Wildlife

"O give me a home, where the buffalo roam, and the deer

and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,(except right now in my household with fighting chidren) and the skies are not cloudy all day.

No I do not sing off key. I may not sing well but it isn't off key. It may not be beautiful and especially not quiet since I have my Grandfather's voice that could rattle the windows but never off key. I'll hush now though and tell you about the photos.

I've been watching these two does, one with a single fawn, and the other one with triplets. I keep hoping to catch them nearer the road but alas, no luck.
If I go off road, they see me coming on the wide open plains and beat a pretty fast retreat.

We giggle when tourist ask what kind of animal it is that the rancher's are raising and they are referring to Pronghorn Antelope which roam wild. But, really it isn't such a dumb question when you consider that the buffalo are raised behind fences though the barrier is just a suggestion as to where you want them for really they'll go where they please fences or not. Just ask the managers of the two buffalo ranches near town. They have a migratory plan for the buffalo and try to stay ahead of the bison opening gates before they open them on their own. Yeah, bison don't open them so neatly and that means a repair job.

If they have been to Sheridan at the Lion's Park, bison and elk graze in a pasture set aside for them. (This is a cow which means female elk.)

It's right in the middle of town so really how could a tourist know that the antelope roam free behind fences. Now if you know antelope, you would know that they try to go under the fences, not over them like deer but if no other choice, they will jump one. Since they run fast up to 65mph, they also don't look for cover but want to be out in the wide open where they can see their enemies coming.Isn't this bull elk beautiful all in velvet? I'm referring to his horns. They have a fuzzy covering on them that he will rub off on brush and trees. Yes, the trees do suffer.Okay, she's hardly considered wild game but the neighbors hen has been roaming free and hatched up these cute little ones four or five days ago. I've been feeding her and trying to encourage her to take her little ones into an empty shed of ours. I was making some progress as I was feeding her just outside it but today, I was disheartened when this morning I didn't see any chicks with her. I was afraid of that. The cats probably dined on them. One I know drowned in the goats waterer but the others just disappeared.

I've always wanted a hen to hatch out chicks for me but no one has been willing to do the task. I guess I don't know how to cross my toes and fingers correctly. What's the problem? I've too tried having a hen or two run loose. In fact, Mildred has been doing just that for over a year now. She's a Cochin and that breed is known to be very broody. I don't think she even lays eggs. I haven't found any. She even has a rooster from the neighbors to ablige in the fertility department but no doing. Of course both my neighbors have hens that run loose and hatch eggs.

I guess I'm destined to be without chicks unless I do it myself. I must be related to the Little Red Hen in the story book.

Rose Petal Jam

You read that correctly, rose pedal jam. A long time ago I had rose pedal ice cream and as I was working on an article on dandelions I thought what about roses? So the ever curious mind set off on another avenue and voila, I found a wonderful rose pedal jam recipe. Okay, mostly wonderful. Yes, I tweaked it a bit. Not too much but I tried several different things until I'm quite pleased with the results.Yup, this is what you have to do if your rose pedals have white at the base, clip it off.

The white lends a bitter taste to the jam. I found a recipe for ice cream that did not say to clip off the white base. I should have. It would have tasted better.As for the choice of roses, wild ones are preferred. Next, is fragrant ones. I of course looked around and laughed, wild ones, yeah, like I'm going to find any of those around here. In fact, I snitched the pedals above from our daughter's bush in Colorado when we were visiting. They were pretty fragrant. I had rose pedal ice cream years ago that a friend made out of curiosity. She used tea rose pedals. They are an options too I would suppose.
The yellow rose pedals are my neighbors from her bush.



I treasured them as, no snipping since there wasn't any white base but they were hardly wild ones either so I still don't know what difference in flavor that would make. I did like the double pedals since with just a few plucks I had lots for jam.

When I made the pink pedal jam, I squeezed a lime and a half and used that not because the recipe called for it but because that's what I had, limes not lemons. It was Sunday night, the fourth of July, and I didn't know how much longer the pedals would last after our trip. Yes, I had the pedals in a cooler but how do I know how long pedals last, my husband is such a romantic. LOL About the only flowers I get are the ones our middle grand daughter keeps picking out of my flower garden. No, don't pick doesn't compute with her when it comes to flowers.

When I first made the jam, I thought it would be just ho hum but it is citrusy with a hint of rose. It's something quite elegant and I could just imagine expect to be served the custard like mixture on top of a biscuit at a high falutent tea party with a bunch of ladies sitting around with their pinkies up in the air and frilly hats on their heads.

