Waiting for Warm

         Winter sucks. As a child growing up in a suburb outside of Denver, CO I became accustomed to cold and snow; 4 years of living on the Eastern Plains 40-ish miles southeast of D-town I learned just how cold winter wind can be. Blowing snow that scratched your face until it bled, more akin to dermabrasion than precipitation, seeping though every crack of the house and every seam in our clothes. It got pretty damn cold, sure, but nothing compared to what Old Man Winter has unleashed on us this year.

          The cold is very different here in southwest Michigan. The humidity adds a bone-chilling depth to the cold that makes it so hard to shake off. Our move from Colorado to Michigan actually took place in December 2011 and began at about 7pm MST, and at one point our daughter Ivy's hair actually froze to the inside of the car's window as she slept. My toes got so cold my knees ached, and the possibility of breaking down in rural Nebraska and being stranded in that cold was a huge worry. When we finally made it and tucked kids into beds the next night, not even a hot shower could chase the chill away. The rest of the winter was cold, dotted with blizzards and resulting school snow days here and there. The winter of 2012 had its moments but really wasn't bad. This year, not so much. That miserable drive in December '11 was a weekend in Cancun compared to this winter.

          The coldest temp I've seen so far during this 'polar vortex' was -37*F. The towels and old baby blankets that we rolled and used as extra draft protection all froze to the windows- inside the house. Our water pump in the barn became so brittle the metal handle snapped, and most of our buckets cracked as the water in them froze and expanded. The kids layered on socks and multiple sweatshirts and drew in the frost on the windows even as the furnace churned away. We kept the thermostat at 66* to conserve our fast-dwindling propane, adding more covers to the beds and wrapping blankets around the kids' shoulders. They looked like miniature hobos gathered around LEGOs instead of barrel fires. The snow continued to fall and the drifts continued to build, doors froze shut and our driveway remained impassible no matter how many times it was cleared. Our huge German Shepherd had to dig for several minutes in order to make himself a spot to crap without his butt in the snow while the barn cats tiptoed across the surface looking supremely annoyed. Mama Cat and Fearless made themselves a nice snug cat condo inside a loosely-tied bale of straw and were probably warmer than we were in our beds at night. 

           We burned through 20 bales of hay in a month and added fresh straw to the goat pens daily, furry circles with ears and horns curled up in pockets in the piled bedding. They slept in windrows and, for once, allowed the chickens to snuggle up too. Colonel Sanders the rooster will lose most of his impressive wattles to frostbite damage despite being moved into the barn. Baby Henry reluctantly wore his goat coat and sweaters, bounding around Pixie's kidding pen as the wind howled away through the barn's soffits. If force of will alone could raise the temperature it would feel like July around here by now.

         Winter sucks, this winter especially. But it's going to end. Every day the kids and I look at the forecast for the upcoming ten days and rejoice at any projected rise in the mercury. "It's almost over, Mom" they assure me when I worry aloud about our animals in the barn. When I declared open season on Punxsatawney Phil they jokingly ran for their boots, ready to go groundhog hunting. As rough as this winter has been, we are still so blessed. We haven't lost power at all (for once!) Our propane held out until the truck could get through to refill our tank. Thanks to our freezers, food storage and preference for cooking from scratch we didn't run out of anything all that vital. Aside from one white-knuckle 360degree spin-out on black ice we didn't get into any accidents. Despite multiple fake-outs (as always) none of our uber-pregnant mama goats delivered in the arctic temperatures. Although their cabin fever has to be worse even than ours, we haven't lost any animals to illness or freezing (knock on wood.) Our roofs have held and our old furnace has chugged on like a boss. We've been given a pretty good look at just where we need to concentrate our energy in preparing for future winters and which priorities need to jump straight to the top of the list (two words: WOOD STOVE.) 

      Brutal as winter has been (and continues to be) spring and summer really are just around the corner; and they make every second of this cold absolutely worth it. 

You just might be a homesteader/hobby farmer if:

*Strangers are constantly pointing out that you have either feathers, hay or straw in your hair (sometimes all three.) 

