Friday?

Given what is demanding our attention these days you would think we are goat farmers!  While we were milking last night that smallest goat managed to escape her fence and I turned to see her walking around under the cows!  Needless to say, after milking we did some cow rearranging so we could do some goat pen rearranging to keep everyone in over night.  We put 2 moms and 4 kids together across 3 cow stalls.  The kids instantly thought it was neat to have new company but the moms weren't impressed.  This morning we got to the barn and one mom was on one end of the pen with her kids and the other family was on the other end, as though they had claimed their territory.  It will be good practice for them since soon they will all be in the building with the rest.  Our day started with the phone ringing, Bruce's dad letting us know there was a new calf in the barn. He always gets there first, but he is also in bed by 8:30 most nights. The morning also included a call to the electrician, assuming our water heater needed a new heating element.  For whatever reason, all it needed was the reset button pushed.  Never happened before and we have no idea why it did it now.  Time will tell if there is a problem brewing.  We couldn't wash the pipeline until this afternoon and I had to run home for anything I needed to do that required hot water, including warming the milk for the new heifer calf!.  After morning milking Bruce checked the goat building and sure enough, another set of twins.  We do not see any udders now so hopefully the next ones won't come until April.  In the meantime I had them in the house until this afternoon, screaming at the top of their lungs until Bruce got the mom moved and everything in place.  Goat total-15.  There are now 4 males and 11 females.  Hard to believe that only 2 summers ago we had culled down to 13.  We had a new furnace installed in our house today and the men working in the basement thought we had a very dissatisfied baby : )  They went down to watch the goats for a few minutes...you can't see them without smiling.  My girlfriend also brought her Granddaughter over for a baby goat visit.  She didn't offer to take one along but we could probably supply her with one.  We received our notice today that our health insurance is going up in March.  Bruce and I currently pay 1233/mo with deductibles and co-insurance that total 7000 if we have claims.  As of March it goes up to 1566.  I cannot imagine what it would be if we were really unhealthy.  Time to see if we have any other options.  In the meantime it looks like milk will be dropping $2 cwt (we get paid per 100#).  It really is scary out here in the dairy industry but there are a lot of sad situations out there now, and about to unfold in the next year.  One day at a time.  Its currently 10 degrees with the wind blowing like crazy.  The goat kids seem to have their warmer figured out just in time.