Since we liked the first batch, I had to make it again. This time with a large lemon to match the yellow pedals I'd gotten from the neighbor. It was great. I didn't have to cut the yellow base off since there wasn't any, boy was that as time saver.

As the picture eludes, you blend a cup and a half of sugar along with 3/4ths of a cup of water, the pedals, and citrus of your choice. Since I tried lime and lemon and loved them both, I'm wondering what an orange in the jam would taste like. I've a real hankering to make my own marmalade now. Always wanted to but now I think it has moved up the list of want too's to a have to this winter.

With all the photographing I've done of rose bushes and the success of the jam, I've a hankering to plant my own rose bushes ... but what color? I'll have to go around smelling the ones at the greenhouses to choose. We haven't many greenhouses and they are very seasonal so it might just have to wait until next year before that project gets started.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to tell you, I cut the sugar way down since it was hard to get it to fully incorporate into the juice, water, and pedals. Don't skimp on blending time.

The next stage is a diversion from standard jam making. Put 3/4 cup water and a box of pectin on the stove in a saucepan and boil until just right. Oh bother, I'll have to go look it up. I didn't really time it when I did it. I just cooked until it looked right. I'm back -The recipe says boil hard one minute. It also said to gather the rose pedals in the morning as they are most fragrant then. I gathered mine when I had the opportunity. Three small grandkids will do that to you.

Pour the hot pectin into the blender while its on a low speed or you'll splatter your ceiling and loose your precious jam. The mixture will become thicker and thicker. Don't under beat or your jam will be sugary. I know your wondering how I know that, three batches of jam taught me that, too sweet at 2 cups of sugar, too sugary textured at too little mixing time, and just right.

The jam only makes three half pint size jars and that might seem expensive when you consider the cost of pectin but you don't have the cost of fruit to figure in, unless of course you are blessed to be able to raise your own or the country side is generous and then that's free. We aren't that lucky. The jam doesn't have a sealed lid so refrigerate. The recipe says up to one month or freeze. You can use this jam in making rose pedal ice cream and I know it's going to be better than the rose pedal ice cream I made after making the first batch of jam. It was a standard recipe and it was okay, like the kind I tasted years ago. This time though with the yummy jam, I think I can come up with a much richer flavored mixture.

Drones and Three Bee Keeping Lessons

No, not as in to drone on and on when your talking or drone as in the military where they refer to those little minature planes that bomb sites. I want to talk about the drones that live in a beehive. In case your wondering, that's the guys.
If your looking at a cluster of bees and your a newby. You know, someone who doesn't know the girls from the boys. You can probably point to any one of the bees and correct if you said it was a girl. 100 percent if it is on a flower. Even if you pointed at the bees on the sides of a hive, you would be 98 percent right saying it was a worker bee. You guessed it, all those out and about working are girls. In other words, you have a queen which lays sometimes 1800 eggs a day, workers who take care of those offspring until they can go to work, forage for nectar to produce honey, and build comb, and then drones. What do drones do? In two words - absolutely nothing. Okay, once every 3 to 5 years who's ever alive can fufill their natural urges. Yup, you guessed it, a queen is bred only during her maiden flight once in her lifetime and she is the only one. No one else gets to work for that many years and when the nectar is flowing the workers work themselves to an early death.





But we're talking about drones here. What do drones turn their attention to since most will never breed with the queen? They eat. Oh they don't forage for it. They beg it off the workers, lazy slobs that they are. They are capable of a little work, they just would rather use their charm instead. But, too many princh charmings means too many mouths eating and not working. The girls have a way of fixing that. They take them out in the late fall and shoot them. Not literally but they will rip their wings off and dumped them outside the hive to die. Nature is a cruel world since it is survival that rules it. One of the things I was looking for when I went through the beehive boxes on Monday is to make sure there was brood, eggs, larvae, etc., and that their weren't lots of drones. Lots of drones can signify that there is a worker laying, not a queen. A worker sometimes takes over for the queen is she's dead and she can only lay drones. You got it. If drones are what's hatching then none of the work is being done. The offspring don't even have to be hatched to tell. The brood cells of a drone are much larger, sticking out further.



Yup, that's what I'm going to teach you today is what a drone look like.

Look carefully, can you see him? These are Italian bees so look for the one that is darker, larger, and has a fat butt, hiney, behind, rump, backside, derriere or whatever you want to call it. My daughter says I have to use the word toosh around the kids? LOLDid you find him?Okay, I'll help you. Here's a up close look.
That's your First Lesson


Your probably wondering why the repeated flower pictures.