*You've had several cell phone cases partially consumed by goats ('defender series,' my ass!) 

*Your favorite apparel ensemble contains two or more items purchased at a 'farm store' (I.e. Tractor Supply Co., Big R, ect) or an Army-Navy Surplus website or store 

*People notice your forearms and ask if you play tennis; actually, those guns are from hand-milking and digging rocks out of your tomato patch. 

*You chuckle and feel superior when walking past the fridge full of eggs at the grocery store

*You wear muck boots more than you wear actual shoes

*Your poultry's pecking order is of genuine concern to you

*Your mood for the day has a direct correlation to whether the pump in the barn is frozen or not

*New visitors to your property during the spring and fall receive a 'you will probably  see and/or hear animal sex while here' disclaimer upon arriving

*You have to remind yourself to stop asking 'could I can that?' and start asking 'SHOULD I can that...'

* You choose winter coats based on how difficult it would be to remove placenta from the sleeves

*Your mail carrier knows to honk and wait for you when he/she delivers a package, because exiting their vehicle comes with the high probability of being mobbed by turkeys

*Friends no longer ask if you've 'seen that movie yet.' Because you haven't. 

*There are at least two scars on your body that were inflicted by fencing, and you can name the date, time, location and dosage of your last tetanus booster

*The perfect winter afternoon involves a hot beverage and knitting or crocheting lamb/kid sweaters or poring over the seed catalogs

*Your neighbors have a nickname for you (I.e the heirloom tomato people, the escaping sheep people, the loud cow people) and you take it as a compliment

*There's pretty much always some sort of poop on your shoes

*70% of the inventory at the local big-box 

grocery store is made up of things you have either made yourself, currently make or plan to make in the near future, or can't imagine actually paying money for

*The people in your life are sorted into two categories: those you would protect & feed in a post-apocalyptic wasteland scenario and those who would be eaten (or tripped in the path of the oncoming undead horde) first

*You can never have too many bungee cords and good scissors are worth their weight in gold

*Being almost out of bread and milk during a blizzard is not a big deal; being almost out of hay is a catastrophe

Buffalo Squash Chili --- Recipe

There's nothing like chili and fresh bread when it's cold outside. I hated chili before (probably because we ate a lot of the canned stuff) but now it's a regular feature on our dinner menu. Easily thrown together and put in the crock pot for days when we're working in the barn or busy in general, and a great way to use up vegetable odds-and-ends. I use the crookneck squash and zucchini from our garden that we chunked up and dehydrated, but all sorts of veggies would work. This one is easily changed to suit your tastes and works with ground beef or venison as well. NOTE: I add dehydrated heirloom tomatoes too, just for kicks. If you use fresh or frozen vegetables you might need to drain your canned tomatoes so it doesn't end up watery. We use onions from the garden that are on the smallish side, and therefore stronger in taste. 

-1lb ground buffalo OR venison, beef, ect

-1 medium onion

-2-3 cloves garlic, chopped

-1 quart tomatoes OR 14.5oz can diced tomatoes, undrained

-1 half-pint jar plain tomato sauce OR 1 8oz can

-1C dehydrated vegetables (improvise freely!) 

-1 16oz jar beans, rinsed and drained

-1 tbsp chili powder

-1 1/2 tsp cumin

-Sea salt and pepper to taste 

Cook meat, onion and garlic in a 3qt pot over medium heat until browned. Drain.

 

Transfer to crock pot if that's the plan. Stir in tomatoes, squash and seasoning. 

Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Reduce heat and cover, let simmer for at least 1hr. Add beans, simmer uncovered for 10min. Serve with shredded cheese, oyster crackers, ect. Serves 4, we double it. 

Resolution for Revolution: Help Change The Future of Food in 2014

           I've never been any good at New Year's resolutions. I'm great at making them, not so great at actually following through with them. My resolve usually peters out by about the third week of January and I'm right back to scarfing down chocolate, ignoring my abs or neglecting my kitchen floor again. I still haven't knitted a pair of socks or cleaned a fish myself, I still succumb to the occasional deep dish pizza binge and I haven't gotten past the Tom Bombadil chapter of "The Fellowship of the Ring." The list goes on. And on, and on, and on... yeah.

