New Goats, Bathroom Remodel and Prepping for Kidding Season

Winter is almost over! We enjoy winter but it comes with it’s own challenges and spring brings babies to the farm – so we are excited that spring is near!

New Goats

In February we brought home two new goats from Iowa. I know, I know….. two goats and we drove all the way to Iowa?! We have been looking for Saanen doe’s to join our farm and they are few and far between where we live in Northern MN. After a long trip overnight, we arrived home with our new goats in tow. We named them Ida and Fran! We are now anticipating the arrival of Ida’s kids any day. Her udder has filled in, our barn cameras are on and the excitement is killing us! Waiting for the first kids of the season feels like it takes forever!! Fran will kid in a few weeks which will line up perfectly with the rest of our goats. These ladies have made a great addition to our farm – sweet, calm personalities!

Ida and Fran

Bathroom Remodel

In February we also finished the bathroom – woohoo! The longest process was adding shiplap to the walls but it was worth the time and frustration. Our shower and bathroom floor were completed in August and we have been so happy with the results!

The shower: we chose standard subway tile with black grout for the walls and black penny tile with white grout for the floor and three shelf accent walls. Originally we didn’t want the work of cleaning a glass door but then we found a half glass wall that would work perfectly. This “door” is definently a favorite of the whole bathroom.

Bathroom floor: some of you may know that before we started this “second” remodel of our bathroom that I had painted our floors to look like painted tile. We loved the look but wanted real tile and had a few issues with the painted floors. Home Depot came to the rescue so that we could achieve the same look!

Vanity area: the counter tops were made by Austin when we did the first bathroom remodel – wood counter tops…. which made resizing for the new vanity a piece of cake! The sink and facet are from the first remodel too which we love even more now with the floor tile and subway tile. We framed the original mirror with wood we stained and think it added a lot of warmth! Now lets talk about the light fixture – having a vision in your head but not finding the exact piece is frustrating…. until we found this one! We love the black and are obsessed with the Edison bulbs! If you ever have a chance to use Edison bulbs go for it! They are so fun and add a unique style.

Walls: shiplap….in a bathroom…. I know. We heard it by many people, many times. We didn’t care what any one said. The kicker is that it is not real shiplap. Real shiplap is tongue and groove and much thicker than what we used. Aside from the huge price difference we also weren’t sure about having that kind of wood in the bathroom. Lets be honest… if there is going to be a problem with moisture and wood we would much rather go the more affordable route. After MANY hours and hours of reading other peoples projects we did decide on using plywood. Plywood?! Yep, plywood – cut into 8 inch strips and staggered on the wall to give it that shiplap look. We nailed the strips and painted them with a couple coats of paint – whola, faux shiplap!

Prepping for Kidding Season

Since we finally had the bathroom finished the next project on the list was building new kidding pens. A weekend of cleaning, measuring, cutting and nailing they were almost ready! It will be so nice to have these pens where the goats are unable to see each other through the fence (well they can see each other if they stand up on the edge of the wall)… I don’t know if it is just our goats or what, but the fighting through the kidding pens is unreal. I’m talking broken pens…. I’m sure this will still happen but lets hope less often! We installed outlets above the pens for easy access for any heat lamps needed and placed a screw in each pen to hang water pails out of the way. The last step we have is to finish hanging up the doors – for this we will be using cut hog panels and they will swing and close with a latch.

Food prep for kidding season has been in full swing. I haven’t accomplished as much as I hoped by this point but it is getting there. We are pretty well set for quick lunches that we can pull out each day, so a few more meals for suppers and we will be set for the first few busy weeks!

Most of our pregnant goats are showing by now and have started to form udders. Some of them are pretty large and uncomfortable…. hard to believe they still have a month to go when they lay around grunting and propped up on their front knees! It is looking like we may have a few sets of triplets again this year….. if not, then some pretty big kids!

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Our favorite time on the farm is by far kidding season. It’s a good thing that kidding season is such a happy and fun time because spring is a disaster on our farm – mud, puddles…. need I say more! The only ones happy about spring messes are the ducks! We have already had a few “warmer” days where puddles have formed for them to swim in! Those are the days we have to tell them to go in for the night because they are too busy having fun! 🙂

Oh! I can’t forget to mention that we were in our local (my hometown) newspaper, The Tribune this month! We are so blessed to have others interested in what we do and supporting us.

We should have kids here by the next update – see you then!

Randi