The girl's egg production had dwindled to three eggs every couple of days.  We eat more than that every morning.  I actually bought a dozen eggs from Wal-Mart.  I was blaming it on the hens molting and the days getting shorter so I had put a light on them but had to turn it on and off and sometimes I would forget.  A dear friend that obviously knows way more than I do about chickens told me to put a light on them 24 hours a day and not to worry about it.  I can now say that it worked.  We are back up to 18 eggs day and counting.  Thanks Charlie.  The two brown/black hens look like that are gossiping about the Light Brahma Rooster behind his back.  Shhhh.  We won't tell.

I have pulled my trailer with the 1995 One Ton Ford truck pictured on the left for the past 17 years.  Yes, folks, we bought it new in 1995 and are still using it. Diesel engine and a standard shift transmission makes for a long lasting truck.  It is so old now that it is almost a classic.   
Enter the shiny white one in the middle which will be replacing the old 1995 as my primary trailer pulling truck.  We finally broke down and bought ourselves a new truck for Christmas.  Now I figured if we are going keep it for 17 years we should get all kinds of fun stuff on it.  When they asked me if I wanted the navigation system, I said sure.  I thought it would be like the GMS thing on my phone.  Oh dear.  Was I wrong.  I will need to go to a class to figure out how to use that thing.  Scared me to death one day last week when it answered my cellphone which was in my purse. Although I am thinking the voice commands will be a tad safer than trying to find where I am on my little cell phone screen while driving down the road.
Just need to buy a gooseneck ball and the trailer hitch is already there.  Has a plug in for the trailer lights in the truck bed so I won't have to crawl under and plug them in anymore.  Gee, I am already spoiled and we haven't even hooked up to the trailer yet.
The truck on the right is the 2008 F250 we bought our only child for his 18th birthday.  Only child of older parents.  Nuff said. He is 23 now and has added all kinds of things to the truck but has no plans to replace it.  He says he will keep it forever since it was his first and knowing him, he will.
Not sure if the goats will even notice, but we will be on the show circuit with a safe, dependable vehicle.  We might even check out the shows in other states.

Cari will be the first doe to kid in 2013.  She is due January 15, 2013 and has started filling her udder. She isn't real large this year so I am expecting a single or small twins at the most. If it is a single it will probably be a buck since that is what Cari likes to have.  Usually twin bucks but then maybe she will make me happy this year with a doeling.  Since Cari is Chloe the Goat's only daughter, it stands to reason that Cari is holding back on the doelings.  She is as cantakerous as her mother so she is just following in Chloe's hoofprints. 

Every barn needs a cat.  Our barn cat was getting older and had decided she really preferred being a patio cat. She was spending more and more time reclining on a cushion overlooking the backyard than out and about hunting mice or gophers.  She will still hunt when she is in the mood but less and less as the days go by.
Enter new kitty.  This little rack of bones showed up at my office in town half starved to death so I stuck him in the car and took him home.  He loved the goat milk and it was several days before I realized his bottom jaw is deformed.  Hasn't slowed him down from eating though.  He has one tooth in the middle on the bottom that sticks straight up. He is so nice and fat now with a beautiful shiny coat. He stays in the barn or lays in the grass next to his favorite LGD or on top of the LGD's house. They are buds and make a strange looking pair.
Casper the barn cat caught his first mouse a few weeks ago so he is earning his keep although I feed him his kitty food every evening. He seems to sense that the goats are what kept him well nourished when he was just a scrawny little kitty and stays close to the barn and his livestock and canine friends. I guess he was meant to be our barn cat. Chloe even tolerates him walking around the goat pen. So if the herd queen approves, he has been accepted.

I had a great time today.  I went to Navasota to the Tri-Tex Livestock Auction to buy a few goats that Prairie View A&M sent to the auction. This is a good deal in my opinion.  I bought two does and I can send the tag number to PV and they will send me the goat's ADGA papers. I wanted at least two Alpine brood does and I got what I wanted.  I really wanted the black one but I like the Cou Blanc one just as well although she is older. Chloe is not impressed.  In fact, she won't even walk over to the fence to check out the newcomers.  The new girls are scared of the dog, the barn cat, the traffic driving down the oilfield road, the quineas jabbering and anything else that moves or makes a noise.
Now to wait to see if these girls come into heat since they are open.  Hope, hope, hope.

Since the goaties have chomped their way through all of the sudan rolls I bought for the winter, AND the extra 100 square bales of sudan, we bought them some coastal rolls to slow them down.  Hopefully anyway.  They are not that fond of coastal so maybe they will stop eating hay like it is candy. There is less waste with coastal also. They immediately started eating so at least they are giving it a chance. We have enough for the winter for the goats, the calves and the cows.  Unless the goats find they like the coastal as well as the sudan.

No, I don't live in West Texas and I haven't been turkey hunting.  This turkey bleongs to my neighber and spends most of his time at our place eating with the calves and goats.  Hope I am doing a good job of feeding out their Christmas turkey.
Don't quite understand peole that live in the country in a rented house on about 1/4 acre that let their birds free range.  Stands to reason the free range is going to be on someone else's property.  They have a flock of guineas that walk around my front yard most of the time and the two turkeys are usually with them.  If the guineas didn't do such a good job of keeping the insect population down, I might have to address the issue.

This is Nadine.  Our future milk cow in a few years. I know nothing about dairy cattle but she looks alright to me. At least she is the right color for a Holstein. She kind of got lost from the other calves this morning for some reason.  They are up by the house and she is in the south forty.  Although we only have 9 acres here, she is as far from the house as she can be. Hope she figures out how to get back up here or the other calves wander down to her.

Deep down, Chloe is a really thoughtful girl.  She likes to act tough but she had the chance to buy me something I have wanted for years, so she did. She was probably just tired of hearing me whine about having to pasteurize goat milk day in and day out during kidding season. Only problem is, Chloe only knows about goats so she didn't realize that bringing home a 4 month old Holstein heifer would not result in milk next year.  More like year after next.  But I am good with that.  At least I have my future cow milk supply on the hoof.  She arrived here today and is already bonded with the other calves.  Chloe got an extra serving of goat pellets for thinking of me.