The Grass Is Always Greener

Guess THAT fence isn't working.

We've Got Trees!

A lot of them. A few weeks ago, we trekked down to Morro Bay for a bit of R & R and to pick up a mess of fruit trees, vines, and canes. Back in October, I placed an order with Trees of Antiquity, a nursery that specializes in rare, heirloom fruits and carries a fantastic selection of low chill varieties that do well in our cool summer coastal climate. Even though the trees weren't delivered until January, the beginning of fruit tree planting season around here, you have to get your order in early otherwise you might miss out on some of the more popular or harder to find items. I was a bit late with my order and consequently didn't get the pomegranate tree I wanted. But that's okay. It gave me an excuse to stop by Bay Laurel Nursery for a practically seedless, pale juice variety of pomegranate called "Eversweet".

This is the booty:

I know it doesn't look like much, but there are 10 types of fruit squished together in those bags: a White Tiger nectarine, Fuyu persimmon, Eversweet pomegranate (composing the majority of naked twigginess in the picture), Janice Seedless Kadota fig, Black Butte blackberry, Ollalieberry, Campbell Early grape, Black Emerald grape, and an O'Neal and Sharpblue blueberry.

You're probably wondering where in the hell I think I have room for all of these trees, bushes, and vines. It's a little thing called espalier, baby. That's right folks, I'm using the ancient European art of growing trees flat against a wall in order to maximize production and space. It was all the rage in the Middle Ages. I predict it will be the hottest new trend in gardening with this back to the land/urban farming movement. Right up there with the chicken.

Speaking of space, the goats are a touch bummed now that they've gotten the kibosh on free roaming throughout the yard during the day (they are in their pen at night). At first, I thought I could just block them from the baby trees with some bamboo trellises and deer netting, but those little buggers proved to be too determined for a taste of fresh buds to let mere plastic and a twig stronger than steel stand in their way. After several rousing games of "chase the goat" (damn, can those girls run fast!), in which I was repeatedly mocked by Ethel who would race over the blueberry barrels and grab a couple bites of leaves every time she passed, I decided to stockade them in a one-hour-to-build-it corral in my neighbor's backyard (more on my yard grabbing/theft to come in a future post). They have , of course, broken out twice, since the fencing is a bit dodgy and weak. But I think I've got it well jerry-rigged for the time being. Gotta keep one step ahead of those guys, otherwise I'll be shopping for fruit trees again next year.

Miniature Houdinis

Last week we found ourselves at the Cotati Large Animal Hospital... again. It seems that the ladies are perfecting some escape artist antics that they've been working on. Ethel has been struggling to nudge past me at the gate and during one instance in which I blocked her from a new life on the lam, she lost her footing on the deck and poked her eye on one of the stairs. I didn't notice anything was wrong until a couple days later when she was having difficulty keeping her eye open and was laying around in the igloo. I also saw that the iris of her injured eye was cloudy. I made an emergency appointment with the vet and north we schlepped.

We didn't see our usual vet as she was off castrating sheep. Instead, we saw Dr. Harlan who gave Ethel a thorough going over at my request. She seemed to have contracted the same cough that Lucy had and I was concerned about pneumonia, a potential problem with goats of this age. Aside from her messed up eye, she was running a fever and had a bit of rattling in her lungs. The doc loaded her up with all kinds of meds: a super strong antibiotic called Exceed, a triple antibiotic steroid boosted eye ointment, and another round of Naselgen. The docs up at Cotati Large Animal seem to be really jazzed about the latter, having given both goats a dose on their last visit and again at this one. I could swear I saw a strange twinkle in Dr. Harlan's eye when he began to sing the beatitudes of this vaccine. He claims it's the bomb in preventing illness and uses it all the time with organic herds. His love affair with this little nasal spray struck me as a bit odd, but hey, to each his own. I, myself, am completely enamored with my totally energy inefficient Wedgewood stove for its ability to dehydrate anything, make yogurt, and sprout tomato seeds. So I don't judge.

I asked Dr. Harlan to check Lucy as well just to make sure her congestion wasn't lingering about. Her temp was normal, but she still had a bit of crud in the chest. We'll keep an eye on her. And since I had the doc there, I couldn't resist asking him about Lucy's very special body part. Lucy, you see, has a double teat and I wanted to know whether or not that would cause problems with milking. The doc said the extra teat had to go and that it would be a cheap and easy fix on a goat this young. He advised doing it now rather than later. I agreed, but was concerned that there wouldn't be enough time thinking that this would be a bit of a "procedure". OK, so the totality of this "procedure" involved me holding Lucy's front legs and vet assistant holding the rear, the vet taking a scissors of sorts and clipping off the adjunct teat, and then giving the fresh wound a good shot with a spray on bandage. Poor Lucy was so shocked by the pain that she jolted and then went completely stiff as if she had given up. Or maybe she was just doing her best imitation of a fainting goat.

