The Winterwood Story

In the early 1980’s we were thinking about moving out into the country, and goats seemed like a good idea because they were smarter than sheep and had a better sense of humor than cows. Also they were animals urban-raised people could handle.

We planned ahead. We sat around Linda Shuls dining room table and took notes about the right way to go about it. I still have those notes somewhere. We learned how to disbud if you are so rural you don’t have electricity—and one of the other students was (the one with long skirts and flowers in her hair). We were inspired.

We bought our first goats, Togg-LaMancha crosses (the LaMancha being the most intelligent breed and having the best sense of humor) from Sherian Kutzera who had actually run a dairy and could tell stories about burying a dead goat in her tenants’ front yard and seeing the legs rise up like four young trees when the earth settled.

++B GCH Companeros Pierra Dividend

GCH Winterwood's D Wildflower

Dividend gave us Winterwood’s D Wildflower, a chocolate doe descended from one of the original Togg mixes. Sherian encouraged us to show her (It’s best to wear your hair in braids like Heidi…) and Joan Dean Rowe put her grand as a yearling in our local county fair. She won that competition each year for the next six years.

When her daughter, Winterwood’s Wild Wind was BIS at the Calif State Fair, Jennifer Bice was in the line-up. Someone took a picture of the moment the judges announced their decision and the snapshot shows various degrees of surprise and shock on the exhibitors’ faces—only Jennifer showed unalloyed pleasure at our win.

SGCH Winterwood's L Wildwind winning BIS at
the California State Fair.

We spent the next few years visiting West Coast LaMancha breeders looking for genetics. We went to Barranca’s in Oregon and watched their strong, long-bodied does living in extended families—all the piles of daughters, mothers and granddaughters under the shade trees. We visited Barbara Harrison and brought back big, wide, milky does and bucks. We went to Ray Vieira’s and bought Clovertop’s Don Juan. Visiting us a couple of years later, Ray saw Don Juan standing in his pasture. “Manual, go get the gun!” he yelled. He hadn’t yet seen the buck’s milking daughters, Winterwood’s Mystic and Majic or their brother, Winterwood’s Medicine Man (Mac), future sire of a national champion.

SGCH Winterwood D Majik

After all these years, it’s really the personalities (caprine as well as human) I remember. I remember Majic standing up on her pen at the county fair and screaming as soon as she heard my car coming into the parking lot, and our great Togg-LaMancha cross (many generations removed from the originals) who would get up on the milk stand backwards and stand there snickering.

I don’t really remember that much about the old genetics nor can I recite long pedigrees, but Linda Shuls (the teacher of the early class) still can, so I have asked her to write the rest of this article.

From Linda’s memory (and point of view):

I believe the year was 1982; I was teaching a Dairy Goat Husbandry course (each course consisted of a full 10 weeks) through the Black Oak Unified School District. The school district was short on funds (sound familiar?) so the classes were moved to my home. It was at one of these courses that I met Ann Hodges and Barb Garrett; they had attended a ‘Farm Fest’ and found information about the course there … they signed up immediately for the up coming session. As Ann has stated above, they along with Penny Amolsch had plans to move to acreage and had decided to have a ‘few’ goats (famous last word … few). I thought at the time “now these folks are doing this right”, they wanted to learn as much as they could about dairy goats; confirmation, personalities of each breed, housing, health and so on BEFORE THEY PURCHASED THEIR GOATS.

SGCH Winterwood D Mystic

Fast forward a couple of years; Penny, Ann and Barb have found their acreage in Somerset, just outside of Placerville, CA; a perfect 10 acres for goats to browse on; lots of yummy treats with every turn of the head, trees to climb, Manzanita to munch and room to romp and play. The first barn was built with a lot of forethought by Ann; it had a nice hay storage area so that the girls could be fed directly from that area in the winter time; a small milk room with separate in and out doors and good fencing; now they were ready for their goats.

SGCH Winterwood's S-O Dreamer

The first doe I remember was a doe named Sweet Pea who was half Togg and sired by a LaMancha buck, *B Quixote’s O’Randy; this was the foundation that Winterwood Farm was built from. Sweet Pea was taken to Gold Dust LaManchas and bred to a permanent champion buck, GCH ++*B Elfspring Excalibur; that breeding produced Winterwood’s Buttercup who was then bred to GCH ++*B Companeros Pierre Dividend (mentioned above) to get the first permanent champion to carry the Winterwood herd name; GCH Winterwood’s D Wildflower. From Wildflower there were many more champions such as SGCH Winterwood’s S-O Dreamer (sired by SG ++*B Secret Ravine Dawns Shine-On) who in her turn when bred ++*B Clovertop’s L Don Juan produced SGCH ++*B Winterwood’s The White Knight (the first buck ever kept as a herd sire by Winterwood), ++*B SG Winterwood’s The Medicine Man, SGCH Winterwood’s DJ Mystic and her sister SGCH Winterwood’s DJ Majic, plus another son +*B Winterwood’s Blue Chip Stock who was sired by GCH ++*B Companeros Pierre Dividend.

There are way too many champions that carry the Winterwood herd name to list them all. I would like to point out that those animals that became champions in the Winterwood herd did so against top competition. The prime reason that made this herd the success it was is the willingness of Penny, Ann and Barb (who breeds does with her own herd name of Summerset) to share their hard work and outstanding LaMancha genetics with others. In the beginning Penny and Ann decided not to sell any stock until they felt that the animals they sent into other herds would be positive contributors to the LaMancha breed. In their quest for ‘their type of LaMancha’ they culled animals that many would have kept. Ann was totally ‘in tune’ with the goats plus she possesses the ability to see structure (honed from her days of breeding dogs) and Penny was a ‘pedigree nut’ (we had several long discussions on that subject); the partnership produced many outstanding goats in confirmation, milk and temperament. When we lost Penny, Ann continued breeding the quality LaManchas we all think of when we hear the Winterwood herd name.

In Closing

As mentioned earlier in this article; the Winterwood herd had far too many Champions to even start to mention them all; this statement is also true for their Best In Show wins and the number of Linear Appraised EX in the herd. What is really impressive to me is the extremely high quality animals they shared with other herds; it is those bucks and does that went to live in herds across the U.S. that have had such an impact on the LaMancha breed.

I personally would like to thank Penny, Ann and Barb for the genetics they have so generously contributed to the LaMancha Breed.

Congratulations to Penny, Ann and Barb from all of the members of the ALC!

A few more memorable Winterwood animals:

A special thank you to Mitch Theilig of North Country Tropies in Ladysmith, WI for designing the Herd Achievement Award plaque.
www.nctrophiesandawards.com