Category: Latest From High Reaches

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Latest From High Reaches

Raising Bottle Kids

When I first started raising goats, all the books I found about it said raising bottle kids was what you should do. So I did.

That left me heating milk, washing bottles and nipples several times a day. My does were unhappy. The kids didn’t care so much as they played together.

Forget the Bottles

I worked full time. Bottle schedules just didn’t happen. I let the kids nurse their mothers. Everyone was happy, except me.

Kids, especially buck kids love milk and will drink as much as they can. That didn’t leave much for my refrigerator. However, the kids looked great and got big fast.

Bottles Can be Necessary

It seems triplets happen every year. Goats have two teats. That third kid gets shoved out and doesn’t get enough to eat. I have a bottle baby.

Some kids are born small. Some are born with problems. Sometimes a mother rejects a kid for her own personal reason. I am left raising bottle kids.

Raising bottle kids like this buck kid's sister
When a doe has triplets, she rarely can raise all three. Little buck kids like this one are usually more aggressive than doe kids and take more than their share. With two big brothers, my little doe is a bottle baby.

My Method

Since I raise few bottle kids, I have a casual routine. All my kids are bottle kids the first day. It’s often much easier to bottle the colostrum than it is to get a kid on a teat to nurse. Once the kid has had some milk and is up and active, it much easier to show them how to nurse.

If I am raising bottle kids, the kids are not shown how to nurse. If they are active enough, I do leave them out with their mother and siblings. She will often take care of that third kid even though it isn’t nursing her.

If the kid is small or weak, the kid moves into a box in the house. A heating pad wrapped in a plastic bag and old towels is in the bottom for whenever necessary.

The bottles I use are plastic soda bottles. I like them because they don’t break if I drop them and are easily replaced when they won’t clean up well.

The nipple is a black lamb’s nipple. I’ve used the lamb bar nipples and like them, but don’t often find them at the feed store. They are easier to put on the bottles.

Milk or Replacer?

I prefer to use goat milk. However, I do use kid milk replacer if goat milk is in short supply. I usually work up to almost half a gallon of milk a day.

The kids get bottles every few hours for several days, except for a stretch overnight when the kid is in the barn. This settles to four a day for a month, then three for a month, then two. The amount of milk goes up each feeding as the number of feedings goes down.

Raising bottle kids is time consuming. The bottles and nipples need to be washed out every time. The milk must be warm enough. And the job continues for close to three months to result in big, healthy kids.

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Searching for Witch Hazel

A few wildflowers, international travelers like wayside speedwell and dead nettle, bloom even in January thaw. But I’m searching for witch-hazel, a native bush that blooms in February.

Hard to Find

Witch-hazel used to be common in gravelly stream beds. Now it is hard to find. Unfortunately for it, people want the inner bark to make herbal tinctures.

Although it is possible to buy seedlings and grow this plant, many herb diggers go searching for witch-hazel in the wild. As they have no real investment in the plant or property, they strip the plant. Some plants survive. Some don’t.

Herb Diggers

Many native plants are similarly attacked. Ginseng, golden seal, bloodroot are a few.

I met someone who dug golden seal. This person had never seen it bloom as he dug the plant up before it could reproduce.

Other herb diggers strip flowers from plants like elderberries and wild plums. These plants are not difficult to cultivate and seedlings are available from state nurseries every year for very little money.

searching for witch hazel
In Dent County, MO, the witch hazel blooms in February down in creek bottoms. At least it does if the herb diggers haven’t found it. A friend knew of this large patch so we went searching for witch hazel, hoping it was still in bloom. It was still blooming as were the many black alder bushes.

Recovery

When we moved to this place in the Ozarks, there was very little golden seal or bloodroot or echinaceae. We did our best to keep the herb diggers away.

Now I go back in a ravine to find a field of bloodroot in bloom. Another hill has a wide strip of golden seal which is scattered in other places too.

Very few people are invited to see the lady’s slippers blooming in other places. This plant, too, is popular for people to dig up and move to personal gardens where it soon dies.