           Resolutions seem to be rooted in the human need to repair, maintain and improve ourselves. Our waistlines, our bank accounts, our level of education, and so on. The Walmart sale flyer stops advertising toys and god-awful Santa sweaters and goes straight to treadmills, hand weights and Suzie Orman books immediately following Dec. 25th. Some people do go so far as to resolve to improve the world around them through outreach, volunteerism, random acts of kindness towards strangers and so forth. All good things that should be acknowledged and encouraged, don't get me wrong, but there are other resolutions that could encompass both the personal growth and benefit of mankind spectrums.

            http://www.rollingstone.com/feature/belly-beast-meat-factory-farms-animal-activists

     This article does an amazing job of illustrating the reality of factory farming in America. Years of undercover work and insider accounts have given consumers a look inside where our food really originates, and its far from the bucolic circle of life and death that Fern confronted in 'Charlotte's Web.' The green pastures dotted with quaint wooden barns have been replaced with feed lots crammed with desperately ill cattle.

                "I was on my way to visit a farmer in California's Central Valley. It was one of those gorgeous autumn days when the hills of California are gold. Out of nowhere, a really nasty smell assaulted my nostrils—the stench of a gas station restroom sorely in need of attention. But I could see nothing that might explain the smell—all around me were the same blue skies and golden hills.

              And then, very suddenly, the golden hills turned jet-black on both sides of the highway: black with tens of thousands of cattle crowded onto a carpet of manure that stretched as far as the eye could see. I was driving through a feedlot, with tens of thousands of animals bellying up to a concrete trough that ran along the side of the highway for what seemed like miles. Behind them rose two vast pyramids, one yellow, the other black: a pile of corn and a pile of manure. The cattle, I realized, were spending their days transforming the stuff of one pile into the stuff of the other. This is where our meat comes from? I had no idea."                          

                                                                  -Michael Pollan, 'The Omnivore's Dilemma'

                      Sick chickens crammed into battery cages so small they can't move and resort to pecking each others' combs and feathers off in a desperate attempt to get the calories they need to churn out the eggs they exist to produce. Broilers who cant even stand due to a mixture of their terrible living conditions and the fact that they've been genetically modified to reach butchering weight at such a rapid pace that they often await slaughter lying in a soup of their own waste and the decaying bodies of their dead comrades. If they should happen to have open sores and obvious signs of disease, they're probably still fit for you to eat though. Pus? check. Salmonella? check. Campylobactor? check. http://truthaboutchicken.org/?utm_source=ASPCAsite&utm_medium=SalmonellaBlogPost&utm_campaign=TruthAboutChicken There's a darn good chance at least one of those is in there. No amount of Frank's Red Hot is going to make that any more appetizing.
                 
                    Pigs don't have it any better.
 http://www.humanesociety.org/news/press_releases/2012/05/wyoming_pig_investigation_050812.html
                    Neither do turkeys. http://www.mfablog.org/2013/11/thanksgiving-alert-investigation-uncovers-animal-abuse-at-turkey-factory-farm.html  We've raised turkeys for two years now, and I can attest to just how much personality these animals really have. Despite their tendency to become difficult to deal with as they reach maturity (and are instinctively focused on breeding during every waking moment, not unlike teenage boys) they're intelligent, endearing and just as deserving of humane treatment as any animal. We kept two hens as pets last year because we just couldn't bear to process them, and they died a natural death days apart after spending their lives presiding over our barnyard like matronly old ladies on a stroll in the park.

                    Cows in large-scale dairy operations don't fare any better.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/video-shows-alleged-criminal-abuse-of-bettencourt-dairy-cows-in-idaho/ Even when not subjected to outright abuse, most cows live in a way that's far from ideal for them (as living beings) and us (the beings who subsequently consume their meat and milk.) They're pumped full of hormones to increase their milk production, hormones that have been proven to increase the rates of breast, prostate, colon and other cancers.http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/factsheet/what-research-shows/ Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) has been banned in Canada, Japan and Australia as well as the European Union, and somehow remains legal in the USA (kinda like the GMO corn these cows eat, hmm...) They're injected with antibiotics in order to counter the assault on their health from abhorrent living conditions. This is standard practice with the poultry and pork we eat as well. Yummy... who ordered a side of drug-resistant staphylococcus aureus with their burger? Anyone...?

