It's been nearly 2 months since I blogged. I only know this to be true because Facebook told me so. Since the last blog, we had a baby goat explosion! 23 babies in total. 15 does & only 8 bucks. That's really great odds. There was 3 sets of triplets from Mercedes, Mazy & Tweed. 5 sets of twins from Shiori, Sunshine, Allie, Mocha & Tamara. 4 singles from Kate, Bevie, Viola & Lucy.
There was a good stretch of days where I only slept 4-5 hours in 2 hour increments. I didn't know if a doe would hold out until daylight so I would lay on the couch, set my phone for 2 hours away & drift off until the obnoxious noise would beckon me to get up, get dressed & go search for babies. Mazy & Mocha didn't wait for me to get there & had their kids by themselves
with some other goats to coach them. Others pretended like they were on the cusp of bringing forth life, only to prolong my impatience for 6 more hours.
A portion of the girls had me just sitting, watching & waiting as a bystander while they did their work. Poor Kate made a baby too large for her body that required me to get involved in a major way. We got that huge buck out with the help of Lori on speaker phone encouraging Kate & I to not give up! Kate, Mongo & I were exhausted. I left mama & baby to bond while I got a cup of coffee, a shower & clean clothes. In that order. I do have priorities.
On 2 separate occasions, I had 2 goats kidding at the same time! I would just go back & forth from pen to pen with my son in 1 place commentating on the 1 mama while I was assisting with the other!
With this kidding season at a close, we can now shift gears to growing season. We're growing baby goats & vegetables. We have finally settled into a routine of feeding, milking, working & playing. It's nearly impossible to ignore the adorable babies and get anything done around here!
We were on track to get our micro dairy in place starting next week, but our funding fell through. Now we are trying to regroup and are forced to move at a slower pace as money becomes available. I have started to dig our french drain with the help of my human kids and goat kids. The goat kids aren't very helpful... but they sure are fun to watch!
I'm uncertain of what this farm's future is going to look like now. I was relying on the raw milk dairy to be it's backbone. I'll be honest with you.....some days feel heavier than others. The weight of disappointment and failure weigh my heart down to unfathomable depths. I know that seems dramatic. There could be worse scenarios I could be staring at.
For now I will pull my muck boots up a little higher (there's been a lot of rain lately!), slide my tired hands into work gloves & sally forth. Nothing ever got accomplished by sitting & waiting for someone else to start the work. God puts desires & hopes in our hearts for His glory, not ours. It's my job as the caretaker of my family, this land & those animals to give my best and my all.
After all, God did create coffee & chocolate for a reason....
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