little warmer.