GOATS!

We were given goats in December and we knew that one was probably pregnant but we had no idea when she would give birth. We were watching for signs and knew that she was getting close! Well on March 30, 2014, we went to church and came home to a new goat! Gracie gave birth while we were at church! She was pregnant with twins but unfortunately one of the twins died. The other twin was alive and up walking when we arrived home!! It was an amazing sight to see such a new animal! We estimate that she had given birth about 2 hours before. I was able to weigh the new kid, and it weighed in at 2.4 pounds!! So incredibly tiny! We noticed that the kid was not nursing and I could not get any milk out of Gracie so we decided to bring the tiny goat to the house and bottle feed it. We decided to name the girl kid, Cathey! The family that gave us the goat is the Cathey family so we thought it was perfect to name her after them! The bottle and syringe feeding didnt go great so we took her back to her momma and within a few hours she was nursing like a champ! Gracie is a wonderful mom and takes great care of her! Now that it has been a couple of weeks with the new goat, I can say that we all LOVE her! She is such a joy to watch and can make you laugh in seconds! If you have never seen a baby goat run and play, then you need to come over! There is noway a person could stay in a bad mood after watching her for 5 minutes! Camaron loves her so much that we can't get him to stop picking her up!

Trinity County Fair and Livestock Show 2014

This is the second year that Colt has participated in the Trinity County livestock show with 4H. He chose to raise rabbits again this year. Last year he placed 5th and was so proud. We all learned lots from the experience last year. This year we were able to have a better set up for the rabbits and also make it easier for Colt to take care of them. He did an awesome job. He did everything, from weighting, to feeding, to moving the rabbits to differnt cages! We were so proud of how much he remembered and learned. Show day is always exciting! Colt never seems nervous, just ready to go! He did a great job getting the rabbits ready and to the judging pen. There were 22 competitors this year and slowly the judge kept eliminating them one by one. Finally, Colt was in the top 10! We were all hoping he would at least get 5th place again this year! The judge announced all the places up to 5th and Colt was still there! It came down to the last two competitors! The judge said that both were great sets of rabbits, but he had to make a choice. Colt placed SECOND!!! He was the Reserve Champion for the Fryer division! He was so excited and proud, and let me tell you Troye and I were over the moon proud! The top two places not only get a ribbon, but they also get a belt buckle and a banner! Colt did not know this and was shocked when he recieved the award! Hard work pays off!!
Camaron is still too young for 4H, but they have a petshow for the kids. This year Camaron decided to take our Pygmy goat, Buddy! Buddy has a funny personality and actually loves attention! Cam was so excited to get to participate and he even recieved a ribbon too!

SURPRISE!! It is a...

We were able to find out the gender of the baby pretty early this time due to new technology! It is amazing at how fast things change! Of course we went shopping just because we could.....

Mary Elizabeth

Yes! It is a girl! We were shocked since this is the first girl on either side of the family! Six grandsons on Troye's side and 3 grandsons on mine! We chose to name her Mary after Troye's mom. It has been almost 16 years since she went to heaven and we miss her greatly! The baby is scheduled to arrived at the end of August!