        It's easy to demand change. Talk is cheap, until the McRib comes back on sale and the ethics of pork production stop mattering as much as getting that 2 for $4 BBQ pork-like product fix. We can point fingers at 'Big Ag' but in the end, we're the ones buying their products. Their practices continue because a market exists for what they provide, and things could get worse before they get better if Ag-Gag laws keep popping up on the ballots.  Every time we fill our shopping cart with their products, swipe our cards or hand over our cash, we're giving factory farms the means to continue committing atrocity. We're inviting them to keep making us sick. We're allowing ourselves to stay helpless and relinquishing control of our food to politicians who are more interested in the kickbacks from Big Ag than they are in the safety and sustainability of its products. Every time we eat their food we're putting our stamp of approval on their methods and assuring that their practices continue, at least for the time being. 

          There are alternatives. The market for responsibly-raised meat and dairy products is growing, and small-scale farming is gaining momentum again. Finding protein for your dinner table that you can actually feel good about eating is getting easier, even if you can't raise it yourself. Websites like http://www.localharvest.org and www.eatwellguide.org help pair up food-conscious folks with farmers.  Even good old Craigslist (as always, use with caution) can be a place to locate local farms that are willing to allow potential buyers to observe their practices and purchase directly. Word of mouth is invaluable; even if you're surrounded by urban sprawl, chances are there's a place to buy better meat nearby. 

        It's probably going to cost more, yes. The solution? Simply eat less meat. Incorporate more meatless into your meal plan, and you'll save even more money than you would've spent on factory farmed foam-tray nastiness. You just might lose some pounds as well; Americans eat far too much meat as it is. Do your aorta a favor, as well as your waistline and your wallet. Then when you do eat meat, why not have it be meat you can feel good about? 

          We hunt. We fish. We also barter with friends and relatives for our family's meat. What meat we do buy is purchased from the local family-owned butcher shops, and although we can't confirm it's all from responsibly-raised sources at least it's not Tyson. We occasionally submit to the siren song of the McD's dollar menu (and at least 2 members of our 8-person family always end up fighting over our lone bathroom for hours afterwards) and I can tell you exactly how many party boxes of tacos we require to feed us all. BUT, we're a lot better than we used to be. It's progress. It's something. The three homestead-raised chickens we roasted with garlic and parsley a few nights ago were three chickens that were not abused, mistreated or malnourished and had lived a life full of sunshine, green grass, adequate feed and clean water. They weren't fed chicken feed containing arsenic. They were healthy at the time of butcher and they weren't washed in bleach water. They tasted damn awesome, too. 

          This year, I resolve to put a lot more effort into sourcing our family's meat responsibly. I know we'll still end up eating Big (G)Ag's meat here and there as well, but it will be much less frequently. I resolve to vote with my grocery cart and with my debit card in all things I buy, and to continue shopping at family-owned small businesses as much as possible too. I resolve to stop being complacent, to stop being oblivious and to stop hiding behind apathy. I resolve to provide the best possible life for the animals in my care, our pets as well as our livestock. I resolve to make more deliberate food choices fueled by actual thought instead of convenience. Most importantly, I resolve to pass this knowledge on to my children, in hopes that they will live their lives as contributors instead of consumers. With the start of the new year, please take a second look at what goes onto your plate and consider what took place to get it there. You might find yourself in the same place at our collective table as I'm finding myself.  

                   
















                   

Homestead Burnout

     I'm tired. Tired as hell. There just aren't enough hours in the day right now.

