Our journal of what we pray is our sojourn of life along the narrow way, even the old paths, submitting to the Bible as a light unto both.

Category: providence (Page 15 of 25)

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: The Goat Kids of 2014

I know it’s been a bit since our last post, but it’s been extraordinarily busy around here, with seasonal chores to attend to; and so, thanks for your patience!

Back in November, it was time to start the goat mating process once again (with a 150-day gestation period, this usually puts the kidding to after freezing temperatures). We have two bucks, and we separate our older does with our buck Shatner:

Nubian Buck Shatner

And the next generation does with Rocky (posing with my brother Kevin when he was visiting back in April):

Nubian Buck Rocky

And lo, after 5 months, by God’s graces, many kids were born! Here are a few pictures of the lot of them. Nine does gave birth to 17 in all — 9 bucklings and 8 doelings, although we sadly lost two of the bucklings in the first few days:

2014 Goat Kids
More 2014 Goat Kids
Some More 2014 Goat Kids
Yet More 2014 Goat Kids
Further More 2014 Goat Kids

Here’s a kid relaxing with a chicken in one of the sheds:

Goat Kid & The Chicken in a Shed

Besides the losing of the two bucklings, this goat season was also interesting in a couple of other ways. First, we lost our Nubian nanny Betsy during the winter, although not from the cold because it wasn’t cold when she died. She had had a lump on her throat for several years that sort of just sat there; but it did seem to change a couple of weeks before she died — got spongier; so maybe something happened with that. Here is Betsy and her kids from last year:

Our Nanny Goat Betsy and Her Kids from 2013

And secondly, our nanny Minnie, who was our first born on the land from Winnie, died two days after giving birth from what appeared to be complications in the birth. Here is Minnie from last year with her kids as well:

Our Nanny Goat Minnie and Her Kids from 2013

It was quite sad to lose them both, but we always pray we have the proper attitude toward the things the Lord has provided to us for our use.

Here is where Betsy and Minnie were first introduced back in 2008.

And so, with Minnie dieing, we had two orphans on our hands again (here is where we had orphans the first time). That’s Pearl (in honor of Minnie — think Hee Haw) in the back, and Tiger (because he sort of has tiger-looking colors) in front:

Orphan Goat Kids Pearl & Tiger

This is Sue and Kev feeding them:

Bottle Feeding Orphan Goat Kids

Kev also helped me move goat sheds back when we separated nannies from Shatner and Rocky:

Moving Goat Sheds in the Spring

The Lord had graciously granted a very nice gentleman to be interested in buying our entire kid herd last year, and he was interested again this year, and here we are prepping the area to load them up:

Preparing Animal Trailer for Loading the Goat Kids

And finally, here is the kids of 2014 video. It’s a little long, but it includes introducing each of them and their sires to you, bottle feeding the orphans, letting them eat (including the smaller amount of wheat we ended up receiving this year) and roam around our inner field and barn area, and when we said goodbye to them after getting them loaded in the trailer:


As always, we are very grateful to God for granting the kid crop of this year; the health and safety He granted for them; the trials He brings in order to glorify Himself and we pray mold us in His image; and now for the provisions of the very healthy milk, which is really why we keep goats in the first place.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: Third Chick Hatching of 2014

About a day after the hen from the second batch of chicks went broody, another hen, one of our Game Hen breed I believe, went broody as well, in a garbage can in the barn, if I remember correctly. And so, we moved her into the piano room with a set of eggs under her; and by God’s graces, a day after the other hen hatched out her chicks, this one did too! Nine in all, and eight are still going strong!

Here are a couple of pictures:

Third Batch of Chicks Hatched in 2014
More of the Third Batch of Chicks Hatched in 2014

And below is their video. There was one chick hatched out that was cripple — it couldn’t stand up and would just lay on its side, moving its legs almost swimmingly, trying to stand up. If you got it standing, it would just fall over. I tried working with it, feeding it to try to keep it alive, making a runway for it to try to learn to walk. I called it Tiny, because it was such a small little thing:

Our Little Chick "Tiny's" Walking Trough

And for a while I thought it might get it — it would walk along, eat the food I had laid down in the trough, even preen a few times, and seemed to be getting better with its balance; but in the end, sadly, about a week after hatching, it died.

Still, one thing that was interesting to me was that I would place it in its runway, come back later, and it would have crawled its way out, and slide-crawled itself through the 1-inch chicken wire around the cage area, I assume to try to get to its mommy. This happened at least twice. It was an inspiration in dedication to me, and led me to think and then pray that we strive after the Lord Christ Jesus the same way. May we be able to hide under His wings, and may He maybe grant a sense of that (see these several Psalms references).

