Dan is ready to milk a goat!!!!!

Well the lastest excitement at the Samstag Farm started when I got back from California. I really wanted Sasha (our goat) to wait to have her babies until I got home. She honored that requested.
Here is what happened...
We got home Monday night around 10pm and after laying the kids in bed Dan and I went out to the barn to check on the animals. Sasha had 2 babies !!! One didn't make it (so sad). They were/are both boys because that is how we roll!!!! The problem is that Sasha is so timid that she does not want to be around us humans. This makes it really hard to help her out and tend to her and the baby. Anyway Dan had to take the baby and help dry him off because it was below freezing. Of course Sasha didn't want anything to do with us but Cupcake (the other momma goat) came with her babies to check out the new baby. Then the drama began......and didn't get us in bed until 2 am.
Our super sweet, really good momma Cupcake went in to see Sasha and they started fighting, it was not pretty. The really sucky thing is that Cupcake went on to headbutt Sasha's baby
so hard that the baby flew a few feet. Oh my goodness, I freaked!!!! So we had to separate everyone, it was freezing, late, and a crazy welcome home to the farm. I like it though!!!!
So back to the milking. Sasha doesn't seem to be as good of a mother as Cupcake and every time I went out to check on her and her baby the baby was under the heatlamp and Sasha was on the other side of the stall.
After dinner Dan went out found the same scenerio and we were concerned. The feed stores were all closed but they answered the phone. The ending consenes was that if we don't get colostrum in the baby he won't make it through the night. So remember that Sasha doesn't like to be around us humans and she has horns. So Dan dressed up in his dirt bike helmet and chest protector and told me to get it together and come help him catch the goat and milk her!!!!! So off we went to the barn with the children.
Dan caught her after some effort and it went surprisingly well. At one point Dan had straddled the goat and he had two horns resting on his butt as he was trying to readjust. Talk about sweating bullets. If she freaked out she could have been the one to decide if we have another baby or Dan would have had to go to the ER with some puncture wounds to the butt!!!!
We got 8 ounces of colostrum out of momma and then little bugger wouldn't take the bottle. He fits right in here. He is a boy and he is a stubborn fighter. I will let you know how it turns out. It is 10 pm and we are waiting for the kids to fall asleep so we can go back out to try again.
We are learning so, so much!!!!

New additions!!!!

We are so excited to have new babies at our house. We woke up to these two new additions!!!
The black baby looks just like his daddy and the tan, white, and black baby looks just like momma. As you can see Cole is so very proud of his kids. Dan and I are so blessed to watch him nurture these new babies. He is glowing with excitement and pride. He is content to just lay in the barn with them.

I tried uploading the pictures on flickr.com to see if it is any faster. I am just trying it out. Next time I will add the details with the pictures. Slowly but surely I will get it. But anyway, enjoy the pictures. We are having so much fun with all the animals that we have now. We are also learning so much from them.

New life is so amazing not only in us humans but also with animals. Dan and I are so stoked that our kids are experiencing all of this first hand. Just another reason we chose to leave Southern California and move to Georgia.

Love you guys,
Janell

www.flickr.com Go to janellsam's photostream

Goats & Kids

Sasha is very pregnant and we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of her kids.
Moses desperately wants to be in on the action. Look on to see why I don't want him in.
He is trying so hard to get in. (It is in the low 30s and the wind hurts)
Cole & Rezin have decided that they will lasso Billy and teach him to walk on a lead leash. Billy says HECK NO!!! They worked so hard for so long in the cold. I love the determination when it is not against me. They ended up trying to get into his pen with him. I had to remind them several times that he has horns and a much harder head. Cole put the rope on a stick just like Steve Irwin and tried to get that lasso over Billy's head.
Finally he succeeded and it took both if them on the rope to pull Billy out of his pen. Once he was free he bucked and thrashed and got loose. They worked so hard and had so much fun doing it. When they can out of his enclosure Cole told me that he would work with Billy everyday until Billy was comfortable with it. He has been out there everyday.
The reason Billy is apart from his pregnant ladies is because he is so ruff with them. He won't let anyone but Cupcake eat until he is done. He makes eating time a fight. Also we don't know exactly when the girls were breed because he stayed with them all the time. He is not happy to be away from them though. He needs a friend.

Good Morning!!!

Isn't God creative? So amazing!!
That steam is from my breath because it was so flippin cold.

Boys with Guns!!!

I have mixed emotions about the boys and guns. On one hand I love how proud they are of themselves when they are using the guns safely.
Like this picture makes me melt a little. If you could only see the look on his face. But then you wouldn't get to see this picture from behind.
Dan does an awesome job teaching them how to use the guns safely and how to respect the guns. They are 4 & 6 so we still have to be ever so vigilent.
Moses even loves the sound of the guns and pretends to shot people as we walk through Wal-Mart and @ church. So glad we live in the south now. I just can't see that going over so well in California.
Rezin gets really excited when he shots. He feeds off of the power of the gun and the noise. He really likes to shot the .22 and the shotgun. Moses just hangs out and enjoys the ride. It will be hard when he no longer fits in the backpack. He has to be contained at all times when the guns are out, for obvious reasons.
The other side of my mixed emotion is that they are 4 & 6 years old and my 21 month old pretends to shot people. Teaching preschool and going to college in CA, I would have assumed that these kids where exposed to violent movies or video games or something else violent. The kids at the preschool were not aloud to talk about guns, pretend guns, or anything of the sorts with guns.

What kind of parents would have a 21 month old who pretends to shot innocent paser byers (are those legit words?) at church for goodness sake? Well the kind of kid that grows up in the country with a dad that hunts and animals that we have to protect. They don't watch violent movies or play violent video games. Well, they did see one of Dan's war games on the PSP but that was brief and all this started way before.
So I am glad to say that this side of my mixed emotion is the one that I have to put in its place. And I am glad that they are learning the right way to handle guns. Dan and I believe that if guns are in our home the kids better know how to use them!!
Anyway , I'm done with my gun talk. The kids are stinkin cute with the guns though!!!