Harry and Neville Come Home

Earlier this week we heard that Harry was now weaned entirely onto grain and hay and so both he and Neville were ready to be collected. The children had been very disappointed to have had to leave Harry and Neville behind the last time so this news was greeted with much joy! We therefore headed back to the breeders farm yesterday.
As you can see Beth was delighted to have Harry at last and relieved that her fears that he might have unwittingly been given to another home were unfounded!

 Whilst we were on the farm the children also got to see some of the other animals.

 The family's dobermann had had eight puppies six weeks ago so the children were thrilled to be able to get a 'puppy fix' as well!

The puppies were really cute and it would have been very easy to take one of them home along with the goats but we resisted temptation and loaded just Harry and Neville into the van.

Once home we put Harry and Neville in with Hermione and Ron. They were both a bit stressed from the journey but are already beginning to settle in and as we had sunshine again this afternoon they all had an hours playtime outside.

Neville

Ron

Harry

Hermione

Neville again!

Project Pygmy Goats

 This is what our fridge looks like at the moment. In pride of place are photo's of Ron, Hermione, Harry and Neville. Every day I am asked 'How long before we can bring them home?, Can't we get them now?', to which the answer is 'No we are not ready!!'. We therefore have a very keen workforce and are beginning to make good progress. We had lovely weather at the weekend so the painting of the sheds began in earnest. After much measuring and deliberating we decided that the bigger of the sheds is going to be the hay, straw and feed store and then the children's playhouse is going to become the goats house.

Eoin and Beth painting the playhouse which will become their house and is apparently to be named 'Hogwarts'.

 
 All the children took turns painting. The little children only lasted about 20 minutes each but Beth stayed with me all afternoon until we had achieved what we could for the day. Beth is a trojan worker and will always stay till a job is done. Grandma always likes Beth to help her in the garden or in the kitchen making tea as she is such a willing worker and always sticks it out until the finish.

Justin busy sanding the shed ready for painting so we're hoping for some dry weather this weekend!

Pygmy Goats

The children have been asking for about the last year or so if we can get pygmy goats. Initially we defaulted to the automated response, 'no, they eat everything, are always escaping and besides we have more  than enough to do already'. However a few times over that period Justin and I have had the odd 'what if ' conversation and the idea has insidiously become more plausible over time. We love the way the children care for the dogs, chickens and gerbils and the sense of responsibility they have towards them. Anna, Beth and even Caitlin will go out whatever the weather to see to the chickens and leave whatever it is they are in the middle of if there is an issue with any of the animals. We love the work ethic it instills in them too. However much work the animals are, and there have been many times with a new puppy when we have wondered what we've taken on, the pay back is huge. Caring for animals has taught the children so much and the animals themselves give so much back, especially the dogs. Therefore we were in a more responsive frame of mind when the next request came. Anna had entered a photo of Amber into a photo calendar competition with James Wellbeloved in the uk. Amber's photo was one of the 12 chosen and as a prize we are to receive 12 months supply of dog food. The children then reasoned that they had 'created' a resource to set up pygmy goats, all that would be required on our part would be a donation of Justin's tool shed as their home ('we do have the garage for tools Daddy') and some fencing. Anna and Beth then did a power point presentation outlining all the benefits of pygmy goats and how well they would fit in with our family.

We therefore found ourselves last Wednesday visiting a farm in Carlow where they breed pygmy goats. After having had a couple of in-depth discussions with goat breeders we had agreed that we would look at taking on 1 female and 2 wethers ( neutered males), with each to be 'owned' by two children. The children paired up and decided that the goats would be called Harry, Ron and Hermione as Harry Potter is a popular theme in our house at the minute. Having spent a little whille with the goats, who were all very sweet, Hermione and Harry were picked out. Ron was more tricky though as both Caitlin and Eoin felt they had found him. When it was pointed out to Eoin that the goat Caitlin was holding looked more like a 'Ron' as he had ginger hair Eoin explained that the goat he was holding was more like Ron in character! After a little negotiation it was therefore decided that Caitlin would share Ron with Daddy and Eoin's would be Neville who he would share with me!  

This is Harry, to be shared between Beth and Tiarnan.

'Ron', 

Neville

Hermione

As the three boys are only 4 weeks old they will remain with their mothers for another 4 weeks and then we can bring them home. This gives us 4 weeks to set up home for them!