Our newest addition to our little family is a little Polish Crested rooster the girls have named Kung Pao.  I cannot remember his name.  Sometimes its Kung Foo Chicken and sometimes its something else.  Seldom can I call him Kung Pao.  Oh well, I'm sure he doesn't care.  He is a sweet little guy, a little on the thin side compared to the Sister Wives, those black and white Mottled Java hens we got last summer, but he is a good rooster and takes very good care of them.

He will herd them around the yard clucking softly like he's talking to them.  So funny and so cute.  If I go out there he will side-step towards me giving me the stink-eye look off to one side of his head.  As long as he doesn't play attack rooster we will be fine.  He will walk the chickens all around the yard in different places, and if one heads off in a different direction he will go after her and bring her back to the rest of the flock.

I just love him.

And with the onset of Spring with all the snow melting away, there's always the dark side -- mud.  Our driveway is gravel but the more we drive over it the muddier it gets.  Then the road from our house down to a larger dirt road that heads down to the paved highway, well you can imagine all these well traveled dirt roads turning into big mud puddles.  Here is a picture of the road that heads down towards the highway from our house.

But I guess its better than the summer dust.  There's not a season that something isn't irritating about that dirt road.  Winter, Spring or Summer.  Its all good though.  It gets us home.

This is a picture from last week when it rained every day.  Quite a little stream heading down the hill.

Believe it or not, here is our little black goat Smoky.  His fiber is coming is so beautifully and it is much lighter than the black guard hairs that keep him clean.  As you can see on the tips of his horns, the soft cashmere is just about ready to be combed out.  A few more days and I can tie him to one of the corner posts in the pen to comb the cashmere.  We don't shear them so we don't have to de-hair the fiber.  Much easier.  They are somewhat itchy right now so I think they will enjoy this, even though it will be their 'first' combing.

He is so sweet.  These guys are nothing like the Naughty Boys we used to have, those pesky little Pygoras.  They would jump up on me when I would go in the pen and knock the feed dishes out of my hands.  Cute little faces though.  But these boys are much nicer.