It's whats for dinner, alfalfa, if your a bee.
There's a little sweet clover this year but not much else but alfalfa in the fields where they are and not that in most other places, just grass and that is why our area is called the grasslands.
In our yard, there is plenty of dandelions and that's where we come to our
Second Lesson. See the sacks of pollen on this honey bee's legs? Hint, the orange ball on each leg. This bee has been busy. Yup, you remembered, it's a girl. She will bring back the pollen and put it in a cell near the brood so the nurse bees can feed the young. Those are the workers names with the job of caring for the young. Looky there, the bee is collecting nectar. Hint, the big tongue like thing sticking out the mouth.
Third lesson,

bees especially like blue, purple, and yellow flowers.
These two flowers may be both yellow roses from two speparate rose bushes but to a bee they are not created equal. The double rose does not attract but few bees. The extra pedals means there is not as many anthers, so less pollen is available and the extra pedals makes it more difficult for the bees to reach the reproductive organs of the plant. The dandelion on the other hand is a composite flower meaning lots and lots of flowers side by side make up one dandelion head. Hence, the bees love them because there's lots of pollen and nectar.

Where Do I Begin?

My father is out of ICU and home doing much better. Our daughter has started a second job this week and though it will help a great deal with the finances, it also means grandma is busier than ever. The youngest grand daughter is no longer running a high fever and is sleeping quite alot so that is helping. Thank you for your kind words and kinds thoughts. I know they were heard as many wonderful blessings came our way this week.

Oh, how I've missed you and writing and I've so much to tell you and so many pictures to share that I don't hardly know where to begin so I guess I'll start at the beginning, the weekend with our daughter. That's her on the far left though you probably figured that out. Each year my husband and I go down for a little cultural refinement. We really do enjoy art but have little chance to enjoy it because of time restraints and locality.

So on our agenda this past weekend we went to Celestial Seasoning. A yearly trip to stock up on herbal teas or infusions if you wish to be more correct. It's less expensive buying from the factory and I get to see the new products they have. One must be aware that the store does not stock all of what they make just what's being produced at the time of year you visit. I'm lucky and that means pretty much what we drink, cool fruit infusions in the summer and a different selection of warm infusions in the winter. The factory is pretty slow this time of year as people just don't buy many teas and herbal drink products in the summer.


Then we went to the Leaning Tree art gallery just down the road. They are a popular western card company and they have a good sized art gallery.

Outside are a few bronze sculptures but what captured our attention was this sculpture. How facinating!!! Junk art isn't often my thing but this horse was like looking inside a children's Highlight magazine and trying to look for hidden object. If it hadn't of been so hot outside, I could of stood for quite sometime studying area by area.
The sign beneath said to the effect that if your missing something it might be here wasn't kidding. I didn't expect to see a shoe making piece.And the furniture leg wheel made me smile as it sat next to the trap.Missing a pick ax anyone?or an old pair of scissors? Maybe your missing an old fan.There was everything from a cast iron skillet to a muffin tin and lots of wrenches...

Even and old stove door found it's way onto the horse. It didn't matter if it was once at home on an old farm, in the kitchen, the yard, or a piece of machinery, it found a creative place with this masterful artist.

I've rarely seen a piece of scrap art that was so well done and never something so diversified in scraps used and yet executed with some artistic style. If you get a chance stop by the art gallery it's free and well worth the time.


Then it was off to the wool shop for some llama wool and buttons. I was really just looking for buttons as they have a lovely selection I can't find elsewhere around here. Not that I have time to do anything with the wool or buttons but a girl has to dream and leasure activities is what I long for. Of course since it was Artist Friday on Pearl street, that was our next stop with lots of entertainment and artists in the stores promoting their products.



The next day, we spent five hours in the Denver Art Museum as it was free being the first Saturday of the month. Can you tell we try to econimize when possible. How else can I afford those cool buttons and wool? Oh yeah, didn't tell you about the two mushroom books we bought. Kirk and I have been dreaming of growing mushrooms. Figure it is a year or two away but we've got to educate ourselves and we're going to start a plot going with wood shavings, manure ect. at the end of the summer. No mushrooms don't grow voluntarily in our area. Let me rephrase that. None poisonous mushrooms that I know of don't grow here and there aren't many of those volunteering either. Go a couple hundred miles and yes, I know people that pick good mushrooms on years with the right weather. We on the other hand want to grow some in our own yard and encourage the right kind of weather artificially as much as possible. So if you are a mushroom expert, I'd love to visit with you.


