I'm getting goats again! And piglets!

A few months ago, I sold my goats, after having raised and milked them for over a decade, because I thought I needed a break from milking, breeding, birthing, feeding and worrying about them. Besides, our family was leaving on a five week road trip, which would leave the rest of our farm and critters attended by a house sitter. Caring for goats would be a lot to ask of a house sitter, so the timing of selling my goats worked out perfectly.  It broke my heart.

However. It is now spring, and all of my friends' goats are having babies. I am getting baby goat fever. I think I'm annoying my goat-owning friends by pushily volunteering my help when a doe goes into labor. “Call me anytime!” I tell them. “I'll keep my phone by the bed side in case there's a goat birthing emergency.” Or I drop by their barns and inspect the does' tails to see if the babies have dropped and labor has started. I just want to be there, immersed in the messy miracle of birth, amniotic fluid, and cute goat babies.  Two of my friends just called me a couple of hours ago AS THEIR GOAT GAVE BIRTH, and I got to "witness" the whole thing over the phone.  I love my friends! 

So I decided to get goats again. This time, I will not push for maximum milk production so I don't have to make hard cheese from ten gallons of milk every four or five days. This time I will attempt to milk once a day (and leave the babies on the mamas), and then just make easy stuff like yogurt, kefir, chevre and the occasional Gouda, Tomme, Cheddar or Manchego. I think it's doable. What do you think?

I've been working frantically to get the goat barn ready.  Steve built it over a decade ago out of recycled and salvaged materials and poured concrete on half of the floor for easy cleaning.  Last week, I cleaned up the messes that have accumulated in it over time.  I washed the milking stand, and mucked out the bedding I didn't remove after I sold my goats because I was too depressed about them being gone. I also shoveled a bunch of compost made with their manure to spread on the garden. 

It might not look pretty to you, but it is so much better than before.  The milk stand will be on the left.

Steve helped with the scraping.  Notice the bare upper bodies?  In March?  Crazy, right?

I'm pretending to milk a goat.  Soon.  Soon.

Oh yeah!  The garden is gonna like this!

Now let me show you the piglets.  We got four this year, and they like to curl up in their food dish to take a nap.  Ahhh, pigs!  We have a great system with our moveable pig pen and electric fence.  They get moved to fresh pasture regularly, doing a good job of eating grass and rooting in it.  Since we only have five acres, all this happens on our neighbor's pasture.

With all this cleaning, mucking, shoveling and digging, we managed to get some bike rides in as well.  You gotta take advantage of this weather.  So one day, I got on the bike with my ten year old son for a little ride, and we accidentally biked 22 miles, to be met by the rest of the family at the bakery in town.  And the day after, we tried out the tag-along ride-behind bike that was given to us.  Eva rode 8 miles on it on her maiden voyage!  As a reward, we biked to the river.  What a life!  What are you feeling blessed by this week?

Overwhelmed - and then throw six little piggies in the mix

Do you sometimes experience the kind of day when you wake up, and you really, really, really don't want to leave your bed, because everything seems too overwhelming?

My body has been bone tired from working in my garden, and my mind and spirit follow suite with the exhaustion. When too many things have pulled on me, sometimes I get to a place where I feel that I will crack, and then I get scared, because I fear that I will be lost to the underworld forever. (Also, my friend's wife died of cancer last week, and since she was German, they asked me to call her mother after the death. It has been very intense.)

So today, after milking the goats and feeding piglets, and after breaking down in tears after Steve left to work, I decided to go easy on myself. I tend to treat my body like a machine, and with all the things pressing on me, I push and push and push. (Dear fellow Mamas, does any of this sound familiar? Of course it does.)

This morning, while I did the laundry, I enrolled the boys in doing dishes, which took them 45 minutes. Instead of making cheese and homeschooling the kids, we all went outside in the rare sunshine. Huh, could the never-ending rain have to do anything with my depressed state?

Here is what ensued: I put up my Muck-boot clad feet and knitted several rounds on Eva's socks in the sunshine. The boys practiced acrobatic moves on the lawn. Eva happily brought me imaginary food cooked in her toy kitchen, which we pulled outside into the sunshine next to us.

Mission accomplished: a much happier Mama, and in turn, happier kids.

The rest of the day might still include homeschooling, or it might not. I can tell you this: the day included chocolate, which also helped my mood.

Later today, we will spend our day with these little characters.  We got them last night, six of them. They are five or six weeks old and very tiny, but will be fattened up with whey, fresh grass and organic grain.

Steve brought them home after work.  While waiting for him, the kids played hide and seek in the grass, painting each other with yellow dandelion buds.  The best way to pick up piggies is to hold them by their legs, while they wildly squeal.  I think it's much more dramatic for us humans than it is for the pigs (as you can see on neighbor Anne's face).

Yellow Lukas, not because he has jaundice but because he rubbed dandelion flowers all over his face.

In the meantime, the goat mamas and babies are thriving.  Here, the mamas get a well deserved break from their offspring in the beautiful, lush spring pasture.

Flowers are emerging everywhere.  The garden is growing.  The rains WILL stop.  Chocolate is easy to come by.  I can do this.  I can do this.  I can do this.