![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/IMG_6293-e1358120681387.jpg\" "\\"Tulip")
<\/a><\/p>\nVanilla is Tina’s mother.\u00a0 Although she didn’t seem to know this fact.\u00a0 Perhaps because when Tina left when she was still a kid and Vanilla has forgotten the entire thing.\u00a0 Perhaps because\u00a0every time\u00a0Vanilla looked at Tina, she just thought she was looking in the mirror.<\/p>\n
Tina.<\/p>\n
Vanilla.<\/p>\n Tina.<\/p>\n Vanilla.<\/p>\n Good thing Vanilla never saw Back to the Future<\/a>.\u00a0 Or else she would have been a bit nervous about constantly running into herself.<\/p>\n If you can’t tell them apart, don’t worry.\u00a0 Simon and Isaac, the sheep, went to snuggle with Tina on a few occasions and ended up with a vicious ear bite or getting a tuft of wool yanked out when it turned out to be Vanilla instead of their usual\u00a0companion.\u00a0 Vanilla wasn’t comfortable with the comingling of sheep and goats.\u00a0 And she wasn’t afraid to let the boys know her opinion.<\/p>\n When I first got sheep a lot of people expressed concern that the sheep would bully or injury my disbudded goats.\u00a0 Guess they’ve never seen a Shetland sheep running full speed away from a Toggenburg whose personal space has been violated.\u00a0 The sheep were going so fast that they almost left their tails behind them.\u00a0 And as Little Bo Peep knows, that would have been a heck of a lot of trouble.<\/p>\n The guests did enjoy some of the benefits of their stay, though, even if they found the sheep bothersome.\u00a0 Vanilla enjoyed hanging out in the big barn, looking down to the pond.<\/p>\n Tulip preferred a higher view and spent many hours chillin’ on the picnic table.\u00a0 Every goat’s favorite climbing spot.<\/p>\n Of course, we reaped the biggest benefit of their stay.\u00a0 Tulip produced milk as if she was providing for an entire nursery of goat kids.\u00a0 Which was impressive since she was only being milked once a day.\u00a0 My does’ production usually drops to less than half when I go from milking twice a day to once a day, so I can’t imagine what her production would have been like at twice a day.\u00a0 Perhaps we would have truly been the land of milk and honey.\u00a0 Minus the honey.\u00a0 And more like the land of milk and milk and milk and milk….<\/p>\n As a matter of fact, we loved Tulip and her determined milk production so much that I thought of switching her out for another goat when my friend returned.\u00a0 Like say, trading her for Angel, the bad goat baby that despite being 9 months old can still squeeze into the milking room.\u00a0 Where she enjoys sticking her head in the trough with the (very annoyed) goat on the stanchion.\u00a0 Or standing by your leg demanding chin scratches by pawing you mercilessly.\u00a0 Or climbing into the feed room and eating out of all the feed bags even if she has to tear a hole in them to do it.\u00a0 Don’t be fooled by her cuteness.\u00a0 And don’t make the same mistake we did.\u00a0 Naming a goat “Angel” is way too tempting for the universe.\u00a0 It’s like begging to be slapped down.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, the 2 goats look way too different for that kind of switch to be pulled off.\u00a0 So we had to settle for enjoying Tulip’s milk while she was here.\u00a0 Which meant milk….<\/p>\n and chevre….<\/p>\n and homemade ice cream for all.<\/p>\n A special shout out to Santa Claus.\u00a0 Who must have known Tulip was coming over and gave us a countertop ice cream maker for Christmas.\u00a0 Which just needs milk, cream, sugar, and strawberries from the freezer to make delicious strawberry ice cream in 25 minutes.\u00a0 That man is amazing, I tell you, just amazing!<\/p>\n And, especially, lots of love to Tulip.\u00a0 Who made all those good things possible.<\/p>\n Our guests left yesterday and it almost seemed a little too quiet without the extra visitors.\u00a0 Luckily, someone else showed up just before we got bored.\u00a0 As I was rinsing out the milk bucket, gazing out the window and already mourning my losses, some odd looking nuthatches arrived at the bird feeder.\u00a0 We have tons of white-breasted nuthatches and enjoy watching them hop upside down and sideways on the trees.\u00a0 But this pair of birds looked like nuthatches with little brown caps.\u00a0 Which was entirely reasonable since we quickly identified them with our birding book to be brown-headed nuthatches.<\/p>\n New birds!\u00a0 Birds we have never seen before!\u00a0 At our feeder!<\/p>\n After reading a bit about them<\/a>, we decided they must be foraging with a larger mixed flock of birds.\u00a0 Since we have never seen them here before and don’t have any large stands of the pine forests that they generally prefer.\u00a0 I doubt they will stay here but I hope to see them use tree bark tools before they leave.\u00a0 If they do, I’ll be happy to provide you with more grainy, blurry pictures of them in action for your viewing pleasure. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n In the meantime, I hope to learn their birdsong using my new BirdSong Ultra IdentiFlyer<\/a>.\u00a0 Which I also got for Christmas.\u00a0 (Didn’t I tell you Santa Claus was amazing??!!)<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n