Brenda's House

We had the few definite places we were going to visit on our trip but left if flexible enough to add a few more stops if we wanted to while we were there. While checking emails from the hotel I received a comment from a blog friend, Brenda, saying that she would love to meet us if we were anywhere close to her farm while on our trip. It turned out that we could make a short detour and we would have time on the way home to stop and visit. On Friday morning I called her and caught her as she was heading out to do chores and we made plans to visit. Sometimes it is hard to meet people in real life~ sometimes it is hard to think of them meeting me in real life. It is pretty easy to portray ourselves however we want to on a computer but in the flesh can be different. To sweeten up the visit we stopped and picked up some Krispy Kreme doughnuts (another "must do" for the trip as it was a highlight for Trent on our past trip) for her. Of course we had to get a box for ourselves, too. You can't get Krispy Kreme's anymore up in our neck of the woods (unless of course you make them yourselves). Yummy! Fresh and hot! We easily found Brenda's house and I had no reason to fear~ it was like visiting an old friend. It was so good to see her smiling face and give her a great big hug! She is such a sweet lady and best of all she's a goat farmer, too. It was so much fun to watch her milk her goats, to see her barn set up, hear her talking about the different goats personalities and to tell us their names. Rob was excited to see her milking parlor set up as he has hopes of getting ours set up some day. We got the grand farm tour and met all the friendly goats at the barn. Then we got to meet all the little kids in the kid pens. I have to say~ those sweet little lamanche babies made me seriously think about switching breeds. They had the sweetest temperament and the cutest faces. But once we got to the nubian buck pen I was smitten again by those long ears. There was especially one little flashy spotted buckling that caught my eye and I jokingly said to Rob "Don't we need another buck, honey?". Brenda got a twinkle in her eye and told us the God side of the story. That morning she had the "silly" thought that she should offer us her last spotted nubian buckling, but then decided that she would be quiet about it unless we said we needed another buck. Exactly what I had just said. So she graciously offered us the handsome little guy if we wanted him. Rob said yes and we finalized the deal. Yippee! What an honor it will be to have one of Brenda's babies at our farm! Rob and Brenda enjoyed talking "cheese" since Rob is a world famous cheesemaker (we just found out on the trip that he won yet another first place in the nation for the cheddar he made at the Dairy) and Brenda is an up-and-coming world famous goat milk cheese maker. One year I hope to be seeing her in Madison at the awards banquet. One of the other highlights of the day was meeting Tonia. When I was trying to get my email to go through to Brenda to set up plans to get together I had mentioned to her that it would be fun to meet Tonia if she was available. My email didn't go through so I figured I wouldn't be meeting Tonia that day. But with a smile on her face Brenda told me that Tonia was scheduled to come over to help with some farm stuff and she purposely hadn't told her I was coming just to surprise her. About half way through our visit Tonia and her girls walked into the barn. The look on her face went from confusion to total shock to all smiles as she realized who was visiting! It was so much fun to meet yet another bloggy friend. We got to see Brenda's cheeses and her cheese making room and she even sent some of her good goat's milk cheese home with us. We've been eating it and enjoying it Brenda! As it was getting later and later we finally had to leave so that Brenda could get her farm work done and we could get home. We loaded up the buckling and gave one more round of hugs as we said goodbye. What a great way to end our time in MO! Thanks Brenda!