     Our youngest three kids are 4 1/2 years, 2 1/2 years and 6 months old. They're all boys. Our preschooler and toddler sons seem to operate on only two speeds: endless font of bubbling energy and fast asleep (while snoring loudly.) The frequency of the former by far outweighs that of the latter. They climb everything like miniature Sherpas, empty bins of toys at lightning speed and throw down like tiny MMA fighters. Their baby brother is a sweet, happy baby but as all babies do, he's teething. He's also growing like the proverbial weed and requires near-constant breast milk refills and corresponding diaper changes around the clock. Our three older daughters rightfully need attention too (and often need their limbs and possessions saved from their brothers.) The laundry, the cooking, the errands... I'm tired. 

         

           Luckily the garden is finished for the year. The turkeys have been checked into Hotel Sub-Zero and are no longer crapping on our porch and menacing the barn cats. The goats are still their goat-ly selves, requiring their own care and taking advantage of every chance to cause mayhem. Breeding season brought its usual shenanigans; the does taunting the bucks, daring them to rip down the fence for the fifth time, escapes here and there that had to be carefully documented 'just incase.' Half the chickens are thrilled with the lovely little coop Justin built them, but the other half stubbornly retreat to the barn every night instead. The rebels are staging a protest and ignoring the nest boxes, laying their eggs in top-secret hidden nests and forcing us to search the barn for them every day. Tired... So tired.  

     

          We were warned that the aptly named 'homestead burnout' was inevitable. They weren't kidding. Even with as long as we waited and as much as we want to be here, I can totally understand why the last hundred years have been spent propelling people into cities in the name of progress. Taking a more active role in providing for your own needs, as worthwhile as it is, has a great way of devouring your free time and your energy right along with it. Those cartons of pale CAFO eggs and gallons of hormone-laden cow's milk start looking like a vacation in plastic casing when the dirty laundry is towering so high the kids start asking if they can sled down the pile. 

           Its so easy to want to jump in with both feet and want to take on every project immediately . A year ago I had been completely gung-ho to take on even more as soon as financially possible; Bees, a small herd of fiber sheep, a 1+ acre pumpkin patch on our back pasture. I looked into raising a few pigs and was all set to order 200 Red Ranger broiler chickens. Even after we discovered that the goats weren't the only mammals expecting new babies in 2013 I was still ready to take on the world. Luckily, the resident voice of reason (aka Justin) was willing to use his executive veto power to save me from myself, and we agreed to give it a year and then reevaluate. I agreed to humor him; I never thought I'd get burned out, not for a second. But for the last 4 months it's been Burnt Toastville, population me. 

     I'm using this time to reevaluate a lot of things; the usual time, energy, and finances as well as taking a long second look at just what we want to accomplish with our land in the long term. Now that the giddy enthusiasm has been more curb-stomped than simply curbed I can hopefully focus on reality a little better. There's nothing like grating soap for detergent and shearing off half the flesh on the tip of one's finger or having to care for livestock in the midst of a polar vortex to put things right into perspective.

         Rejuvenate. I'm making time to be lazy here and there. I'm taking naps, even though they're few and far between and it takes more choreography than the Rockettes' Macy's parade routine. I'm turning my brain off sometimes. It's nice, I'd love to do more of it.  

          Rewind. I'm re-reading old favorite books. We're re-watching some of the documentaries that originally piqued our interest in homesteading years ago. Since our hens are in winter rest-mode and laying less frequently I bought store eggs for several breakfast casseroles, and one look at those sickly pale yolks made every pile of chicken crap we've cleaned worth it. Reminding myself just how far we've come and why we're here in the first place has done a world of good. 

           Re-inspire. The spring seed and hatchery catalogs couldn't have arrived at a better time. Nothing gets my green thumb itching like Baker Creek Heirloom's annual publication, and if there was ever a time to look forward to spring it was our recent -30• temps in SW Michigan. We're researching fruit trees and planning a strawberry patch, and waiting on more baby goats any day. Getting excited about the future has been the best way of all to throw off the burnout blahs. 

         Wherever you are in your homesteading/ self-reliance/ preparedness journey, a little burnout here and there is inevitable. BUT, it gets better. Learning to be more self-sufficient is never time that's wasted. That knowledge and those abilities are investments in yourself, your family, and this rapidly-changing world. It's exhausting but far from futile, it's expensive but worth every penny. In the end it's the chances we didn't take that generate the most regret, and I'm still SO glad we made the leap from suburbs to homestead... In spite of my trashed fingernails and goat-chewed hair. 

