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. 

       

Emotional Self-Reliance (Or, Why It's Important Not To Give A Shit Sometimes)

                                          

       I'm a homo sapien. I'm guessing that since you're reading this, you're human as well. According to pretty much any psychologist/psychiatrist/educated person, we have certain basic needs that have to be meet in order to reach our full potential as people in our lifetime. When Abraham Maslow wrote "A Theory of Human Motivation" in 1943, he outlined what became known as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

       Anyone interested in prepping or working towards self-sufficiency is familiar with the first two levels of Maslow's pyramid: the basic human necessities of shelter, food, water, ect. and to be safe from the elements and from harm. Right above that is where things start getting a little more complicated- the necessity of meaningful human interaction. This is where the lone human will run into issues, as they can't provide these resources for themselves as they can the previous ones. They have to reach out to other people and, well... people can be unpredictable and befuddling as hell sometimes.

        Six years ago, I lived in a bubble. A happy, safe little bubble created by the approval and affirmation of a number of people (both friends and family) who I counted among my closest confidantes. I valued their opinions very highly and found personal affirmation in their presence in my life. In my blind, brainless trust of these people I put WAY too high a value on their approval of my life, my family, of my existence. When that naive little bubble shattered into shrapnel, I felt like my heart had been ripped out. I felt betrayed beyond measure and physically sick with grief. The year that followed was such that it is still painful for me to think about.

        When this occurred, the grid was up and running. Our local supermarket was well-stocked and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Gas was expensive but available, we had a roof over our heads and medical professionals a phone call away. While I was coming to grips with my entire support system coming apart at the seams, the world was in the ordinary- this time.

         It took me awhile to see the flaws in my psyche that allowed this caliber of hurt to happen in the first place; I place that blame squarely on putting way too much power in the hands of the people around me. I allowed myself to invest so much in their opinions, their approval. I built my respect for myself as a person through respect from other people, especially those close to me. As a person, I was weak. I had very little love for myself. I tried to build a marvel of architecture on a foundation of sand; I tried to slather layers of fancy frosting onto a dog turd and call it a wedding cake. Despite these people's actions, I really have no one to blame but myself. I might as well have handed them the hypothetical gun that they shot my hypothetical legs off with.

         Little by little, I came to the realization that the monumental shit-pile I was trying so hard to crawl out of was completely preventable. Rather than finding another happy little bubble to wrap my sorry self in, I went on a self-improvement scavenger hunt of sorts. I decided not to look for recognition from people that I couldn't implicitly trust, to find my worth in the places it was actually hiding instead of creating it from relationships that were as authentic as Donald Trump's comb-over. I started seeing the necessity of being more than a little jaded, a little cynical, a little mistrusting. Steeling your emotional self from the elements is just as important as jumper cables in the trunk, bottled water in the basement, or (to some) pallets of MRE's in the bunker. If you're too fragile to withstand an emotional onslaught, what the eff are you going to do if the
zombies are approaching and you just got ordered out of the safehouse for some petty 'difference in opinion?'

       Some people just get off on making the unfortunate folks in their lives miserable. Some have an agenda that needs to be adhered to regardless of who gets squashed in their parade's procession. Some are just toxic people who live toxic lives, and slowly poison the existence of everyone around them. These three can be easy to spot, and any that sneak in under my defenses promptly get the finger and the boot. No room for that bullcrap around here, pardner, so kindly GTFO. BUT...  Sometimes good people do shitty things. People who might not be entirely boot-worthy, who might be bound by blood or other ties that warrant a more democratic approach before they get drop-kicked out of your line of vision. Should they be given free rein to offend again? Not unless you're a masochist. Haul out the post-holer and get ready to mix some concrete, it's fence building time.

        I've watched a few episodes of Dr. Phil. Okay... more than a few. Its a double-X chromosome thing. Something that he's mentioned repeatedly is a concept that I've run across in the past as well- building fences before you build walls. When you build a fence, you're deciding just how much power you're giving that particular person in which to wound you. You keep them at enough of a distance to spare yourself unnecessary hurt should they decide to go twat-waffle on you all over again. Should that person continue to cause unnecessary negativity in your life, the fence needs to go higher. Limit their role in your life even further and strengthen good relationships instead. If things still don't improve, build a wall and move the hell on- there are very few relationships that are really worth the emotional mutilation some people are capable of serving up.

       I've built a lot of fences in my life in the last six years. A few of my fences reach into the proverbial stratosphere, and for good reason. Built a few walls as well; it was never an easy decision to go that route, but for the sake of my sanity and to protect my kids from the pain these people caused us all as a family, I did it. I have no regrets. I've learned to look for Maslow's level 3 from people who have given me reason to really trust them, and stopped looking for my self-affirmation through other people's opinions. Our life on our farm is pretty isolated, and that's as much by choice as it is by location and circumstance; the only person whose opinion I give a rat's ass about anymore if my husband's. Not to say there aren't wonderful people in our lives, because there are: family, friends, the whole cannoli. Not to say I don't care what those individuals think about me at all; of course I do. But none of their opinions are vital to my opinion of myself anymore. A mean-spirited comment from a family member that would've wrecked me six years ago doesn't give me pause now; I roll my eyes and move on. I'm too busy raising kids, wrangling goats and trying to keep my husband's sock drawer stocked to let the negativity have that much real estate in my brain anymore.  Don't like me? that's fine. You're welcome to kiss my butt on your way out.

       Nothing about the homesteading life is easy. The physical demand is daunting all on its own. When you add in the emotional toll of being isolated, busy as hell, the inevitable frustrations and failures, sometimes 'weird' to the city-dwelling folk and possibly 'crazy' in the eyes of your loved ones for pursuing sufficiency in the first place, its your choice how much of an impact those things will have on you. For me, that's no impact anymore. I feel like I've finally built myself up to where the acts of douchebaggery by the people on the other side of my fences have minimal initial impact and none lasting. I'm happy in spite of it. After we moved I let my guard down and put way too much faith in a few people;  I was disoriented, scared, and grieving for what I'd left behind. I blame myself and have erected the appropriate fences. Life has gone on. Forgiveness is great, but forgetting requires a measure of trust in the person who hurt you in the first place. Call me an elephant, because I never forget. That's one mistake I've never made again and never, ever will. You can't expect to really know your own strength until you see it tested, and I'm glad mine got tested when there weren't any mushroom clouds looming in the distance. That strength of character will come in handy if the proverbial shit ever does hit the fan.

       The Jones' can keep up with themselves. The gossip mill can turn, the soap opera can play itself out without my name in the credits. I've moved on from all of it. I don't need any of it. I'm perfectly happy living like an island, letting a few trusted landlubbers canoe out and visit every now and then. I rebuilt myself to last, and I'm grateful to the people behind my fences (and even the ones behind the walls) for pushing me off the cliff and forcing me to find out what true peace feels like. I cherish it, because I cried a river and bled an ocean to find it.

                                               Thumb- Thanks You For Hating Me (1998)