First show of the year

Saturday we spent a lovely day in London, OH at the annual Mid-Ohio Dairy Goat Association show. It was a beautiful day with plenty of sunshine and goat friends to catch up with.

We had an excellent day in the show ring! Cammile, a 4 y/o Alpine went GCH in both Ring 1 and 2! Emilene matched her efforts and was awarded GCH in Ring 1 and 2 as well, finishing her Permanent Championship and earning CH status in front of her name. Emilene also has the honor of being our first Capra Lane home bred champion.

Macy, above, had an impressive showing as well. It was her first time shown since 2009 and we really admire her conformation and milking capacity so we brought her along. She was awarded RGCH in one ring -  that means she will be coming along to more shows in the near future. Macy's yearling daughter, Mallory, who is also our first milking daughter to Capone, came along as well as a milking yearling. Both judges admired her overall correctness and dairy character and she received many complimentary evaluations through the day,  placing first in her age class twice. We hope to see great things from her as she matures...

Masquerade also made an appearance this year as a 4 y/o milker, having stayed home the past 2 years to complete her Weight Watchers program. She is still a little on the 'big-boned' side but has a lovely udder. Rog thought she 'rippled' and 'jiggled' a bit still, but she did great placing 2nd and 3rd against a group of nationally competitive Saanens.

In other news...the pigs are here! Since nothing goes unnamed here, even food, Harriet and Henrietta are settling in nicely. Still a but skittish but eating and drinking, basking in the sun in their pen. When we picked them up we received a thorough tour of the lovely and immaculate farm on which they were born. Learned that pigs can swim and are highly intelligent and can be quite dangerous. Now to acclimate them to our presence so they don't try to gnaw our legs off when we go in the pen...

They're borderline cute, but boy can they scream when you handle them. I was worried our neighbors thought we were murdering someone when we carried them from the truck to their new digs. We welcomed them home with some grain, fresh milk and some pear slices and strawberries. While watching them chow down it was hard not to notice that their little butts already look kind of like ham....

Also, its baling time! Time to figure out the new (old) baler we bought this spring. The goats are eagerly waiting for the alfalfa they've been sniffing all day from the front field. As long as the weather cooperates our barn should be filled with fresh hay very soon.

Lastly, check out my new 'art' project. This caught my eye as I was walking out to the barn and I was struck with the desire to bring it in the house and hang it on the wall. Honeybee art at its finest! This pattern somehow appeared on the lid of one of our hives and I'm not quite sure I can explain why it looks that way. Striking, isn't it?