3 Weeks Old and a Girl Scout Stove posted 3/27/2009 4:58:35 PM | 4 kudos what's this?     report abuse

tentfire

My little quads were 3 weeks old Tuesday of this week. My goats are all keeping me so busy I have had a hard time getting back on here to blog about them. Santo and Mischief are continuing to grow and thrive. Their appetite is growing, too, along with their impatience for me to warm their bottles. They stay outside all day, now, and as long as the mothers aren't around, they are beginning to enjoy playing with some of the other kids. Mischief even remembers which are her brother and sister and likes to go curl up and nap with them. Remember she was with them until momma didn't have enough milk. Santo was rejected from the moment he was born and doesn't seem to have any attachments to any of them except Mischief, because they are now Bottle Baby Buddies. For the most part, the two stick together like glue. They come inside now only when it is time to go to bed. They train/learn quickly and know that when the lights go out and I get into my bed it is time for them to go curl up in their little corner with their teddy bears and go to sleep. They don't move from their spots until it is time to get up for their morning bottle, then quickly go outside before it has time to 'go through.'
If you are unsure of what I am talking about you can catch my first three blogs here:
Daisy Had Quadruplets
Two Weeks Old
Bottle Races
This morning's routine was a little more difficult. All my critters got restless long before my alarm went off. I got up to check on things and, of course, they wanted their bottle. I gave them one and then we all went right back to sleep. Turns out a storm was approaching, though a few hours away, and all my critters could feel it in the air. Desperate for some sleep I had reset the alarm so it was a couple more hours before we got up again, and, as you can guess, they were ready for another bottle. I warmed it, gave it to them, put them out to potty, then they soon came right back in as the storm hit. It lasted a good while then towards the end of it my power went out. Normally, no big deal. As the storm cleared away I went about my business feeding all of my critters. I was getting close to the end of feeding (along with a minor fence repair) and, still no power. It was time for a last bottle before I left for work (which I was obviously late for, now) but.....I had no way to warm them. And they were constantly weaving in and out of my feet with every step begging for it. They had been running around playing out in the crisply cleansed air and were hungry. No power, no heating source. Wood was all wet so the grill was out (I could have, but it would have taken forever). And I had no hot faucet water to warm a bottle in as I have been out of propane for months and have been heating all of my water via my electric stove/microwave. So this called for my emergency back-up stove. I made it a while back "just in case" but had not had to use it yet. It was a Buddy Burner like I had used in Girl Scout Camp when I was little. You take a very large tin can and punch a few holes with a punch can opener in the top and bottom for vents. I punch half holes in the bottom and full ones in sets of two randomly around the top. Fortunately, I had one already done, and a burner made. Burner: Empty tuna or chopped olive can. Roll up strips of corrugated cardboard and place in can, with cardboard sticking about 1/2" above the top. Then melt paraffin wax and pour all over until cardboard has absorbed all the wax and can is full; set aside to firm. I lit the burner, let it get going pretty good, removed curious kids away from the fire a few times, then put the 'stove' over the burner. Set a thin pot half full of water on top and let heat. I placed the bottles in to warm and VOILA, happy baby goats. (They just won't drink it cold). I live in the country where power failures happen often, sometimes staying off as long as 10 days or more at a time, so you learn to keep things like this on hand. And of course....I fed the kids, changed my clothes, and the power came back on! Oh, well, then I wouldn't have had all that fun nor this blog to write. And now, I have to get a friend to watch my shop for a little while while go back home to turn my oven off. You see, just before the power went off I had stirred up a large pan of cornbread, in which I had stirred in all the 'leftovers' out of the fridge, a feast for my chickens (I hate throwing things out if something can eat it and they reward me with lots of beautiful brown eggs), and had just popped it into the oven when the power went off. In all my confusion before I left, I forgot all about it (oven had immediately gone off with the power) and it has been cooking awhile now. By the time I get there it will probably be so hard it would break their beaks so I guess it will go in the compost heap. So, if I am slow to answer your comments, please be patient, I am on my way home to turn the oven off.

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