The past two Christmases have had a running theme when it comes to presents.  Any guesses what that may be?  I’ll give you a hint: anything farm related.  Ha!  I must say I love it.  This Christmas across the board was farm themed – whether from the hubs, my parents, my aunt, or my in-laws family – everything was farm related.

For instance, my mother went flannel overboard this year for everyone.  I know that sounds like a negative thing but it was awesome.  Everyone has been decked out in flannel since Christmas around here!

The hubs got me a great pair of coveralls I can thrown on over my clothes at feeding time and stop having to get everything I own muddy and torn all the time!

My cousins on my husbands side got me cool chicken themed gifts!  And my cousin Katie got me an awesome tote that says “totes ma goats” with 3 goat silhouettes! Sadly, I have no pictures.

And last but certainly not least….drum roll please…my awesome aunt made an egg gathering apron for me.  She is the bomb.  Justin is really going to look good wearing this… 😉

I realize people can take things overboard but I love that all my gifts were so thought out!  They were practical (to an extent) and all for or about the thing(s) I love…my farm!

Christmas should never be about the gifts but it’s so nice to know that friends and family pay attention to the things you want and need.

While our Christmas was filled with flannel we will be hoppin’ into the New Year.

(See what I did there?)

This big boy is Goliath.  We just picked his girlfriend, Sheba, up last night.

And this is Thumper.  We picked up his girlfriend last night too.  Her name is Flower.

We are going to start raising meat rabbits.  We have been wanting a pig for some time but they just take up so much room and make SUCH a mess.  Rabbits are much smaller, much less mess, and procreate quickly.  I cannot wait to make dumplings.

I hate to end on bad news but the past week has been a rough one around here.  On Wednesday Julie, one of our Obers, went into labor a week and a half early.  Both kids were stillborn.  (Goats cannot survive that early)  Julie was doing great and then we got off work Thursday and she was down.  After a lot of tireless hours filled with antibiotic shots, syringing water, and finally a trip to the vets….Julie died.  At this time we do not know why.  All of our animals are disease tested before coming to the farm and then tested yearly here.  We are sending off tissue samples of the babies and a blood sample for Julie to rule out any disease we may have missed.  Hopefully it was just from natural causes/infection and is not something that can spread to our other does.

It’s times like these when I am reminded of the Ram truck commercial about when God made the farmer.  I try to mainly focus on the fun, wacky things that happen to us but farming is also filled with losses.  And this past week we lost a lot.

I hope to have pictures of our new does Sheba and Flower up for y’all to see soon!

Until next time!