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This past Monday I took Hope, our goat with the injured eye, to our local vet. She examined her just by looking at the eye with dye in it, and thought there might be a thin thorn or needle – maybe from a thistle – lodged in the eye. She referred us to the only veterinary eye specialist/surgeon in the area.

I thought Hope might be seeing a little, it looked like she was looking at me, whereas before – in the past two days – she kind of just gazed up into the sky. I got an appointment Tuesday and that morning had to load poor Hope back into the back of the truck. She was tied to each side of the truck bed, and off we went. When I looked back while driving, she looked calm enough. Lifting her head into the air occasionally, she almost seemed to enjoy the ride, as a dog does when his head is in the wind.

Arriving even in the parking lot, Hope started collecting stares and admirers who thought she was very cute. I could tell from all the reactions I got that day, that they didn’t see many goats there at the Santa Cruz Veterinary hospital.

The specialist used various instruments to examine her eye and finally determined there was not after all anything lodged in the eye. From as much as I could understand from the vet’s technical explanation, she has an “adhesion” the iris seems to be stuck or fused to her lens and cornea as well. She recommended we try topical medication for a week or two first to dilate the eye and undo the adhesion. She may need surgery eventually. The vet was not sure if it was illness, a congenital condition she was born with that made her blind in the other eye originally, and now effecting this good eye, some trauma like a poke, or some combination of those. She did draw blood and we are doing a blood test to see if there are signs of a toxic condition they can get from rodent feces. (We certainly have our share of mice running around the goat/chicken house.)

The great news is that the next day I could tell Hope had regained some vision. She stopped at the fence instead of bumping into it, and followed my daughter around when she went into check for eggs. I’ve been applying the medication, and tonight she followed me when it was almost dark out. We hope the eye is repairing itself and she won’t need surgery!

This morning I looked out my window and there were bees coming out of our hive!

I left one bee box out all winter – it has frames with old comb still on them, sticky with the honey we extracted last summer. I did that in the hope that once sunny spring weather came and the local bees started to swarm, that a swarm would find this hive a nice new home. It looks like it may have worked!

I heard that if you have a place that bees have made a hive, even though it is vacant, if there is any honeycomb left, another colony with find it the next year. This is a problem when you don’t want the bees in that location, as in my neighbor’s case with his bat box. Colonies of bees have inhabited his bat box up in the tree for three years in a row now.

So I wasn’t sure if there was a whole colony in our bee box this morning already – and we had missed the swarm, or if the ones I saw at the entrance were just scouts. As it turns out, they were scouts, because later, at about 11am when it was nice and sunny, I heard a buzzing and looked up to see a swirling mass of bees coming over the roof of our house. They went right to the bee box, swarmed around and above it, and in a about 20 minutes most of them were out of the air and inside the box!!

I think what is safest is if I wait about 10 days to give them a chance to settle and the queen a chance to get started laying her eggs. Then I will open the box to check on them, and add another box or two to give them more room. The nectar flow must be at it’s peak now here in Central California, with all the rain we’ve had, and now the sunny days.

We just had a great little snow storm! It was the first ever on our little farm since we’ve been here! There is still snow on the ground, there was enough even to make a snowman!

The goats and chickens weren’t amused though, they huddled inside their houses until it passed.

Learn to preserve the food you grow naturally, without canning or freezing.  High in Vitamin C, naturally fermented vegetables balance the digestive system and are among the healthiest foods available.  Make your own raw sauerkraut, pickled vegetables or other fermented garden delights!

You can register for this class by going to: the Monterey Peninsula Regional Parks District website.

The class will be held at the Watershed Institute on the California State University Monterey Bay campus, 10:30am – 2:00pm. The cost is $25.

Directions to Watershed Institute, CSUMB Campus, Bldg. 42 on 6th Ave. & B St.:   From Highway 1 North or South, take the CSUMB/Fort Ord Main Gate exit, which puts you on eastbound Light Fighter Drive. Continue past the second light and turn left on Colonel Durham St.  Turn left at the first stop sign, onto Sixth Ave. Turn right onto Butler St. and take a quick left into the parking lot.  You must either park in a visitor’s parking spot for under 30 minutes or purchase a parking permit for $1.50 (six quarters).

It’s been cold and very wet here on the central coast of California. That means for us that everything is turning green and growing and in the case of the Manzanita – blooming! The bees love it. It rained – hard and times – Christmas Day.

The goats go out to browse on grass and oak and manzanita leaves most of the day – unless it is too wet and muddy. The chickens go out in their yard or sometimes wander around the gardens – scratching dirt away to find bugs and making a mess.

We are getting from 3 to 5 eggs each day now. We are sure that 5 of our 6 chickens are laying at least. We just have never witnessed that 6th one – CC is her name – laying. Maybe she’s a rooster? — though not showing any physical signs of it. Maybe just a late bloomer, or waiting for spring!

So I’ve been thinking about the gophers again. It seems I can’t do anything I want with the garden because of them. But then I got to thinking….we grow cover crops, and have animals like goats come and graze them down, and add their manure to the topsoil. Don’t gophers offer the same thing, just a few inches underground? They eat the cover crop – in my case fava bean and vetch, and turn that into manure deposited right at root level. What if I let the gophers continue doing their thing, and just work with them by sheet mulching and growing more cover crops, while they work under the surface in the root zone not only to fertilize the soil, but to aerate it as well?

But what when it comes time to plant what I really want there? Should I focus on the things they don’t seem to like, such as raspberry bushes and lavender? I don’t want to be too restricted – we need the biodiversity to attract the beneficial insects and birds. But then the gophers just eat the other stuff, unless planted in baskets. Any thoughts?