         

 

        

         

         

            

        

         

  

         

        

    

Unexpected

       At the very end of August, we lost our senior Nigerian Dwarf buck, Nibbler, to pneumonia.

    

         It was gut-wrenching; one day he was perfectly fine, chasing our does along the fence line and ruling the buck pasture with an iron hoof, and within 48 hours he was gone. 

        

         Antibiotics did nothing, and we came home to find him lying in the sunshine with Charlie standing vigil over his body. Our first major death left me feeling horribly guilty; I should've called the vet, the penicillin must not have been strong enough. Snapshots ran through my mind; of the shy, scared little buckling that I slowly befriended with animal crackers over the course of his first week here, his love of human attention, his stubborn streak. How incredibly stinky he got during rut and how he absolutely relished sharing that stink with everyone and everything he could rub himself on. The births of his kids this last spring; four gorgeous boys, two who still live on our farm as wethers (Leo and Ash),  one who went to a hobby farm in Grand Rapids and one who is now a breeding buck at another hobby farm nearby.

      

         I called the vet and pored over every goat book we own. The consensus was the same from each: hot, humid days coupled with cold nights can be catastrophic to livestock. Goats are prone to pneumonia as is, and our doe Sunny probably brought back more than a few funny stories from her trip to the county youth fair this summer. A regular recipe for disaster, with all ingredients accounted for. 

       

          We washed everything. We raked out the pens and added clean straw. I hoped, prayed, obsessed; a month later everyone seemed healthy and I was confident we had weathered the worst. Shortly after, a familiar sight blew all those hopes to dust: our dear sweet Nigerian Dwarf baby buck, Brutus, standing outside the barn door and gasping for breath. 

        

           We didn't waste a second. We called the vet, scooped him up and loaded him into our van. I sat with him during the drive, holding his towel-swathed body while he laid his head on my leg. The vet administered a bag of IV fluid to rehydrate him, a shot of banamine to help his fever and an injection of the strongest antibiotic they had. We took him home, and the hoping and praying began anew. 

        

          He died the next day, Oct. 2nd. Our daughter Sadie found him, curled up in his quarantine pen. We cried and cried. Our sweet little baby buck, whom we'd bottle-fed and played in the spring grass with, admiring his unusual coloring and big blue eyes, was gone. It felt so strange not to hear his voice out in the pastures, calling to the does in a pubescent warble that cracked to a higher octave halfway through. His eagerness for cookies and his love of crunching the biggest alfalfa hay stems between his front teeth. His silly little beard. The way he stood at attention when the big boys walked by, hoping for approval.

         

           I started our remaining mini-Alpine bucks, Charlie and his son Lochlan, on a course of antibiotic injections. I changed the mineral supplements that are available in each pen and added a third kind for variety. I wormed the entire herd even though it was a little early. But I still feel so guilty, like an absolute failure. Some days I can barely look into our buck pen without wanting to cry. I feel like I let my goats down by not intervening earlier; I should've figured it out faster, treated them more aggressively. But as Justin likes to say, hindsight is always 20-20. It hurts to write about, because it hurts to think about. But I'm determined to learn as much as I possibly can from what happened, so some good can come from it. Hopefully somewhere along the line I can forgive myself too.

         This new failure came on the heels of another, a sort of oops-in-process that came to our attention a few weeks earlier. It was on Monday afternoon, September 23rd. I was busily cleaning up our barn, and paused to empty out and refill the large water trough in our doe goat pen. While standing with the hose and appreciating the warmth of the sun, admiring the female element of our herd as they munched away in the pasture, a certain goat caught my eye. 

       "Holy crap, she's round," I thought. Toby-Mae, one of our Nigerian Dwarf girls, has always had a bit of a pot belly. Goats are ruminants and digest through a fermentation process of sorts (leading to lots of burping and impressive belly gurgles after dinner time wraps up) but this was bordering on ridiculous. Toby looked like she's swallowed a kayak, and her udder- oh, CRAP. 