Lucky Year

I mentioned searching for witch-hazel to a friend as I need pictures to include in my Dent County Flora. She happens to know where a patch of it grows. Another friend has some planted near his house.

Pictures of the plant in the wild are preferable so my friend and I will go visiting that patch. But, if I need to get a better plant picture, I may visit my other friend’s plants as they won’t be tucked into a wild community making the plants hard to see.

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Spring Promises

It’s still February. Officially, spring is a month away at the vernal equinox. So, what is it with spring promises wrapped up in warm temperatures and singing birds?

Garden Fever

My cabbage and leek seedlings don’t mind as they get to spend the day outside in the sunshine. Grow lights may work, but sunlight is so much better.

Snow pea seeds are planted. I’ll have to cover them, if frost threatens. The plants can take some frost, but the seeds don’t germinate well when they get too cold.

Tomato and pepper seeds need to be in pots to be ready for the garden in six weeks. Mine normally take eight as they must share the one grow light. Spring frost dates here are in mid April and may is a wise choice for tomatoes, peppers and squash.

chickens deliver on spring promises
Fancy, an Old Arcana rooster, is dressed in his spring finery and showing off for the hens.

Sure Sign of Spring

Spring promises are easy to find in the hen house lately. The chickens have started laying.

Chickens are long day birds. They generally stop laying in the fall when days get shorter. About six weeks after the winter solstice, the feathered ones start making deposits in the nests again.

I do try to use lights in the winter to keep at least a few eggs arriving every day. This didn’t work out well this past winter. Now, eggs are on the menu again.

Standard cochin hen
Feathers is the last standard cochin hen in the flock. She is over five years old, but still lays an egg now and then.

Winter Promises

February is too early for winter to leave. The spring promises may become nightmares in another week when winter moves back in, laughing at those who fell for those lovely warm days thinking winter cold had gone on extended holiday already.

Impatience

The Ozark weather is famous for its changeability. I’ve lived here long enough to know this.

In spite of the spring promises, I will start seedlings at the usual time, set up the garden at the usual time, tell my impatience to settle down. Spring will get here when it gets here, when winter finally does go on holiday.

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Birds Are Showing Off

February is still winter. The days are getting longer, but cold rules. Yet the birds are showing off for spring nesting.

Male blue jays are bright blue. Male cardinals glow red. Bird songs sound on the hills.

birds are showing off and need food for energy
Male cardinals are easy to identify by their bright red plumage, crest and black mask. The female goldfinch is harder. Her color will change to more greenish later in spring. The black wings with wing bars are my tip off.

Watching the Bird Feeder

All winter flocks of birds come to raid the feeder. It is wall to wall birds with others waiting to swoop into any opening.

There is an order. Blue jays come first. Morning doves come second. Cardinals are third. Titmice, chickadees and nuthatches slip in to grab a sunflower seed and take off with it. Juncos and sparrows search the ground for any seeds knocked off.

In February only bad weather brings in such a crowd. The feeder has a few birds come by at a time.

Juncos are snow birds
Juncos are winter visitors in the Ozarks. They spend much of the year far north of here and come here for warmer weather, more food over the winter.

Squirrels Were Gone Too

All winter the squirrels have been nuisances at the bird feeder. At times two gray squirrels will be in the feeder with another one hanging on the edge. Red squirrels eat alone.

These interlopers were mostly gone. They were pairing off and starting families. Now they are back scarfing up sunflower seeds.

squirrels raid feeders
The feeder may be put up for the birds, but the squirrels love sunflower seeds too. This was one of four gray squirrels to visit this day along with at least one red. If there’s a way to keep them off, we haven’t found it yet.

Woodpeckers

Red-bellied and downy woodpeckers are regulars at the bird feeder. This is even more true now.

Woodpeckers nest early. They dig out their nests in January. Drumming resounds through the woods. Now these parents are eager to eat the suet cakes for that extra nutrition.

Migration Begins

The first summer birds are arriving. The vultures circle over the pastures. Purple finches and goldfinches are stopping by the bird feeder.

These birds are showing off for spring too. They will nest up on the hills and along the roads soon.

