And the Winner is...

Knit and Purl!
Congratulations to Leslie Hetherington who submitted the winning names!

Thanks to all that participated.

Here they are, actually in this photo Knit is on the right and Purl is on the left.



In truth Leslie suggested Kit and Purl, as knit could be seen as a rather buggy or pest-like name. However, if you enter their pen and stand there for any length of time, Knit (or Kit) will start nibbling on your pants or shirt tail or whatever else happens to look tasty to her. Therefore a pesty name isn't quite so far off the mark.

We already have a small bag of their mohair in the house, and will soon begin the process of washing, carding and spinning it. Look for it in Lesley's hats in the spring!

In the meantime the goats will be proudly hosting their first December sale. December is our annual 'no tax' month, so come on over and say 'Hello' to Knit and Purl offer them an oak leaf from the lawn, and browse the shop. We're open Thursday to Sunday and our last day open this year is December 19th, so don't delay!

Let the Voting Begin!

We are all very excited to find out the names of our goats! We've gotten a great response and have a big list to choose from, so let the let's get voting!

Here is the link to vote for your favorite goat names:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8WBFHSS
You can only vote once, so make it count!

And no, I can't tell them apart either...

2 Days Left to Name Our Goats!

The deadline for submissions is Friday Nov 20th at midnight, then the voting begins!

Get your name suggestions in today!! They are too cute to go nameless for much longer. How else will Santa put them on his list??

(See the next post for details)

Name the Galloping Goats' Goats Contest!

Our girls are here!!! Yay!! They are so small and cute but fairly timid so far. Everyday we have gone out and talked to them and petted them as much as they will allow.
I think they are slowly getting more comfortable and even are starting to play a bit with each other. They will also follow Leah around when she is in the pen with them. I'm hoping that by spring they will be as easy going and tame as our old dog Belle.

They are a Pygmy and Angora goat cross, so they have the short stature of a pygmy goat and the curly long hair of an Angora goat. Their coats will be routinely sheared and then I will hopefully get my mom, aka. the Crafty Crone, to spin up some mohair yarn and then I'll be able to knit it right into my hats!

THE CONTEST:

So we are having trouble naming the sister goats, and need your help! You can enter your clever name ideas, then everyone will have a chance to vote, and the creator of the winning entry will win a fabulous prize!

How to enter:

You can enter your suggestions starting at 7PM Nov 4th by emailing us, leaving a note at the friends of the Galloping Goat facebook group, by commenting on this blog entry, or by visiting the Galloping Goat and dropping a note in the box on the barn. We will take submissions of names up until Nov. 20th midnight. There are just a couple of things to consider...

They are beautiful girls and deserve girly names, no boy names allowed!
You must include 2 names, one for each goat.
The names must be cute, but not too cute!
You must include your name and either a phone number or email address so we can reach you if you win. Your contact info will not be published, unless you publish it yourself by submitting in one of the more public venues. (Like on the comments on this blog.)
No vulgar names will be permitted. :P
Sorry, but no entries from our own family will be accepted! This means you Snyder/Morris'
All entries will be posted on this blog and on the facebook group.

Voting:

Voting will take place from November 21st to midnight November 27th. We will put the names on this blog and facebook group so that everyone has a chance to vote.

Winning!

On November 28th the person with the most popular names for our goats will get a $25 gift certificate for the Galloping Goat Gallery, bragging rights, and will be able to come and visit the girls anytime they like! AND, the goats will finally have names we can put up on their little house. They likely still won't come when we call though.

Scarecrow Festival Success!!

We had an amazing and fantastic Scarecrow Festival this year!! Thank you again to all of the people that came out and made a scarecrow and for those that just gave a donation. We raised the most $ ever and gave a cheque for $1300 to the Reverend Jean Wilson for the church's trust fund that is set up for Joseph Stoness and his family.
This year we were lucky enough to have Terry from the Picton Fire Department come and set up his tent and show people the importance of fire safety in their homes, barns and garages.

I have to say the goats were probably the biggest hit of the day. Children and adults loved petting and feeding them and the goats thoroughly enjoyed all the attention. They had enough corn and treats from the garden that they didn't even want their dinner that night!

The popcorn crew of ladies were also alot of help though I'm not sure if they ate more popcorn then they sold or not!

We also decided this year that we would give a prize for the most unusual scarecrow of the Festival and Lucy and Hannah's creative use of the clothes and a lace curtain to create a bride and groom were the definite winners!