       

         Pregnant, very pregnant. But how?! I wracked my brain; we keep our bucks and does 100% separate except during planned breedings, and Toby's exposure to the bucks had been limited. That's when I remembered that Toby had been Brutus's favorite wet-nurse before he moved to the buck pen in early June. June... She would've had to have been bred in May. Well, we might as well change Toby's name to Mrs. Robinson. 

         

          "Brutus, you little turd!" I scolded him through the fence. He chewed his cud complacently with a proud little gleam in his eye, still watching. I turned my attention back to Toby, feeling her round belly, and was instantly rewarded with a firm kick from a tiny hoof. His baby indeed. 

            After Brutus died, Toby's pregnancy became a redemption of sorts. A silver lining, if you will; a chance for Brutus to live on through his progeny. But Toby's last delivery had not gone well at all. She labored for 23 hours and was too weak to even stand at the end. Positive that her kids were already dead and she would soon join them, I hastily grew a pair of balls and decided to give it one last shot. Hyperventilating and working around my pregnant belly, I reached in and managed to reposition a kid that was trying to come elbows-first and head folded back. She pushed while I pulled, and she delivered a huge single buckling. Luckily Toby made a full recovery, but that delivery wore heavy on my mind. At least we were better prepared with 4 kiddings under the proverbial belt now, right? Right? Wrong.

         Two weeks after noticing Toby's 'delicate condition', the total softening (and resulting absence) of the two ligaments that run alongside the doe's tail signaled the start of labor. She stretched, sat on her tail like a dog and seemed to stare into space. As the day wore on she cried for me whenever I left to return to the house and started pacing the kidding pen like a caged lion, agitated yet determined. I tried to time my visits to check on her around expected phone calls; after months of wearing out the inlaws' fax machine and hunting down obscure documents from the far reaches of Colorado, we were finally about to close the mortgage on the property. The long-awaited phone call heralding the clear to close being given by the VA arrived at 4:15pm. Literally as I hung up the phone (and fought the urge to spike it onto the kitchen floor and bust out in a touchdown dance) Sadie ran into the house and announced that Toby was pushing. 

     

       I threw on my overalls and barn boots and ran out to the barn. Sure enough, it was time to get the towels out of the kidding kit. The two most common presentations are the 'diver' (front hooves followed by the head) or breech, so we watched for the points of tiny hooves to appear. We waited, waited, waited... and instead of hooves, Toby's next contraction brought a nose. 

        I didn't panic; Rosie's second baby, Ash, had come face-first and had required only a bit of pulling as his shoulders delivered. But just as the kid's head emerged, Toby's contractions seemed to stop completely. 

      Toby decided (and rightfully so) to go ahead and start panicking. I attempted the only solution I'd read of for head-first births, pushing the baby back in and repositioning it in the 'diver' pose. It was immediately apparent that this baby was not going back in. I couldn't fathom how Toby had gotten even that much of this fuzzy behemoth out. The tiny mouth bubbled and the nostrils flared, it seemed to be trying to breathe. It dawned on me that the abnormal position might've already broken the umbilical cord. Any pressure applied to bring the baby out seemed way too likely to break its neck or worse; this kid was completely stuck and I had absolutely no idea what to do.

        Then it was my turn to lose it. Months of daily frustration and effort trying to move us from the 'rent' to the 'own' status, so many roadblocks and the stress of going through inspections, appraisals and the like (with 6 kids, 2 dogs and 2 cats in residence) already had me on the edge of meltdown by sunset every day. Daily ache and disquieting numbness from my c-section incision coupled with a few chronic health issues that I've chosen to ignore for the last 6 years have been taking their own toll. Our baby son's colic coincided perfectly with our toddler son's molars coming in, and I was desperately short on sleep. Add in the recent losses of Nibbler and Brutus and the guilt I felt (and still feel) with being only 3 months postpartum, and I was pretty much a ticking time bomb before poor Toby ever even went into labor. Once the tears started I didn't think they'd ever stop. 
  
