Dress-up day

When my kids were little you could never tell when they were going to dress up. Most days Luke would wake up, put on his Zorro mask or his Davey Crockett hat and head downstairs to ride his jumping horse. The girls were always in fancy dresses. And sometimes, so was Stevie, as the girls found it needful to dress him up like their dolls and bears. 
Those were fun days.
Today is another dress-up day - Halloween. Although everyone knows you don't really need an excuse to dress in a fancy princess dress.

Or a Tigger suit.

 Happy End-of-October day. 

Four sets

The last of our goats kidded - giving us a total of 4 sets of twins.  Splitting our breeding seasons to half in fall and half in spring really made the kidding season easier.  We did this primarily to have some stock for the 4-H/FFA people who want goats born late in the year, but it doesn't look like too many of these will be going to those programs, we got some nice looking kids this time and I'm going to be greedy.

I wasn't able to get the greatest pictures yet, but I'm going to have to document this group a little better - they came out looking mostly the same. We have named them all and every time I go outside I pick them up and say their names aloud to myself - if I don't I'm never going to get them straight.

Angel, our red-headed mama goat, produced a boy and a girl - we named them Gloria and Glen.
Leia, our most persnickety goat - also our herd mama, had two gorgeous girls. We gave them fitting names - Giselle and Greta.

Why are the names so important?  Believe it or not, when I advertise them for sale, the ones that I place their names in the listing always sell first. Also, it's a lot easier to say to William, "We need to move Tahoe to the other pen," instead of "Can you move the goat with the brown head and brown spot on her tail?"
They all have brown heads so that doesn't really help much. 

No bottle babies this time (whew!), but two breech babies - we were glad to have been there to help out. Now, everyone is happy and healthy, and Rosie is enjoying her baby goats every day.

Gandalf and Gloria

Giselle, Leia's kid

Giselle and Greta with Mama Leia

Cocoa with Gina and Gerard

Animals do talk

When I got home from my travels last week I went outside to see my expectant mother goats. They seemed happy to see me, and greeted me with nudgings and nibbles.

One goat, Bella, ran up to me with a little bit of excitement. I patted her and asked her how she was. She nudged me, then tried to get me to follow her.

I followed her over into one of the side fields, over a hill under some trees. It's not a spot the goats normally like to "hang out" so I stood there a while and looked around, first thinking she wanted to show me something. She did.

As I stood there she made her little cooing sounds, sort of like mama goats do to their babies when they are first born. I realized she was telling me she was planning on having her babies in this very spot.

I came in and told William and Michelle, just in case I was not around when the event happened. I don't think they believed me.

Bella with new babies, Georgie (standing) and Gracie (lying)

Day before yesterday I went out early. I had all-day meetings and knew I would not be getting many chances to go outside during the day. When I went out, I took a little grain and fed everyone. I did not see Bella.

Then I heard a noise. A loud noise, precisely, coming from over the hill. I made my way over there to find Bella standing with two brand new kids, one all cleaned up, one having just been born.
She was in the very spot she told me she planned on having her babies.

The past few days she's stayed in that spot - not willing to share with anyone else, and I'm not making her. These are some of the prettiest babies we've gotten.

We've named them Gracie and Georgie.  Now, I realize we had already picked Georgie for another kid but we've changed that one to Gerard instead because, as Michelle pointed out, you just can't have a Gracie without a George.

Proof our animals do speak, if we only listen. I do try.

More babies on the way.....

That sound

Last night after dinner, TV, and Rosie's bedtime, we were all vegetating after a nice Sunday. Rosie was in bed - thought not asleep, as usual.

Michelle was in the office and heard a noise, then came and told me I should go out and check the goats. Still watching TV, I had intended to go out before bed but had not made my way out there yet.

I went out. At about the same time Rosie heard a noise, too.

"What's that noise," she asked, wide-eyed. Then she sat up and said, "Oh, that noise is so cute, I want to go outside and see that noise I love so much."

Mommy got her dressed and out she came, to welcome our newest twins.

None of our goats have ever delivered at night before. I knew it would happen, and after watching Cocoa (the mama) on Sunday afternoon, I knew it was a great possibility.

By the time I got outside Cocoa had just dropped the second one. The noise Rosie heard was the first-born, who was hollering for her mama, a few steps away. For a first-time mama, Cocoa did good. Although she did not like cleaning them. She kept licking, then spitting, and finally I had to wipe them off. They are both about 7 lbs. - a boy and a girl.

