All In A Farm Week

What an exciting couple of farm weeks! Within a matter of days we welcomed 16 new critters to our farm, of which I was privileged to assist in 11 of those births. The excitement continued this week on Sunday evening, while I was in the middle of making a third batch of goat's milk soap, when Cole and Micah went down to the barn to start chores. Cole came racing up to the house to anounce that there was a new baby goat! Being that Belle was overdue I expected her, but was surprised to hear that Susan had delivered a little buck. Oh-wise-goat-farmer that I am, I hadn't expected her to deliver for at least another week, so she wasnt even in a kidding stall. Cole found the baby just born and still wet outside the barn door, and by the time I could get my snow gear on and run down he had them settled into a stall. He is of the Narnia line, so we donned him "Caspian".

After finally finishing up my soap, giving up on Susan to deliver another baby, and kissing my kids goodnight I finally sat down, exhausted, to eat a very late supper . . . only to race up the stairs to get the kids out of bed because Lady's water broke. The naughty dog ran away in the excitement and busy-ness of Thanksgiving guests last fall and had a rendezvous with the neighbor dog before we realized she was missing; luckily the neighbor dog was a lab mix, too. Sixty three days later and we found ourselves surrounding her in the living room, anxious to see the first little black puppy face appear in another miracle of birth. By 1:00 a.m., after four new roly-poly pups were born, we assumed she was done so all headed up to bed. We woke up the next day to two more pups: three girls and three boys.I chanced a day away to go get groceries for my own kids, guessing and hoping that Belle wouldn't be delivering on Monday. On Tuesday morning (before the coffee was even done) I was getting ready to head down to the barn, and on my way stopped to rescue a stunned cardinal from the cats.

Once at the barn I found a suspicious looking Belle and decided to bring her up to the basement "just in case." By the time I poured my coffee and went down to check on her, she was about ready to push. Cole and I welcomed two new beautiful baby does to the farm! Hurray Belle! We needed some more girls this spring: 7 bucks and 3 does, and one of them a beautiful spotted girl besides! Cole named them Princess Leia and Padme. No more babies are due until March . . . except the order of 100 pullets which will {Lord willing} arrive next week.