Although I wasn’t able to capture those times with Tiny, you can still see it in this video:


We are once again very grateful to the Lord for granting us the continuation of the flock, and we pray He always glorifies Himself through these things, including in His sovereign giving and taking of anything, in accordance with His will.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: Second Batch of 2014 Chicks

As I mentioned in our blog post about the first chicks that the Lord granted us in 2014 1, we had another hen go broody, an Australorp, which we showed in our mini chicken tractor, and by God graciousness, He granted that she hatch out a bunch o’ chicks! Out of 13 eggs, 11 hatched out, and all 11 are still rolling along just great, it appears!

Here are a few pictures:

Second Hatching of Chicks in 2014
More of the Second Hatching of Chicks in 2014

And their video:


As always, we are so very grateful to the Lord for His granting of these provisions. We’ve had to butcher some more roosters recently to get the rooster-hen ratio better, and it is humbling and joyful to be eating the food the Lord has directly provided! We are very thankful.

— David

1 P.S. You’ll have to forgive me, as in the previous post I said one of our Australorps was the mother of those first hatchlings, and that wasn’t correct — I’ve corrected it since.

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: First Chicks of 2014

A couple to a few months ago, one of our hens went broody, we put some eggs under her, and the Lord graciously granted our first chicks of 2014! I’ve been lagging in getting this blog post done and out, as you can see, since they are about half way to being full grown. But, we wanted to acknowledge and thank God in His provisions of granting additions to the flock!

The broody hen hatched out three, and the three have made it very well, and here they are, with their mama. It looks like they are all hens too, and all Australorps as well, which is a nice bonus gift, since the Australorps are also great brooders:

First Chicks of 2014
More of the First Chicks of 2014

And here is a little video of them:


Also, we’ve had another couple of hens go broody just a few days ago. Here’s one in the mini chicken tractor:

Next Broody Hen

And the other in the piano room, although she started in a garbage can in the barn 🙂 :

And Another Broody Hen

As always, we are so very thankful to the Lord for granting any chicks and continuance of food provisions; and we are grateful for Him showing His graces and mercies in these ways.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Calf “Manolito”

I believe it was the same day Adelina and new heifer calf Graciana walked up to us during feeding time that our cow, Rosa, showed up with her new little bull calf! When they walked up, it was still quite wet; and so we figured it couldn’t have been more than a few hours old.

A cold front was just coming in too at the time. After dropping some range cubes, I was walking around trying to get a good look at Rosa’s calf, and it started to wander off, slowly, toward the pond. I thought, please don’t keep going or you’re going to…..and yes, fall in. I ran up, in case it was in trouble, but it bounced out with no problem, although now its whole front end was really soaked. And with a cold front coming in.

But the Lord graciously brought the little guy through, and here he is! We decided to call him Manolito, because he’s got so much of the grullo color his sire, Manolete, has. Manolito also means “God is with us” in Spanish:

New Longhorn Bull Calf Manolito

And here’s his video with Rosa (which was taken about the same time as the video of Graciana as well, I believe):


We are again grateful to God for the provision of this new bull calf, Him bringing him through the cold front, the Longhorns’ continued health, and the fields the Lord has granted us to be able to graze them on.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Calf “Graciana”

The third calf we discovered in this year’s round of breeding was one from a heifer we’ve had for several years but hadn’t given birth before. But now, that heifer is a cow, as she did indeed give birth to her own little heifer, which we’re going to call Graciana, which means “pleasing, agreeable” in Spanish.

And here she is with her mama, Adelina!

New Longhorn heifer calf Graciana

And a little video of the two of them:


Again, we are very grateful to the Lord for granting this new little provision, and for granting an especially safe first delivery, a delivery at all, and good motherly instincts to Adelina.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Calf “Domingo”

With the new Longhorn calves starting to be born now, the next one I saw was a little brown one walking up with our cow, Holga. After further examination, we discovered he was a bull calf as well; and so, please allow us to introduce you to our next pure Longhorn bull calf, Domingo, which means “belongs to the Lord” in Spanish.

Here he is, with his dam, Holga. You might recognize him from Donato’s video in the last blog post:

New pure Longhorn bull calf Domingo

And here’s his video:


Again, we are very grateful to the Lord for granting the safe delivery for both mama-cow and calf, and us this new little provision!

— David

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