Garden plans, rabbits and goats

Still no bunnies, although Zinnia had our hopes us this morning as she was sitting in her nest box with a very serious look on her face. I think this is Day 34 though, and I've never heard of a rabbit giving birth that late. I think it would be the equivalent of a human giving birth at 10 months ... maybe possible, but highly unlikely. So, since Katherine wants bunnies to show in the fair, I think another "date" with Rocky needs to be scheduled.

Yesterday, after I posted my blog, I went through the catalogs for Baker Creek and Heirloom Seeds. I got the Baker Creek order placed. I finally found some tomato seeds, so that helped reduce my order to only $20. We are getting these tomatoes: Green Sausage, Red Fig or Pear-Shaped, Amana Orange, Cherokee Purple, White Currant, Cream Sausage, and Pink Grapefruit, which was listed in the yellow tomatoes, because it is yellow on the outside! Last year, someone gave us a couple of the Amana orange tomato plants, and I loved their big, juicy orange tomatoes, so we have to grow those again! I am also going to try the orangeglo watermelons. We've tried watermelons in the past, and they don't usually get big enough, so this year, I'm going to start them inside with the tomaotes and peppers.

Sherri is the goat due on Valentine's Day, and her tail ligaments are gone, which means she is getting close. Full term for goats is 145-150 days, and now she is at 142 days, so we're getting excited. Last year, Sherri gave us quite a fright. She appeared to be in labor for two days (yeah, another one of those), so we stayed with her constantly. Finally, we decided to just let her do whatever she wanted, so when she wanted to go outside, we let her. About 15 minutes later, my son went outside to find three wet baby goats in the pasture with her! Two were fine, but one was chilled. It seemed dead, but we brought it inside and plunged it into a sink of warm water and kept rubbing it. After about 10 minutes, we took it out of the warm water, wrapped it in a towel and a heating pad and just held it for another 10 minutes or so. We named all three of those babies after authors who wrote scary stories, since Sherri scared us so much! That little goat who got chilled is Shirley Jackson, author of "The Lottery," and we still have her. Even though she always got last in the show ring last year, she is one of my favorites.

Katherine tried to clean out a stall for kidding yesterday, but it was too windy. Today we were cleaning house and cooking and completely forgot about it until now! I need to find the baby monitor, so I can hear what's happening in the barn during the night. Hopefully, nothing happens tonight! Tomorrow morning, I'll have to get someone to clean up a stall for her and get a heat lamp set up in there for the babies. This is not exactly the best weather for kidding, but we're always excited to see new baby goats, regardless of the weather.