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the bucks had their first day Out…in the New Back.  well, except for BuckWheat, who opted to stay running back and forth along the doe pen expressing himself all day.  but the other three did really well. 

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be sure to click the pic to enlarge

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and we just did stuff.  then, we have found a good routine for letting everyone else loose every day and there is happiness

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and Then, we opened the back passage between the two doe pens.   So far, so good.  and i feel a lot better not keeping the does seperate and all the little ones love it, running back and forth.  they still all seperate themselves at night, to sleep.  perfect.

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a lot of work for a little boy and his old nana.  and in between, we went to Bosque del Apache.  They had drained everything in anticipation of the Migration next month when it all will be filled anew.  and we looked closely at these "shade houses",  how to build them.  River willow and Salt Cedar sticks.

 

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i am

aching

to sew

 

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29 responses to “”

  1. patricia Avatar
    patricia

    Your herd is beautiful–obviously so well cared for, and those bucks! There’s such a feeling of well-being in these photos. And the thought of shade. Filter of many types, isn’t it.

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  2. Sandy Avatar
    Sandy

    hi there! Your males remind me so much of Judes beasts( in such a good way). Thank you for sharing such lovely creatures. I thoroughly enjoy seeing them! xx Sandy

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  3. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    well being. isn’t that a really good effort…well being.
    Since May, it has been a shuffle ing and shuffle ing. and
    for now, this seems good. things change a lot with this
    many goats but it feels like a solid base to change from.
    and yes, the bucks. Buckwheat is coming in to his own. a year old in August. little Sunny Ray is Gideon’s son and would make a very fine herd sire.
    and the funniest things is, forever, since i’ve been here, the weeds have been the bane of my existence…well, the
    kochia and pig weed. now, i find self worrying if there
    will be enough….

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  4. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    they ARE perfect Beasts.
    thanks, Sandy….xoxo

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  5. deb Avatar
    deb

    The bucks look like LIONS…and such INDUSTRY..I’m exhausted just looking.

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  6. jude Avatar
    jude

    i would just love to stitch a shady spot like that.
    i live the pic of boy and beast just hanging out, bare-hooved.

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  7. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    hanging out quite literally, yes they are.
    the shade houses are really great. with the river willow “walls”,
    they are so light but can withstand Wind by the way they are
    woven. i have a pile of salt cedar sticks (roof) that i salvaged
    from the dump a couple years ago. enough for a good sized roof…
    and i’m thinking as i go along here during these days about how
    it might be a year or two or forever that i am still here and
    how nice that would be out in the New Back that faces south and
    is warmed early mornings with Winter Sun. it’s a very good thought.

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  8. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    look like lions and vocalize like elephants. Beasts.
    and industry…well, we’re still going.
    miss hanging out at “your house”…soon.

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  9. Linda Avatar
    Linda

    those shade houses could be anywhere in the world. the tops should be tied on with some kind of grass.. probably nailed here. just rambling.
    i love the pics of the goats being free and the boy in the mix. he will have this summer’s memories his whole life. what a blessing for you both.
    we are starting a remodeling project and i had to take down my loom and pack my room all in boxes. i kept a small basket for stitching. i too am aching to stitch.
    it will happen for us both..as they say in games of thrones… winter is coming.

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  10. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    yes…the most basic of shelters. again, these are
    Navajo/Apache. and i’m wondering if this Winter will
    feel different? somehow i’m thinking it will.
    this morning i was watching my first load of wood pile
    out the window. it rained last night and the wood was
    deep with color and texture of bark.
    achingly yours,

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  11. lynda merry Avatar
    lynda merry

    I love the look of the shade shelter. A few years back I made a trellis woven out of sticks for some grapevines that had a mind of their own near my flower garden. The trellis gets better, stronger, every year as i weave the vines in and out. Seeing this shade shelter makes me want to go bigger.
    So good to hear your ” voice” here – I check every day. I know you are busy. And I understand no time for stitching and how that feels.
    xo

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  12. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    lynda..YES…the grape vines would weave in so excellently.
    but one of the things goats love best is grapevines…so
    the first thought of weaving them in here will need to
    float in the wind.
    i have really changed my life in the last year to revolve
    around through and within cloth and this has been hard in
    that way. but i am glad, so glad for it but also now
    longing for that solitude again. a week or so now.
    his mom finishes her training in New Orleans today, flies
    home. then soon as we can figure out the logistics, he
    will be delived back to her. we will all breathe a
    happy sigh.

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  13. lynda merry Avatar
    lynda merry

    Yes – I understand that longing for solitude also. I know a lot of people that don’t understand that – mistake solitude for loneliness or withdrawing. I think it’s such an achievement when one can be content in solitude.
    That said, I admire you so much for the things you have taken on this year.

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  14. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i have been like that since i was a child, like as long
    as i can remember. you see a lot of things when you
    are quiet and looking. and they are extremely pleasing
    and satisfying just to be with, to experience the
    sense of them and you.
    these things i have taken on….i don’t know if anyone
    had presented the option, all things equal, i would have
    “chosen” them? but they were part of the just going and
    have somehow found their Place in it all. the goats being
    way more than i’d originally anticipated, daughter has
    gone back to school now, so between that and her work,
    the goats appear to have settled here. and, still, ALL
    of them and it looks like i will need to take responsibility for finding homes for those buck boys. she still has no permanent place to live…no computer to
    “advertise”, etc.
    the Julian, well, his mom being in the Navy, needs these
    occasional training time spaces with a loving place to be.
    that would be here. so, we just go and it has Huge Value.
    AND, i am learning a LOT from the resiliance of them…
    the child and the goats. they, just by their own innocence, Just Go. it’s really quite amazing.

