May
Guest season opens! Our does (female goats) will start kidding (giving birth) towards the end of May. You will love to see kids (Our goat kids, that is!) bouncing around in the goat pen! If you’re lucky, you might even get to see a baby goat birth. Depending on how much the grass is growing, we may start rotational grazing with our livestock.
June
Kidding season continues, and planting in the garden begins! Because we live in a colder climate, we start many seeds indoors up to two months before planting in the ground. Once the danger of frost has passed, we begin planting outdoors. By this time, we are usually moving our livestock to different pastures at least once a week.
July
Now in the middle of summer, things are really heating up and we’re hiding out (From the sun, that is!). We get most of our chores – moving fence and animals, watering, and weeding – done early in the morning. Harvest of some of the early crops starts. When it gets dark, the goats naturally come back into their pen for the night. We do a quick head count and make sure everyone made it back.
August
As the heat of summer endures, we continue with our daily routines of caring for our animals and rotating pastures. We begin harvesting more crops, like cucumbers, green beans, and beets. We try to stay on top of weeding in the garden. If there is plenty of grass, we start cutting and baling hay in late summer.
September
The garden is really popping by this time! There are lots of flowers and insect activity going on. We use our chicken flock to keep the grasshoppers down, and also utilize companion planting to keep other unwanted insects away from our food crops.
October
The baby goats are getting close to 50 pounds by now, and it’s weaning time. Mommas and babies alike make a lot of noise when they are first separated. But after a few days, everyone settles into their new routines. This is also the time of year fall calves are born. By mid-October, we usually have a baby milk or beef cow ambling around.