Cocoa with her twins

Today Rosie went out with me again to see them and give them names. I had names picked out but she did not like my choices. She settled on Gina for the girl, and Georgie for the male. "I like Gina," she said very matter-of-factly." We have no idea where she's even ever heard that name.

We have three more Mama goats due over the next couple of weeks. That means more cute noises.

Gina, 8 hours old

Georgie - 8 hours old

Happy Thanksgiving, Canada

Thanksgiving Day in Canada is the 2nd Monday in October.

Having a day of thanks has long been something people throughout the world love to do. This is true, of course, in the U.S. but it's also very true of Canada, although perhaps it has not always had a designated "day" on the calendar assigned to it.

For example, long before European explorers arrived in North America, the native peoples of the Americas held festivals to celebrate the completion and bounty of the harvest (we call these people American Indians; in Canada they are known as First Nation).

Canadians sometimes lay claim to the celebration of Thanksgiving. An early example of such a ceremony is of the explorer Martin Frobisher, who held a day of thanksgiving in 1578 after he had survived the long journey to Newfoundland in his quest to find a northern passage from Europe to Asia. Frobisher's celebration in 1578 was 43 years before the pilgrims gave thanks in 1621.

Although there was not always a designated day set aside in Canada, Thanksgiving was was annual a practice left over from the Old World. English settlers from Great Britain were accustomed to having a harvest celebration in their churches every autumn and continued the practice after leaving England for Canadian shores. Since harvest seasons change from year to year, so did the Thanksgiving festival.

Travelers also carried the gift of thanksgiving to the north.  By the 1750's, the  celebration which began in 1621 by American pilgrims was taken to Nova Scotia by American settlers from the south. Then  the Seven Year's War came to Canada.  After that ended in 1763, the citizens of Halifax held a special day of Thanksgiving.

Date changes for Thanksgiving in Canada continued for many years.  For example, refugees fleeing the U.S. Civil War once again brought the custom of an annual thanksgiving when they moved north.  Many other such examples dot Canada's holiday timeline.

From 1879, Thanksgiving Day was a national holiday in Canada, and was held every year, though it continued to change dates. Not only the date varied, but there was always a special theme for Thanksgiving each year. For many years the primary theme was the "Blessings of an abundant harvest." However, Queen Victoria's golden and diamond jubilees and King Edward VII's coronation formed the theme in later years, adding a flare to the celebration.

It was not until 1957 that Thanksgiving gained it's own special place and permanent place on the Canadian holiday event calendar, finally claiming the 2nd Monday in October.
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What I love about Canada most is her open-mindedness. Always willing to learn more, try more, and change. Canada has historically learned from other countries as well as her own experience, making way for new ideas and traditions. Like Thanksgiving.

Personally, I would prefer that the U.S. held Thanksgiving in October, because that's when harvest usually takes place (most years, in most regions), and that would make the celebration for the Christmas holiday open sooner. Too many people in the U.S. are grumpy even thinking about Christmas until after the U.S. date of Thanksgiving, and that just isn't enough time to be joyous about such a special season. Didn't someone once say we should "keep Christmas alive in our hearts all the year"  (paraphrase, Dickens)... ?

I like the idea of an earlier Thanksgiving. I am not in favor of grinches who want to "kill" the Christmas spirit when it tries to be born before late November.  Ross.

Meetings

Nearly every day I have meetings. Sometimes my meetings are web based. Sometimes they consist only of Chat. Sometimes, my meetings are with actual real people - f2f, and sometimes these meetings are on the phone.

Whatever the case, it seems I find myself in meetings often. I especially enjoy those meetings that are online when I have visitors. Yesterday's visitor was a cheerful, but wiggly Obi. And he didn't make a peep.

I'm not the only one in these meetings who bring children, or dogs. I might be the only one who sometimes has background sounds of goats though. That story is for another day.  Maybe soon.

Nana Bear

Rosie has this little Fisher Price farm she plays with. There are many stalls in the barn and even a tractor. The farmer who drives the tractor in Rosie's farm is named Ross. In her farm live many animals; cows, horses, chickens, and dinosaurs.