Over the next couple days, Lucy was acting up, being a bit more goaty than usual. I suspect she was pissed about that lopping off the boobie thing. She would nibble at my clothes and shoes... while I was wearing them, of course. And she would make a break for the gate, which had never been part of her normal behavior in the past being the shy one of the two. And then last Thursday, I found her roaming around the yard outside of the goat pen. She was racing about, jumping on top of absolutely anything that was higher than a foot off the ground. I have no idea how she got out. Poor Ethel was left alone in the pen, bleating frantically for the return of her pal. Lucy seemed to be enjoying her freedom a little more than I would have liked to see. Looks like we better get a move on finishing the landscaping, otherwise the rains are going to wash all of our dirt piles down to Mission street and there will be goats running wild through the neighborhood. Oy vey!

New Digs

We finally finished the new animal area. It's basically a long corridor with a 4.5 foot retaining wall at the bottom of our steep sloping yard. Though it looks a tad prison-ish now, a nice coat of bright green paint will certainly improve the aesthetics. I'll get on that as soon as we return from our vacation in Costa Rica. Though I'm not sure the animals really care all that much about the looks of things, they seem to be pleased that they have a bit more room to spread out. Here's a view from the opposite angle:

The goats are happy.


Lucy keeps attempting to either eat or climb the lattice.


I also just realized that I haven't put up any recent photos of the chickens. And boy are they changing. Check out Gertrude's faux hawk -


She found an interesting spot to roost this morning.


Violet has sprouted a full blown feathered cap. We nicknamed her Phyllis Diller as her hat just looks like something Phyllis would don. I love this picture. You can't see either set of eyes.


I had to really work at getting this rare glimpse of her face.


Sweet Pea is just HUGE compared to 4 weeks ago. She was the smallest of the bunch and now is almost the largest.


And look at those leg feathers!


We will be away through mid-August, so you may not hear from me until then. Meanwhile you may catch wind from my fabulous farm sitters, Maria and Jeremiah, who will be holding down the fort while we're gone. I'm hoping that they will decide to be guest bloggers and give you all a different perspective of the haps around Itty Bitty.

The Goats Have Landed

When we colonize the moon in the not so distant future, guess what dairy animal we are going to bring with us to live in our self-contained biospheres? Cows? Heck no! How could we possibly get them in our rocket ships? The Nigerian Dwarf Goat will be our small savior of all things cheesy and good. These little fuzzy things stand no taller than 20 inches, yet produce about a quart of milk a day with up to 11.3% butterfat. Here at Itty Bitty we wanted to be prepared for our future's new frontiers so we got ourselves a couple of these puppies. Well that's not exactly the reason why, but I thought it might make a catchy introduction to our newest additions.

Our new farm critters came from Oops Ranch in Lake County. They raise all kinds of tiny things up there, including miniature ponies. And to answer your question, no we are not getting one of those. I drove up on Sunday to pick up Lucy and Ethel, a.k.a. Lucille Ball and Ethel Mermen. They are not exactly your friendly petting zoo type of goats. Not having been physically handled too much, they are skittish and shy. I am a touch embarrassed to admit that I was completely unprepared for their arrival. The day before pick-up, I got one of those Dogloos off of Freecycle and didn't actually set up their pen until I had brought them to our backyard. Finding a place to store them while I built the pen was a challenge as the backyard is a giant construction site right now with only one side of a 3-sided fence erected. My DF (Disgruntled Farmhand) took charge here and tied them to a tree where they munched down my peas and the rose bush that we've cut back more times than I can count. I guess we won't have to worry about that anymore. By the way, if you need blackberry brambles or overgrown rose bushes removed from your property, the girls would be more than happy to help.

This is 3 month old Ethel:

She is the friendlier of the two, or maybe she's just smaller and slower and thus easier to catch.

Here is Lucy, looking like the anxious goat that she is:


Ute is in charge of taming the goats. In this pic, she illustrates her method.

That Dogloo, or I guess we should call it the Goatigloo, is hecka rad. So far we've determined that you can fairly comfortably fit (I love split infinitives!) 2 goats and 2 five year olds in there. I think Ute's technique is working:


Stop by for a visit if you would like to meet the girls.