February is still winter and tries to drag it out. But winter’s grasp is slipping. Spring is still months away, but it is coming. The birds will be ready, hiding their nests in the trees and bushes up on the hills.

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Electricity Wins

Over the last couple of days, we’ve been watching a battle between nature and electricity. Nature loses. Electricity wins.

Battle Causes

Plants want to grow. Trees grow tall anywhere they find a place with enough soil, light and water. Electric lines are not a problem to them.

Storms make the trees sway. Branches hit the lines. Treetops snap off and fall on the lines. Whole trees get uprooted and fall taking the lines down with them.

Electricity wins over this tree
This tall honey locust was a danger to the electricity lines. So the tree trimmers took it down.

Electricity Demands

When we lived up north in the Michigan Upper Peninsula, we had no electricity. We used gas lights in the evening. It was cold enough to not need a refrigerator. We brought jugs of water from town.

The wood cook stove had a tank for melting snow which was plentiful for six to seven months. It kept the room warm along with a wood heating stove. The radio ran on batteries.

After moving to Missouri, we got electricity. Running water in the house is so convenient. Lights coming on at the flip of a switch are luxury. Electric appliances are nice too. Add being able to watch movies in the evening.

Most people also have cell phones, internet, freezers. Some have electric cars, fans, heat and ranges. Electricity is the underpinning of our lives.

The Choice

When the electric company came by wanting to clear the trees out of the right of way, we agreed. It isn’t that we don’t value the trees, some of them old and beautiful. We do. It’s that we value electricity more.

If our electricity goes off, we do survive. We remember the old ways and adapt. But it is not something we enjoy doing.

nature loses
This machine has blades in the front roller. These pull in branches, up to six inch trunk trees and tall weeds. Shredded mulch is left behind.

Nature loses. Electricity wins.

Watching the large equipment was amazing. The long boom with a saw at the end sheared off branches fifty and sixty feet up. Chain saws were not needed.

Then there was the mulching machine. It ate its way through six inch trunks turning them into wood shreds. Smaller branches were pulverized.

The big boom carried a man up to trim a tall tree with a chainsaw.

With equipment like these machines, nature hasn’t a chance. Electricity wins every time.

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Us and Them Attitudes

I just finished reading a book, “The First Ladies” an historical fiction by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray which I highly recommend. Although the book is about the friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune, it reminded me of an us and them incident with my goats.

Stay Away!

I was still relatively new with goats at the time. In starting a 4-H goat project, I met two families with goat dairies. And all my does went dry one winter. So I borrowed a Saanen doe from one of the dairies.

My Nubians are brown and black. They have long, pendulous ears. There was one black Alpine doe with upright ears.

Nubian goat us and them attitude
This is my Nubian herd a couple of years ago. It doesn’t change much from year to year, only loses members. It does reflect what my herd has looked like all along: brown and black. A goat of another color is ostracized.

Saanens are white. They have upright ears. The breed is known for being easy going.

Usually, when a new goat is introduced into a herd, everyone gangs up on the poor thing. She is impressed with the news she is at the bottom of the pecking order. Unless she is very aggressive, she stays there for a long time.

That poor Saanen was ignored. If she walked over to my Nubians, they walked away. Not a single one would have anything to do with her.

My Nubians would lie down basking in the sun, an activity Nubians adore doing. When the Saanen laid down at the edge of the group, they got up and moved.

This us and them attitude held for the several months the Saanen was with us. It had to be such an attitude as the Saanen was a dairy goat like them, ate the same food, was treated the same.

Human Us and Them

In “The First Ladies” the same kind of attitude was most apparent. Government officials, military personnel, the public all saw only that Mrs. Bethune was black. Even when she had a personal invitation from Mrs. Roosevelt, she would be turned away or threatened only on the basis of her color.

Such attitudes were the norm at that time. Sometimes it seems some people think they are the norm now. Us and them. They are different.

Another aspect of the book was most interesting. That was the interplay of perceptions. These women forged a deep friendship and working relationship. Yet, they first had to bridge a culture gap. This is where the different chapters from the viewpoints of the two brought out the us and them attitudes, the assumptions we hold about each other.