Sorry, side tracked easily these days. I was talking about the museum. It has seven floors on one side and three on the other. We hurried through the seven and paid to see a King Tut exhibit that had just opened. My husband was enthralled and spend a long time gazing at the jewelry and stone works.


When we weren't visiting art exhibits, Toni and I were out photographing flowers in the neighborhood.


Stay tuned, I'm making one more batch of rose petal jam tonight and then I'll tell you how the changes went. This will be my third time. I've also some cool pictures of the bees as Monday after babysitting duty I went out and pulled every box off. The new brood chamber frames had arrived and that meant a complete rearranging. I'll try and blog this weekend to try and make up.


Being the good little wife that I am, I'm going to a concert with my spouse several hours away this weekend. Our son was suppose to go with him but he ended up in a national rescue team competition and has left for Nevada. That leaves me - the non noise, no crowds person. Kirk said I could wear ear plugs as long as I tucked them inside my ears and hung my hair over them. As for the crowds, I'll close my eyes like I did at the museum. Yes at the museum I paced the floors and then sat with my eyes closed for a while to block out the over stimulating environment while our daughter and Kirk went at a much slower pace.

Autism is the PITS!!!

Sorry, for the silence. I'm doing an in depth under study on yo yo's. I'm getting dizzy but I can't stop.

We had a lovely weekend with our oldest daughter in Colorado and then came home Sunday night just in time to throw a barbeque for the grandkids and set off fireworks. Our youngest grand daughter and I then spent the night snuggled together, her coughing, tossing and turning while her sister's slept in their bedroom across the hall.
Monday my dad ended up in ICU and I've been running back and forth between him and the grandkids. As I aluded to before our youngest grandchild has a bronchial flu along and on top of the high fevers she's cutting five teeth all at once, two are molars. She had only four teeth to begin with and so this will more than double the total. Then today after I got home from the 80 mile trip to the hospital, I spent the afternoon with our daughter's ex-relatives.

As you can see my life is a bit out of control. I've longed to blog but just not a moment to do so. Be patient please, I've done a couple fun and exciting things one of which is make rose pedal jam right after getting home from our daughers but alas no time to write about it.

I'll try and get something up tomorrow but I'm babysit from 6:30 am to 11pm so it's going to be a challenge between keeping tabs on the two ends of the age spectrum, my Dad and holding our ill youngest grand daughter. Till tomorrow, sweet dreams if your not already asleep. I'm praying for the opportunity to get more than four hours sleep tonight for the nine hours combined I've had in the last two just isn't enough. I've company again tonight with our youngest grand daughter sleeping over.

Brenda's Photo Challenge

http://brendaphotochallenge.blogspot.com/

Once again it is Brenda's Photo challenge and the theme is Freedom. So click above and take a look at what others have come up with and join us as we explore different topics.

I had to go through my archives because of the want to's didn't match the time to do's.

Thanks to my husband for this one as he said, " Why not use some of those pictures you took of the Alamo. What symbolizes freedom more than the Alamo?We were priveledged last summer to have a private tour with a historian as our guide. So many tidbits that we'd never have found on our own had we just visited the site. Of course we did a little research on our own when we were home. Wow! what a story. It stopped and made me think, what would I fight so gallantly for?

Getting Ready To Deliver

Chicory has to be sooo... glad that she is no longer pregnant because we have been having 90 F some degree weather and oh how miserable that is when you are hugely distended. I know, I've been there and done that. You might think I'm digressing a bit to go back to the beginning labor stages to explain the signs and progression but I need your help. For my whole married life I have always wanted to be a writer. Okay, I put my adjectives after my nouns and phrases in all the wrong places. I can't spell, and my daughter keeps teasing me that she is going to give me a jar of commas to use because I must not have any. But... "I wanna" (to borrow a way too common reply of my grand kids). I wanna be a writer. I wanna write articles and have my photographs be the illustrations. I wanna write a couple books and the truth is I'm 50 and that was when I always said I would begin my book and my writing career. Not that I haven't been writing for years just trying to overcome the huge hurtle of pictures being my first language not words. But I always figured by this stage in my life that I would have overcome much of that. My kids would be raised and gone, Ha, Ha and I could spend my time concentrating on writing. Though my writing has progressed, I still really struggle and Toni says I still need that jar of commas, and spell check on the computer ...LOL yeah, well, it isn't hardly enough. But, I'm 50 nearing 51 and it's now or never.

