Every year consists of a learning curve.  This is the year of nutrition focus and health.  I have been studying appropriate nutrition for our goats as they face having their babies in the spring.  We have two first year 'fresheners' who are having their first babies.  Making certain the kids grow in the womb without complications later,  is a careful process. 

Grain amounts and contents help or hinder development of pregnant does. Two new elements have been added to their grain mix.  Their current grain consists of a 16% calf feed which works fairly well.  Our new policy is feeding them smaller amounts twice daily.  Once a day I add Diamond VS yeast and kelp less than an ounce per goat.  Mixed properly they will eat it with the grain.  I feed it to them when they are particularly hungry in the morning and night.   Too much grain too early in the pregnancy can cause toxic effects as well as babies that are too big to be born easily. 

Hay is important and vital.  I spent time in the fall searching for a farmer with the right grass mix with alfalfa.  Praise God Michael Uremovich has the number of bales we need for 2019.  The alfalfa percentage works for us and still has its green chlorophyll which means it is stored well. 

Meanwhile the girls are waiting for spring.  Hopefully we will receive a number of fairly warm days to walk to the pasture.  Both Starry Night and Emma still appear quite frisky after their time with boys.  Everyone will be ready to explore more space. 

Our breeders this year are located in  Manitowoc,Wisconsin.  Pat and Bruce have been breeding Toggenburgs since their daughter was in 4H.   With gratitude we look forward to this year's kidding season with specific dates.   The girls are bred with a procedures called hand breeding.  They are carefully observed  interacting with the boy goat through a fence, and at the right moment the doe is brought to the pen for the big moment.  Here is the quote from Pat last week. 

Well, the girls finally are in love.  We bred Abby late last week, Starry Night over the weekend, Esther came into heat yesterday, and Gracie this morning.  We should be able to check them before they go home to be sure they conceived.  

Blue Moon, seen below, is a registered Toggenburg buck with great milking blood lines.  The other photo is of Bruce and Pat with two of their goats.  They only breed Nubians and Toggenburgs .  Nubians have long ears and Toggies are usually brown and white with airplane ears.

Our babies this year will be brown kids.  We are retrieving the girls  after the New Year to start our new 2019 season.  

As the year ratchets down, the weather cools to a tepid 50 degree high.  The wet weather of September is a lost dream as we enjoy the final weeks our our season involving milk production, breeding schedules and farm help.  After several calls and emails, we now have a breeder with good qualifications for our girls.  Their Date Camp has been scheduled for the week after Thanksgiving.  While we now only milk once a day, with a decreasing production, strangely enough we are receiving emails and calls from new customers.  Milk now sells out each week.  Praise God for new customers who may benefit from our milk,  Enrique Orosco has come to live with us and is helping us with the fall clean up as we put our garden to bed and clear the pastures of old hay and manure piles. 

We still have work in the cold weather approaching winter.  Our accounting needs to be updated to the present. We've a few goat chill times scheduled in the next few weeks.  I started to evaluate how to improve the feed of  lactating goats for next year.  I will be making another trip to Jefferson Wisconsin to visit Frank's Organic Feed Store.  We need to stock up on hay for the January through April months.  Reflections include deciding on writing grants,  participating in fundraising of the Waller property for the next year and setting goals and objectives.  

May your fall be as gentle and pleasant as ours.

 On the second day of October, we took Martha to our local veterinarian.  He reviewed her health after Dr. Vigil's evaluation, and weighed her at 88 pounds. In January, she started the year at 150.  Martha could not maintain her health due to the loss of her teeth.  When a goat cannot chew and process grasses sufficiently, the animal will deteriorate.  I learned a lot about goat teeth and check ever other goat's teeth once a year. 

She was six years old and our oldest goat.  She was queen leader of the herd and our star milk producer.   We could not understand her weight loss and she suffered an eye infection in the last two weeks.  Once we saw her missing teeth, we realized the reason for her waning health.  I will miss taking care of her;  yet it is a release for all of us.  

The end of August and beginning of September are doubly busy.  Weaning requires us to separate the babies from the mommies.  Milking happens twice a day.  The production of milk steadily falls until November.  All summer long we review production and health of the nursing nannies.  We also review the development of each kid analyzing them to see if they have the strength and potential to produce milk on an urban dairy farm.  Still we managed to complete our permitting process in all the complexities.

As for the mommy milk production, we have top production winners and problem girls.  Gracie has become our queen this year averaging 4.5  of milk per day.  Her babies are strong and healthy and she holds up in all the moving around we do.  This year Destiny has two different illness and was off the milk line more than on.  Illness produces high somatic countwhich is too high to sell to humans.  Somatic counts are determined by lab samples sent to Wisconsin once a month.  She has just gained good health and is now back on the milk line.

Babies for next year to stay are Emma, Twist and Ophelia.  Stay tuned for our announcement to find homes for the other kids. 

In April 2016, the State of Illinois revised its regulations for raw milk sales.  A permitting process was created and a packet of requirements made available to the public.  That same year, with the help of a Wwoofer volunteer, we wrote a grant from Frontera Farmer Foundation to construct a milk processing room, purchase milking equipment and improve our fencing in pastures/lots in the city.  The year 2017 was dedicated to upgrading our milking system and constructing a dairy room for processing. This year we completed our goal; in August 2018 GlennArt received it Raw Dairy Farm Permit.  ​

GlennArt Farm considers and carefully maintains standards to assure customers may receive quality unpasturized goat milk.  

GlennArt Farm offers the public an opportunity to feed the goats, pet the goats, talk to the goats in Waller Street Pasture from 11 a.m. till 1 p.m. on Saturday August 4.  
Join Us!  See the attached flyer with more information.  

A new chapter of our lives now occupies our weekends until the end of July.  The ever changing weather conditions have caused David to swiftly manage rescheduling with our very flexible instructors and participants.  With the cold weather the first of May, we  were forced to reschedule a number of classes.  Two weekends ago the weather turned into an August heat wave.   Yet yoga participants kept coming!  We held four classes this last weekend as the temperatures rose.  Our classes were held at the Waller pasture under a black shade tarp cutting the heat by 5 degrees. Many people so enjoyed the interaction with our goat babies, made it worth the efforts to keep the animals cooled off.  This last weekend of June 9 and 10 were only 2 days of a five day cycle of rain. Although we managed to hold two classes, three were rained out.  Last weekend we have endured a heat dome in the 90s at Garfield Park classes. 

This coming  weekend seems comfy though we have decided to purchase and set up a pavilion tent to help us mitigate changes in temperature and rain.  
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O Chicago, the windy city brings such different conditions daily.

Two weeks ago, Thibout, our volunteer,  called me to the porch.  He said there was a cat sitting on the chair who purred and sat with people on the porch.   I said hello to the gray tabby, telling her "NO you cannot stay."  We have three cats in the house.  No more cats.  To add complications, this young female appeared pregnant as well.  Not a good scenario for us. 

David waited a few days when the cat continued to grace us with her pleasant presence.  He said, "We need a 'barn' cat who can fight the rat war in the alley."  She would be a great deterrent.  So we started to feed her in the garage.  She appears every day when we do chores, and likes to eat with the chickens and goats.    

Kittens anyone?