This is true not just in the case of race, but also for gender, economic class, about everything we absorb as we grow up. It’s easy to drift along holding on to these attitudes. We are better people, more true to the beliefs we claim to hold, if we challenge these and recognize how easy and sometimes harmful an us and them attitude can be.

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Goat Birth Defects

Goat kids are special. They are cute and soon provide hours of fun watching their various escapades. Waiting for them to be born doesn’t include thinking about goat birth defects.

Like people, goats grow old. High Reaches Juliette is old. She got bred by accident – she wasn’t supposed to be in season, her daughter was, but she wasn’t as out of season as I thought – and I watched with a mix of anticipation and dread. The dread won.

Goat Birth Defects

Yes, livestock can have babies born with birth defects. Juliette’s single kid was born with several. Why? I will never know.

In a way, I think Juliette knew. Most new mothers talk to their kids. She says nothing. She doesn’t look for her kid.

The kid was born dead. There was nothing to be done for it, if it was alive.

being small is not goat birth defect
Goats usually have twins. Sometimes one kid is a glutton and gets big while the other is born small. This little Nubian buck kid was one of the small ones. He was too small to nurse and had trouble standing up. That meant he was a bottle baby and had to be fed often. So, he went to work with me.

Disappointment

Yes, I am disappointed. The strain of wondering if the kid would be born during the recent cold made sleeping hard. I was glad the kid waited.

When Juliette showed all the signs of imminent kidding, I was excited. The prospect of new kids brightened my day.

Now there is a different disappointment. Goat birth defects have been rare in my herd, only a handful over almost fifty years. Each is a loss and felt as a loss.

Nubian goat wether
The little Nubian buck kid grew up. Sometimes the small kids have internal problems and they don’t survive. Pest didn’t. Yes, his name is Pest. He is now a wether weighing around 200 pounds and spoiled.

Living With Disappointment

Goat birth defects are disappointing. Such kids are usually born dead or must be destroyed as they will not survive.

Louie, a blind kid, was an exception. He learned to get around quite well and lived several years before falling victim to illness.

Losing livestock is part of life for owners. It’s always disappointing and demands reflection as to what happened, why and changes to prevent it in the future. Unfortunately, this loss for me has no obvious cause or prevention.

Looking Forward

Four does are due to kid in March. All are younger.

Like Juliette, I will put this behind me. March kids will be here in two months.

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Spring Gardening

It’s amazing how uplifting sun and temperatures above freezing can be after days of near and below zero. The goats and chickens tumble out their doors to bask in the sun. Thoughts turn to kids and spring gardening.

Waiting on Kids

My Nubian doe High Reaches Juliette was due about New Year’s. The days passed and she stayed fat and showing signs, but no kids.

When she looked like any time, the temperatures plunged. Anxiety began as wet kids stand no chance in zero degrees even with an experienced mother goat.

The cold seemed to stop all kid preparation. As this cold moves on, the wait begins anew.

Reading Gardening Books

There’s not much to do outside with cold temperatures and a dusting of snow. Reading about gardening, seed sorting and starting along with spring gardening plans pass the days.

Much of the country is having much worse weather than the Ozarks. That’s one of the reasons we moved here thirty years ago. Waist deep snow along with temperatures ten and twenty below for six months didn’t fit our preferred life style.

My current gardening book “The Country Journal Book of Vegetable Gardening” written by Nancy Bubel is set in Pennsylvania. Some of the crops, all of the timing and some of the problems don’t apply here in the Ozarks. So, why is the book helpful?

Zephyr summer squash
This is definitely on my garden list for this year. Zephyr summer squash is easy to grow, delicious to eat and somewhat tolerant of squash bugs.

Universal Gardening Ideas

Some things fit gardening no matter where the garden is. The author prefers setting out rows. I have marked out beds. But planting seeds is the same.

Pennsylvania gardens are set out later than mine. But spring gardening planning entails the same details for succession planting, mulching, cultivating, seed starting and more.

Much of this and other gardening books won’t apply to the Ozarks. Enough of it does to make reading them worthwhile.

