One Year In
Yes, it certainly doesn't feel like it to me, but it is now a year since we loaded our Benington house contents into a removal van, and relocated to West Wales.
Tonight, on top of the standard Friday night pizza, we shall celebrate in style by opening our first bottle of Gooseberry Wine homebrew - if you hear nothing more, the wine is either very good, or very bad!
The first 12 months have been very busy, though I certainly didn't expect to have quite as many goats quite so soon. The animal tally today reads:
Two humans (no change there!)
Four dogs (up two!)
Three chickens (up three)
Two pigs (up two, though not for much longer!)
Fifty-Seven goats (up 57!)
Two barn cats (up two)
We have had a lot of fencing repaired, and are now proud owners of a ridiculous number of gates, something like 50 of them, most of which are new over the last 12 months.
A special massive thank-you must go to Meg and Damo at Moat Goats. They set out on a similar enterprise to us a year earlier, they are from farming families, and have helped us immeasurably. Despite being close neighbours (by goat standards) they have shared all their knowledge and experience. Without their help we would be nowhere near as established with the goats as we are today.
We don't have any produce to sell yet, but with our first round of kiddings already seeming like a distant memory, it won't be all that long before the difficult bit starts. If anyone is interested in trying Goat Meat now, please do contact Meg at Moat Goats. They always have something available, and can ship meat countrywide. Their contact details can be found on the Moat Goats website.
Thanks also to all our friends following our often random antics via this blog and Facebook, and to those who have traveled the miles to reach this outcrop of the United Kingdom. Some have even visited more than once, so I guess we can't smell too bad ... yet!
Year 2 looks more like getting into a standard routine. Our buck Emperor is currently in with 6 doelings (goats who have not had kids yet), and has been 'making friends' with all of them in his own particular style. He will have another group to make friends with later this year, and by then, the mums who kidded February/March should be back into shape we hope. I think Emperor should enjoy the rest of this year!
