New Kid on the Block...

not 1 but 2!

Meet Free Spirit. Spirit is a registered American Alpine doe. She's 2 years old and due to kid a 2nd time in mid March. Her color and pattern are chamoisee cou noir. (I can speak a couple words of French!) This doe is such a sweet heart and so so cooperative! She was an excellent milker as a first freshener (FF) so will be a good gallon + milker this freshening. She's been ultrasounded as carrying twins. She's already huge but doesn't show it in this picture, but she's due for a wide load bumper sticker! Please cross your fingers I get a couple of beautiful Alpine doelings (triplets would be fine too)!!! That would MAKE MY DAY!! She was already velcroed to me today and followed me all around the yard while I was doing chores and getting some work done. She had an opinion to tell me which was hard to discern as I'm not good at Alpinese or maybe it's just goatese. She did enjoy the goatie granola here! Here it has molasses on it. The white spots against her chamoisee is snow.

We had a couple NICE days and a LOT of melting and now it's snowing again. The ground is all white again. It's nice to have the knee deep stuff gone and the ice too! Now we start over. Bah humbug!

While there to see Spirit, they had this BEAUTIFUL hen that I was totally smitten with. She is part Silkie but without the top notch a purebred Silkie has and part Columbian "something or other" She has the black trim of the Columbian pattern of the black neck feathers, wings and tail. Then the saddle is a goldish-brownish marking on the feathers that is GORGEOUS. She has a unique shine to the white feathers. I'm not sure where that comes from. I've seen a green and purple shine on some of the black chickens, but never this on a white with a gray under coat. It's almost pearl-like. She has the 5 Silkie toes and black skin too. She has short feathers down the sides of her legs. Her face is really dark but doesn't show the degree of it in this pic. She's also small of which Silkies are so I'd have to consider her bantam-sized. I had a terrible time trying to get a pic of her as she was wanting to hide. She's in the "romper room" with the 2009 does, another hen and a rooster. It's a pretty safe place and where she and the other hen aren't going to be picked on by a couple of hens out in the big pen (who aren't too nice). I asked if they'd consider selling her and they gave her to me. Boy was I surprised and DELIGHTED! I hope she lives a long long time as she's so unique and beautiful I would really miss her. Welcome, Chickie Dee!