Even though my present situation is making a writing career a HUGE challenge I'm moving forward. What I'm reaching out to you dear friends today is to help me with the beginning stages of an article I'd like to write. I've been photographing like crazy and doing research on different subjects hoping by this fall to have some time. My brain is on over drive with all the multi-tasking. Not to mention the lack of sleep. I know some of you are old hands at this midwifery thing and I'm asking for your input.

What am I missing and is there funner names that could be used for the stages of labor progression.

This isn't the article so don't get out your commas and red pencil to mark for spelling error. It would look like a blood bath. Just be my sounding board as to what I've missed.

Here goes...

My stock is always moaning and groaning, laying down even when they eat by the time labor rolls around? Not that they are overly fat because I'm trying to put weight on Chicory right now after her triplets but because they typically have lots of babies, good sized babies. The most extreme in that example was two ewes we once owned, mother and daughter, that averaged 12 to 14 pound lambs. That wouldn't be so unusual but they always had twins and triplets. Yup, carrying 36 pounds of lamb is a lot of weight even for a large ewe. I didn't weigh these triplets but they are good sized.

Moaning Myrtle - I mean Chicory, wasn't any more noisy than those two ewes. I'm sure she thought she was dying though since with her previous owner, which was last year, she had only a single buck. Not that I'm saying she wasn't fed well but body conditioning has a great deal to do with how many fetuses the animal will conceive and carry. That means if your doe is too skinny she won't have many kids or too fat either, A Goldy Locks And The Three Bears approach is what is needed. You know - just right. But this article isn't about flushing or feeding in preparation to breed. An interesting fact though is that all animals, that I'm aware of, typically have more than one fetus growing at the early stages. Even ones like horses that almost always just have one foal. The mare is secretly developing two fetuses at the early stage. One will be absorbed. The one that is more viable because there isn't enough nutrition available to support the growth of two. Good thing because twins is almost a sure death warrant for the mare even if she carries them to term. Then the poor cute little foal needs a goat mama or a best friend of their mamas who also just had a foal. Yup, last year this happened to our neighbor. His old mare, Princess, died right after giving birth and her best friend, BeBee, who had foaled just a couple days before, raised hers and voluntarily on her own took in her best friend's foal. Of course the colostrum was milked from the dieing mare and fed to her foal.

Okay, I admit it, I had these cute photos of our neighbor's mare and I just had to use them somewhere. But since we are off the subject, take a look at those tiny teats goat and cow milkers. I've milked my share of mares to fill a bottle of milk for a weak foal - give me a cow or a goat any ol day. Those teats are a three finger affair. We had some Saanen yearling does that were like that. We got rid of that line and those consequently those teats after it was evident it was genetic.

Not everyone hates tiny teats because I read where they milk mares in Mongolia and my curiosity what it is meant I drank some mares milk once. Don't say yuck.
Admit it, you've never tried it in fact it's quite sweet and tasty. Not that it is worth it to take up mare milking any time soon.

When it comes to early labor it doesn't matter whether it is a mare, a sow, a dog, or a goat, if babies are headed out the back door Mom's joints are going to have to loosen or the little ones aren't getting out the barn door. Maybe, that wasn't the proper way to say it, I should of said vulva but I like barn door - its more homey and folksy. Now when your looking at that barn door, shortly before labor it often appears swollen, and pinkish. Much more noticeable on the Saanens I had but Chicory skipped that part of pinkish and swollen and didn't hang slightly open like many I've kidded. Nope, Chicory like so many other goats I've known didn't read all those prenatal books. She didn't have time with all that eating and drinking, and taking all those naps. She leads such a rough life.

So though I've read the books it didn't mean she was going to go by the book. She didn't and though all the triplets were lined up just right, the skin around her vulva never stretched like it should keeping the barn doors locked up tight. Like I said some things just have to happen and those are the things you look for. A loose hanging barn door isn't always one of those things you see but you'll know that there is a problem when nothing comes out.

So I'll go over the have to's and your doe will pick and choose the want to's and don't count on each delivery to be the same. It often isn't.

1. A goat's gestation is around 140 to 150 days. Chicory chose 152 this year. Starting to get the picture?

2. Every goat's joints will loosen in preparation for birth. Now they don't have to get carried away and that means every joint loosen to the point that their joints pop in and out. Yes, Chicory again. For a month before kidding you could hear them pop with each step she took. This made it critical that I keep her hooves trimmed so she was walking as correctly as possible and not stretching out ligaments in the wrong direction. Okay, I slacked off the last week and a half but I didn't think the poor girl could stand on three legs and not fall down.