I also have to give a shout out and a huge thank you to our amazing Picton businesses that donated all the items to make our day possible and give us a low enough overhead that we could give 100% of the money donated straight to Joseph and his family.
Home Hardware for creating all our scarecrow sticks and delivering them to us!
George Emlaw for that very important bale of straw for stuffing!
County Farm Centre for all the hotdogs.
The Co-op for the feed bags that we use for scarecrow heads and the corn for the goats.
Giant Tiger for their gift certificate
No Frills for their gift certificate
Metro for their gift certificate
Black River Cheese for the free ice and ice cream cones for all our volunteers that helped us that day! Nothing like getting paid in ice cream!
Sobeys for all the hotdog buns we could handle!
2nd Time Round for all the times I went in begging for used clothes and letting me dig through all the bags looking for items we could use. You ladies are awesome!
Picton Gazette and Wellington Times for the articles and photos of our event that helped us in promoting a good cause.
And last but definitely not least the ladies that came and helped out during the day and tried not to freeze in that brisk wind off the river. Aynsley Emlaw, Lucy Mee, Lori Farrington, Kirstie Ross, Heather Zantingh, Pat Dubyk, Sheila, Leah Snyder, Annette, Bri-Anne & Hannah Brummell, Rosemary Morris and Valery Phillip. Also thank you to Barb Guernsey of Black River Tree Service for ferrying me around all over the County delivering flyers to promote the day and requesting donations for the event. I can't thank you all enough and feel very blessed to live in this amazing community. These kinds of things just can't be done without people willing to step up and help out! You all are awesome! Can't wait to see all of you again next year!

3rd Annual Scarecrow Festival

Wow, does time fly by or what!!! It's Thanksgiving weekend already and the trees are all dressed out in their prettiest colours for the season. Where did the time go, it has been a bit of a blur this year that's for sure.

So since it's fall and Thanksgiving you know what that means? Right? Scarecrow time is here!! We have been gathering up all the makings for our annual fundraiser and as always the local businesses have gladly pitched in with donations. This year the funds we raise are going to Joseph Stoness and his family. Joseph was the boy that was so terribly burned this past May and was a good buddy of my son Quinn's. His family is really struggling under a financial strain that we are hoping we can help to relieve a bit. They are actually working on having Joseph home soon but he is in a wheelchair so they need to have ramps put in and some other alterations to the house in order to make this happen.

It is going to be a fun Scarecrow Festival this year with hotdogs and drinks, facepainting and popcorn as well! It is this Saturday October the 10th from 10 am to 4 pm. Also our goats, are looking forward to visiting with everyone as well. Coco and her sister Smores (she is the one that looks like the colour of marshmallows) love to play with my kids and their mom Nana Aggie is always just looking for something to eat. This is a fun event for kids of all ages and it's for a really good cause.

Don't forget it is also the last weekend for ice cream at Black River Cheese Factory so don't miss out, it's along time until April!

The store, of course, is full of some new cool things I found in Montreal like my crazy purses. I've been carrying the silver magic bus purse and it has been getting tonnes of comments from people. There are also purses of volkswagon bugs cars, pug dogs, trains, cinderella carriages, high heel shoes, a red snail wearing a rhinstone necklace and many more.

Also I just got another big order of our funny old signs and there are some new ones I've never had before. So don't forget to come and read the walls and have a good laugh and giggle.

We are now open Thursdays and Fridays 11 am to 5 pm and Saturday and Sunday 10 am to 5pm. We can also ship things out to you if you can't make it in to the store. Just send me an email at lesley@gallopinggoat.com and let me know what you are trying to get a hold of and I'll do my best to help you out. Someday maybe our website will get fancy enough to shop online but I doubt it. I am constantly picking up new fun things so I don't think we could keep up with the changing stock in the barn and on a website.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family and hope to see you in the barn real soon!

Turtles, Turtles Every Where Turtles!

Well these are not goats but they are baby snapping turtles that were born on the shores of the Galloping Goat Gallery.

We have a mother snapping turtle that comes every June to climb the hill surrounding our house and lay eggs all over our lawn in front of picture window. This turtle is huge, bigger than a dinner plate and fairly scary looking so we don't bother her while she goes about her business. This year about a week ago we noticed there were holes torn up all over the front lawn. Little round sections as if someone was digging all over the place in small sections. No egg shells anywhere to give us any clues but as I was walking from the barn to the house I saw one tiny turtle just plodding along. These guys are about the size of a looney. I went and got Tim and then we started wandering around with our eyes peeled on the ground. We found about 8 of these guys all over our property, going every which way and obviously no idea where the water was. We put them into the bottom of the wheelbarrow and took them to the river shore. We plopped them into the grasses on the shore and left them to do what turtles are supposed to do.

We stepped gingerly for a few days with hopes that the turtles all made their way to the water. It's funny how you like these guys when they are cute little babies but when they are adults they are kind of creepy and a bit evil! We saw a baby swan get eaten by a turtle and they will take a full sized Canadian goose down as well. I think next time I might not be so helpful getting these guys to the river. We did find another area of lawn holes from another nest of turtles so just on our property alone there must have been more than 60 small holes dug up so that means 60 or so turtles heading to the river. I sure hope they don't all make it or there won't be much else living on the river with these guys taking down anything they can get their jaws on!!