Two Peacocks is going to Mangum

So one day last week, I drove up to Mangum to check out a new little shop on the square. I had met the owner of "Pat's Candies and Gifts" at the Frederick show. She liked my soap and thought it might be a nice addition to her store's inventory. She also suggested that I share her floor space during the Rattlesnake weekend since I was not planning on joining the crowd of street vendors who vie for space in the hot Oklahoma sun and wind.

I was impressed with Pat's place. It was so very, very clean and bright. She makes all her own candy and pastry, eclairs, muffins, cookies, and sometimes does breads, or whatever else that strikes her fancy. There are other items on her shelves, and I am going to leave soap there after the big weekend on a consignment basis. Mangum is an artsy little community, so time will tell whether they embrace goat milk specialty soaps. Of course, I hope they can't live without it.

I've been making lots of new scents for the Mangum todo (notice I hesitate in typing the rattlesnake moniker; it's not my favorite venue). But I am going to give it a whirl this year--who knows, it might be very successful for soap sales. I intend to set up on Friday and Saturday only, April 28 and 29 inside Pat's. So if you are in the area, look for me. I'll be the one busy NOT looking at the snakes.

Some of the scents I will be featuring at Pat's and Mainstreet Mercantile in Altus are: Mango Papaya, Lilac in Bloom, Beach, Lemongrass Verbena, Dark Amber Musk, Sexy Little Things, Gardenia Mint, Twilight Woods, Warm Patchouli, Goat Milk, Oatmeal and Honey, Gardenia Mint, and Whispering Mist.

Star Wars look alike...

Most every kidding season presents us with at least one bottle baby. For the last couple of years we have been selling them immediately on Craig's List. It was just easier that way. Mixing three bottles a day and trudging down to the goat pens to feed tends to mess up the day.

But this year I am doing just that--for a little guy I call Jar-Jar Binks. He had a rough start. His mom was a first timer, pretty small at just a year old, and Jar-Jar was and is a "hoss" of kid. He was stuck in the birth canal for who knows how long when we found the poor nanny straining and pushing with all her might. Feet and nose were all we saw, and it took all of Keith's strength to pull him into the world.

The first thing we noticed was how swollen his face was, and his tongue was so enlarged it would not fit in his mouth. Although we tried every trick in the book, Jar-Jar could

not nurse or swallow. He was amazingly strong, and his instinct pushed him to nuzzle and hunt for lunch, but the nanny soon gave up worrying about him, and he gave up trying. So I milked mom to

gather the all-important colostrum, and then we tube fed him. Tubing is a tricky process which involves running a small tube down the throat directly into the stomach, and then pouring the milk into a syringe attached to the tube. Goat raisers learn how to do this for weak or cold kids, to get them on their feet so they have the strength to nurse. But Jar-Jar was not weak, and he was handful to hold and feed.

When we first tubed the little monster, we thought it would only take a day or so for the swelling to go down enough for him to feed himself. Wrong. We tubed him for four straight days. Every time I worried we might miss the stomach and pour the milk into his lungs, which would kill him within minutes. We were lucky. Jar-Jar was lucky. And the nanny had forgotten she had baby.

On day four his face sported a more regular shape, and he finally

mastered a small amount of suction. Still he couldn't curl his tongue around the baby-bottle nipple and basically lost more milk than he ingested. Necessity is the mother of invention, and I quickly learned that if I held the bottle with one hand and kept the fingers of my other hand curled around his muzzle to prevent his tongue from slipping out the side of his mouth, the milk went in him instead of on him. I now had a special needs goat kid on my hands.

But Jar-Jar has always been energetic with a strong will to live, and is extremely comical in his rush to claim me as his mom--and he kind of grew on me. So I am mixing bottles, lots of bottles because he is growing by leaps and bounds, and I'm hoping his natural instinct for grazing will soon kick in. But he has to learn to manage that tongue--this time on his own.

Sometime you get what you wish for...

Things have been busy here at the farm lately. The baby goats are mostly here, and that can be compared to a one-armed paper hanger with a contract to redo Graceland. And squeezed in with birthing goats, and feeding goats, and marking baby goats, and milking goats, I needed to restock the soap stores. I sold a ton of product at the Frederick Oyster Festival in February. I mean a lot! and it takes 30 days to cure the new batches, and half the time I had a kettle of soap going while I kept a cold and weak kid warming under foot. You get the picture, right?

Well anyway, you can see why I was wishing for a little time to update the blog and lay around doing absolutely nothing. Trouble with that plan was not specifying the terms of said Rest and Relaxation. I did not consider food poisoning as a viable means to an end. But what is that old saying, Life happens when you are busy making other plans? I was busy making plans to work all day at the Town Hall on Friday (it was the 1st and that is one busy day). And I was going to a party on Saturday to taste chocolate. Yep, chocolate tasting. I had to miss a bunch of cool ladies in a room full of chocolate arranged in all sorts of conglomerations, and I can now only fantasize about the spoons, marshmallows, and strawberries we would have used as scoops. Can you feel my pain? Literally, I hope not, because the two days I spent laying around incapable of making plans were not pretty.

A quick note: I am not sick often. I don't know how to play that game. And another thing, I feel incredibly guilty when I am ill. Things I should be taking care of are having to be done by someone else. That does not make me happy. I say again, that does NOT make me happy. Nuff said. Pity party over.

So to catch up because I have been sorely lacking in updates lately: I have wonderful new batches of soap mostly ready. Lemongrass Verbena, Beach(made with Dead Sea Salt), Gardenia Mint, Mango Papaya, Sexy Little Things and Whispering Mist(Victoria Secrets scents), Oatmeal and Honey, Dark Amber Musk, Lilacs in Bloom, Warm Patchouli, and Twilight Woods. I am making plans to go to the Mangum Rattlesnake thing this month, maybe. That requires some working up to in my opinion. Anything with snake in the name, one has to think about twice.

We have a set of new baby chickens that need to be taken care of. We ordered 42, and I chose the "Easter Egg Chicken" that lays green and blue eggs. Can't wait to see my first of those--six months from now.

The peacocks ate all the begonias I planted recently. They left the Verbena, but ate the Basil, they also left the Rosemary alone. I will replant Verbena where the begonias were because I love the peacocks more than the flowers. If I have to, I will buy basil.

We need rain. Dear Lord, I ask that You send us some rain. Amen.