2. What I was really watching for was the loosening of her rump. The one that was fairly flat before this stage for it will raise higher and higher as birth approaches. Some of my does get to the point where they can't even hold up their tails before going into labor and it flops to the side. This is one of those have too's. The spine has to raise up to allow the birth canal to open.

For the rest of the does who's tails are aren't beyond flaggin, I put my hand on top of the rump near where the tail attaches, grip gently, my fingers curling around the tail bone. If they meet she's really loose. Then I know labor is soon, usually within a few day, most likely 24 to 48 hours. Though don't hold me to it as I've been made a liar more often can I can count by one goat or another.

3. The does udder will be fairly full by now and shortly before labor it will normally stretch to taunt. Oh I've had a few older girls fill half way and then during labor fill the rest of the way up. I even had one old girl that didn't fill all the way up until a couple days after kidding. A yearling's udder has to develop so it will be full when she goes into labor. 4. The mucus plug I thought was a sure sign of going into labor within 12 hours but Chicory slimed for near on to nineteen hours. Don't get excited if you've missed this stage for I often don't see the plug and sometimes it isn't secreted until labor begins. Often it isn't this thick either. Chicory had the slimiest deliver I have ever experience in any species I've worked with. The purpose for it is to plug the entrance causing a barrier against bacteria to prevent it from entering the cervix as it dilates. Dear Chicory went into overdrive on this part and I've still haven't found out the hormone involved in producing this slime -still researching. My leads say oxytocin, anyone know?
5. See that dip in front of Chicory's hip bones. That's the kids dropping into position. With an older doe, Chicory is only two, then this becomes much more pronounced. Alright, yeah, with an older doe this area always looks a bit sucken in but none the less look for a pronounced change.
6. When a doe goes into labor she will paw a great deal. They call it the Nesting Stage. Eventually she will paw and lay down, get up and paw some more and lay down. Unless your Chicory and she skips the laying down on the job position and does it all standing up.

Don't think that this behavior is confined to just labor -- does, sheep, etc. have Braxton Hixes too. My experience is the older they get, the more they have them. Remember the mother ewe that had all those big babies, she used to torment me with them. Since she had so many babies and the last one sometimes had to be pulled as she'd leave it at the entrance, I had to be there. Wouldn't have fussed with a ewe like this in a commercial herd but she threw wonderful 4-H lambs. Lorna was her name and she'd be at this loose tail head, moaning, pawing the ground, breathing hard and fast, laying down, and getting up to paw the ground again stage when she was just having Braxton Hixes off and on for three weeks before giving birth. The last week kept me up nights to only have her stop at 2 in the morning time after time and say, "Ha, ha I fooled you again. You can go to bed now. "I'd then get a little nap before I began to do livestock chores, home school, and the myriad of things every mother of three has to do in a day.We had one such day, the 150 day when I thought for sure Chicory was in the early stages of labor as she'd paw the ground, breathe heavy, and wouldn't hardly come out of the shed, another good sign. But no after I went down every few hours all day she up and quit and went placidly to eating. Don't think that animals in labor don't eat. It can be a sign but then again I've had them much on hay in between pains.

7. When the real thing occurred and the pains were more intense, Chicory moved on to the What Have I Done stage. This is where she pawed the sawdust filling the air with its particles and push her head up against a wall when she was having a contraction. Usually at this stage they aren't laying down during the strongest peak of the pain. I kept looking for an opportunity to catch Chicory showing the whites of her eyes in alarm as the contractions came but alas, I was disappointed. My Saanens were real pros at it.

8. Chicory progressed from the What Have I Done Stage to Oh My Aching Butt. That's when she switched from pressing her head against the plywood to pressing her rump against it. It wasn't long before she started to lift a hind leg in pain when there was a really good contractions. With young doelings, they often cock their heads and stare back in bewilderment at their stomachs. A what is going on back their look. 9. Even more than all these signs, I'm looking for the increased arch in the rump. This is Chicory having a strong contraction. This rounding arch will become higher and higher as the spine raises to allow the kids to progress out through the birth canal.
The spine will be standing up now, a hollow indent on each side. Then comes the water bag but we've already gone beyond this point so... that's where I'm stopping.

What have I missed oh wise ones?