      With a crushing sense of dread I sent the kids inside. I really didnt know what was going to happen, and the last few weeks had been hard enough. I tried again and again to coax the baby's body out, but it was stuck fast. The little face seemed to be strangling, the tongue hanging out and eyes bulging as it twitched and blew more bubbles. Still there were no contractions, and I had to use one hand to hold Toby still while trying to free the baby with the other. I sobbed, howled, pleaded with the fates to let this poor little baby goat live; this wasn't just a baby goat, this was Brutus's baby. He had to be okay. As a friend so aptly put it, we needed some happiness in our barn again. I couldn't take even more guilt and our poor kids couldn't lose the babies they'd pinned all their hopes on. 

      Using the tips of my index and middle fingers I pulled the baby's fur and inched it forward from inside. Pausing to push outward and allow the little chest to expand for a shallow breath every few seconds, I kept pulling. With the other hand I massaged Toby's belly, hoping to kick-start her contractions. I could feel a second baby moving inside. Over ten minutes since the baby's head had first emerged, a small rounded shoulder appeared. I hauled Toby to her feet, hooked the shoulder with my index finger and pulled while pushing up on her uterus. The baby tumbled out into the straw, and by some absolute miracle it was alive. Spluttering and shaking, but absolutely alive.

       He was a boy, and just as big as Toby's baby born earlier this year. He already had horn buds through the skin and bright white teeth. I wiped his mouth out and gave him to Toby to clean, and while she fussed over him he bawled like a newborn calf. It seemed like every scream he would've loosed earlier all needed to come out at once now. I kept right on crying too, from months of pent-up stress and exhaustion as well as from relief. Justin and the kids came running at the sound of the baby, and we all laughed at the his gender; he made our 7th buckling, with the doe count still at 0. He was almost entirely black except for a white belly and a few white spots on his back leg, and bore a striking resemblance to Toby's other baby, Pippin. He had brown eyes, Toby's airplane ears and wattles ('goat jewelry') on his neck. 

       Toby still couldn't stand, but was clearly having contractions again. 30 minutes after the first baby was (fully) born she delivered again. The second baby was breech but was born effortlessly; another little buck, only this guy was half his big brother's size. His bottom half was mostly white, but his face was instantly familiar- aside from his eyes being Toby's brown, the interesting white markings and the set of his eyes are exactly like Brutus. He has wattles as well, but inherited the polled gene from his mother- he's naturally hornless. 

      Just after the second baby's birth, the family friend we'd invited for dinner that night arrived. Luckily I'd prepared most of dinner ahead of time since we'd known from the morning that it was Toby's big day, but what a mess of bloody sobbing woman and hyped-up kids the poor guy walked into. We got Toby her celebratory bucket of warm molasses water as well as a vitamin drench and helped the boys latch on to nurse. We cleaned up and left them in a cozy nest under the heat lamp, with at least one person checking in on them every half hour or so. 

Its just shy of 2 weeks since their birth and they're absolutely thriving, twin devils in goat suits that drive their mother crazy. Toby has made a full recovery and takes excellent care of her boys; we're going to give her one last shot at motherhood (in 2015 at the earliest!) under a VERY strict grain ration in hopes of keeping her babies small. If she has a rough time again, we're prepared to retire her to much-loved pet status. 

         Toby's offspring are named for J.R.R Tolkien characters (since she's Ol' Toby's Leaf) and the new additions have been dubbed Frodo Buckins and Meriadoc Brandybuck. We're currently searching for the absolute best home for Mr. Frodo, the booger that got himself stuck in an impossible situation and had to be rescued by someone completely clueless. Since he resembles his daddy so much, Merry is going to be staying here to become acquainted with Rosie next spring. The kids are in love, as always. Baby goats are, in my humble opinion, just as adorable and mischievous as puppies and we absolutely love having them around. These two are extra special though. 

      Our mortgage closed. I'm no longer a slave to my email. My mom-in-law's fax machine must be wondering if I'm dead or something. Things have quieted down around here, at least as much as they ever really can, and the fall is settling in nicely. I'm trying to relax, leave some things messy, and decompress. I'm sure something else will come along in no time, but for right now I'm content to just kick back and enjoy the view- and I'm so, so thankful this little face is here to be part of that scenery.