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  15. Susan C Avatar
    Susan C

    The goats are beautiful – the manes on the males are impressive. I never knew they had this – so probably never saw a male goat. The shelters are wonderful. I have been researching wattle fences and it looks like the side wall may be like that? I am hoping to build some small fences in the yard soon.
    I know that ache and I hope the time to sew comes for you soon. I have been thinking about you.

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  16. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    so happy to find you here..
    Not all goats have them. these are Nigerial Dwarf Dairy
    Goats. and many of the pics you see on goat sites are of
    shaved goats because it’s easier to see their conformation
    when shaved. if we had taken any to the State Fair, bucks,
    we would have shaved them. it is a matter of no time
    this summer that they look so beautiful and wild.
    YES, wattle fencing…but i think this is horizontal?
    when i go down to the Refuge for training in October we
    are going to be making a river willow fence, so i’ll say
    more about it then probably. they are really wonderful,
    these woven fences. i hope you do and show us.
    i have thought of you many many times this month. You
    and your boys and how mothering or nana-ing a new mind
    takes enormous commitment. if i could say…”go Play!”
    but i don’t. WE go play. if it were more than this
    short time, we would need to work at least a little something out…but as it is, the days belong to him.
    and now this year, for you, with both in school….
    a different world.
    THANK YOU for coming by, love,

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  17. handstories Avatar
    handstories

    i’ll bet you are aching-
    but look at those goats & that boy! this is some world you’re in the midst of creating. i’m wondering what’s in the bucket that’s captured his attention? and really wondered what that creature was, before reading that it was a buck. have i never seen a male goat before? janie always wanted to build a shelter like this, dreamed of calling it her “spirit house”, we secretly gathered fallen trees in the arboretum for it one winter.

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  18. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    you know, i don’t know what he had in the bucket at that
    moment…maybe it was a single left over peanut that
    we use to lure the Boy goats with? could be that.
    and this is terrible…i am always wanting you to DO
    THINGS…but…..
    someday i wish you would write me (and the world) the
    Whole Story of Janie. i feel, every time you tell one
    more little thing that a part of me already knows Janie and i
    maybe WILL make this little Spirit House to see if i
    can lure her Spirit here to live with me. We could
    probably do some really cool stuff, she and i.
    love you,
    (i really mean that, about the Janie stories. a Really
    Good Woman should not go unstoried.)

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  19. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    that would make a great cloth.
    In Which Janie Visits grace’s Stick House, Long After
    Her Death. subtitled And How Cindy Is Not Surprised.

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  20. nance Avatar
    nance

    nothing so elaborate from me at this point.. but… are those tidy little holes in the fence windows for the goats to see out of?
    boy… lots of wild going on over there! i love the unshaved bucks and the bottomless boy.
    you will be aching for julian some time soon…
    xoxo

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  21. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    you have a good eye ~ those little holes are aborted
    attempts at figuring out a way for the left behind babies to come through without their mothers needing to go out
    to get the slow ones. but it didn’t work. oh well.
    and now that they are all together again, the COME, COME
    call works and everyone finally goes in the herd.
    That could be a song: Unshaved bucks and bottomless boys.
    and yes. that is absolutely true. probably as soon as
    the dust settles behind Jenny’s truck. he is very much
    something. but, aching and missing is an ok thing too.
    for cloth and for boy.
    Kenny, the alfalfa grower we get our feed from offered him a job. he thought about it and then said he couldn’t.
    because he didn’t have a hat. (Kenny and his foreman wear
    John Deere caps). when kenny said no problem, they’d get
    him a hat, he said ok. but he would have to go home for a while first because his mom missed him. so, ok, then.

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  22. Valerianna Avatar
    Valerianna

    It looks wildly groomed there since the goats. And a little, wild boy on the scene deepends the story.

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  23. nance Avatar
    nance

    a workin boy gotta have a hat! but gonna kiss momma first! love it!

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  24. saskia Avatar
    saskia

    have been looking at these pics again and again, there’s so much to see, the hairy bucks, Julian looking so at home there(our boys wandered butt naked in the garden at that age…) the beautiful shady shelters, I’m gonna keep on looking, thanks Grace, take care

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  25. KaiteM. Avatar
    KaiteM.

    So many changes, so much to do, the sewing will happen soon but you are doing a wonderful thing right now.

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  26. yvette Avatar
    yvette

    took a “visit” to the refuge…great!
    If we make willow fences the willows grow further, but I imagine it´s too dry at your´s?
    love being in your solitude.
    strange..people think I’m lonely since I lay down with my broken back most of the time. But my world is bigger after I accepted it.

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  27. handstories Avatar
    handstories

    cindy would not be surprised. i’m sure her spirit would love hanging out with you, the two of you would’ve been kindred spirits…and it was never hot enough for her here. i think she’s here right now, though, found boxes of her things in the basement last night. unstoried…good word. i don’t think anyone knows the whole story of her, we all have pieces- but i do have more that could be shared. x

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  28. ali Avatar
    ali

    I love looking at your flock. in picture two, it seems you maybe have a lion-goat!

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  29. jenni-lynn Avatar
    jenni-lynn

    🙂

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