Each day, Rosie finds it important to help the Mommy dinosaurs have their babies. Then she helps them nurse their babies. Then she gives the baby dinosaurs a shot (just like we do our baby goats). After that she counts them; "I have a Mommy dinosaur, a Daddy dinosaur, and two baby dinosaurs. Four dinosaurs. Just like Rosie's house." She does this almost every day.

One day she started calling her own mommy, Mommy Dinosaur. Now she does this every place she goes. She calls her daddy, Daddy Dinosaur, and Obi is Obi Dinosaur, and of course, she refers to herself as Rosie Dinosaur.

After dinner one night her Mommy Dinosaur said to her, "After you finish, you and Nanny Dinosaur can go for a walk."

Rosie looked surprised.  "She's not Nanny Dinosaur, she's Nana Bear."  This was said very matter-of-factly. We look puzzled but shrugged, and just accepted it as childhood reasoning. Every day when she talked to me, she would call me Nana Bear. We asked her about it several times, but it's always the same. I could only be Nana Bear, that was the rule.

While they were all gone to California last week, I cleaned out a closet. I found a few toys that Ethan used to play with, and I put the animal ones in Rosie's farm. One of them was a rubbery, squishy dinosaur.

The night Rosie got home she went to see her farm. She was so happy to see it, and to tell all her animals she was home. When she saw the new dinosaur she picked it up and said, "What's this?"

"It's a new dinosaur for you, Rosie. I found it while you were gone."

Rosie got this big grin and squeezed the dinosaur, then held it up to her Mommy.

"Look Mommy, I have a new dinosaur. Now Nana isn't a bear any more. She's a dinosaur, because this new one lives at my farm, too."

We should have realized. All things begin on the farm. What were we thinking?

So now we know why I could not be a dinosaur. It was because her farm family only had four creatures in it, and there hadn't been one for me.

Now there is. Now, I can be a dinosaur, just like I always wanted.

October 1st

Wow! How did it get to be October?

Today is an important day, at least to some of us. For those over 50, you may be interested to know that October 1 is International Day of Older Persons.
I am not making this up.

Three years ago today I flew to Shanghai to be with Michelle and William when Rosie was born. I repeated that trip exactly one year later - because two years ago on this day I flew to Shanghai again, to help them move back to the U.S. 

October 1 is a day to celebrate. For Christmas fans, this day begins the countdown for our most beloved of holidays (some of us might start earlier). For Catholics, this is the feast day of St. Therese of Lisieux. For Stevie and Annie, it's the beginning of Octoberfest, which they are spending this year in Germany.

For my niece and nephew, it's the day (hopefully) their 3 month old baby boy, Séamus, comes how from the hospital after open-heart surgery. 

In History, this is a memorable day for many other reasons, too.
 Just look at a few: (some are even interesting)

1800 – Spain surrenders Louisiana to France
1811 – The first steamboat to sail the Mississippi River arrives in New Orléans, Louisiana.
1880 – John Philip Sousa becomes leader of the United States Marine Marching Band.  Impressive.
1880 – Thomas Edison opens the first electric lamp factory.
1890 – Yosemite National Park is established by the U.S. Congress.
1891 – Stanford University opens its doors for the first time.
1903 – The first game of the World Series is played between the Boston Americans and the Pittsburgh Pirates
1910 – A large bomb destroys the Los Angeles Times building in downtown Los Angeles, killing 21.
1931 – The George Washington Bridge opens, joining New Jersey and New York.
1940 – The first superhighway in the United States, Pennsylvania Turnpike, opens to traffic.
1949 – The People's Republic of China is established and declared by Mao Zedong.
1957 – First appearance of In God We Trust on U.S. paper currency.  Not that long ago, folks.
1961 – Roger Maris slammed the home run that broke Babe Ruth's long-standing record.
1958 – NASA is created to replace NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics)
1962 – First broadcast of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson aired.
1971 – Walt Disney World opens near Orlando, Florida. At that time the park mainly consisted of Fantasy Land, Hotel, and the fabulous Monorail that went around the property.
1982 – EPCOT Center opens at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida
1982 – Sony launches the first consumer compact disc player. Do you remember what a big deal that was?
1987 – The Whittier Narrows earthquake shakes the San Gabriel Valley, registering as magnitude 5.9. Michelle remembers that.


Personally, I like the day because it says "Autumn" to me. Somehow, on this day, the trees magically start turning yellow and orange.  I love this time of year, no matter where I am.