Besides, its relaxing to read about spring gardening while waiting for the season to begin. Now is when the planned garden is beautiful and productive. Before reality sets in.

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Winter Snow

This winter’s weather has been weird. That includes the first winter snow storm.

Past Snows

I’ve lived up in snow country, the Michigan Upper Peninsula, where snow lies waist deep for months. It’s beautiful and cold. Even the moisture in the air turns to tiny ice crystals sparkling like diamonds in the sunlight.

These were dry snows that fell when the temperatures were far below freezing. Many would pour from hand to ground like sugar pours from the bag.

Ozark Snows

Ozark winters rarely get that intense cold. Winter snow often falls when the temperature is thrity degrees. It’s a wet, cement snow great for snowballs and snowmen and deadly to shovel.

These snows rarely lasted more than a day or two before the temperatures rose, the sun came out and everything melted. Children may regret this. I don’t as doing chores in the snow is drudgery.

Ozark creek in winter snow
Over an inch of moisture fell, but only a half inch of very wet snow sat on the land until the sun touched it. Soon only patches sitting in the shade were left. The melt raised the Ozark creek a bit.

This Winter

It was raining as the thermometer stood at thirty-six degrees. This is too warm for snow or freezing rain.

Then the drops turned white. Clumps of snow flakes fell only to melt as soon as they hit the ground. This winter snow was falling when it was too warm to snow.

The snow was persistent and left a half inch of slush on the ground. Luckily the clouds were too thick and held the temperature above freezing all night. I’m not good at ice skating and too old to bounce well when I fall down.

crows in winter snow
Over the winter groups of crows march around the pastures. They are wary birds, taking off at any disturbance. They call back and forth. They didn’t seem very happy with the white stuff.

What Happened?

The cold air bringing the snow didn’t shove the warm air on the ground away. That left the clouds cold enough to snow which they did.

The layer of warm air along the ground wasn’t thick enough to melt the snow before it got to the ground. That meant our first winter snow fell when the temperature was too warm.

Winter isn’t done with us. The next cold front is much bigger, colder and meaner than the last one. We may get a real snow in the next few days.

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Buttercup Parade

One task for mid winter is to sort through and back up the plant pictures taken over the year. There weren’t a lot of them last year for many reasons. Still, I’ve come across a buttercup parade.

What is a buttercup parade? After all, a buttercup is a buttercup. Except there are several of them that grow around the place.

Early buttercups lead the buttercup parade
I found a number of these small buttercups growing along my Ozark road. These plants are hairy, leaves, stems and under the sepals. The petals are long and separate.

Wildflower Series

There are a number of wildflower parades around the area. One is the purple ironweed. For people driving by, these are only tall plants topped with purple flower heads.

When I go walking out to the fields where the ironweeds bloom, there is a succession of different ones. Usually the Arkansas blooms first followed by the Purple. Then the tall ironweed takes over arging with the Western. Last is the Missouri. All this runs from July to September.

Another series is the various white snakeroot, wild quiine, common boneset and false boneset. Summer is taken up by the yellow sunflowers. And the blue and purple asters run their series in the late summer into fall.

Dent County Flora

These series don’t matter to most people. Those few who drive by looking at the wildflowers see only the colors.

The series do make a difference to me as I keep nibbling away at the list of plants growing in Dent County. I must first notice the plants are different. Then I take a series of pictures on each plant and flower, marking them so I can come back to get pictures of the seeds or fruits.

Hardest of all is poring over the plant identification books trying to identify each of the plants. This brings me back to the buttercup parade.

buttercup parade in the garden
Bulbous buttercups showed up in my garden one year. They are pretty, bloom a long time and so they stayed. As with other garden wildflowers, they seed prolifically. I now pick out one or two to grow into their lovely mounds and pull the rest.

Which Is Which?

As far as I know now, there are four buttercups growing around me. They are the Early, Harvey’s, Hispid and Bulbous. I have pictures of all four. Now I get to double check the identifications in “Flora of Missouri” and www.missouriplants.com and put them into the Dent County Reds (Yellows and Orange) book.