Onnea!!!

The sun was shining and the still, winter, dead, land smelled of mud, cold, and damp, when I woke up to the most amazing miracle of perhaps all time on this little farm. The dog and I have been watching and waiting for several days now, as we go about our daily farm duties. Always with an eye on the goats…

This morning when we got up and headed out to do the dog’s morning necessaries, she was acting a bit odd. She wanted me to follow, squishing in the mud step by step to the goat pen. The sky was sunny for the first time in days and the weather while not at peak temperature just yet while still cold, was not as cold as it has been much of the winter.

Squishing along beside the dog to the electric fence line of the goat pen, I looked in at the hill. They were congregated on top. They looked a bit out of sorts and somewhat upset. One of them was trying to lay out in the sun. But her massive belly caused her to have to hold her upper body up on her stick like front legs. She seemed cross and out of sorts. Irritably and cranky. I counted them. Six.

Someone is missing…..

So I began looking closely around the large goat run for the final goat… The other super hefty one that was having her own trouble laying down these last several days… She wasn’t outside with the others…. Where was she?

I turned my attention to the goat shed. That is when I saw perhaps the biggest thing to happen on this farm ever…

She was in her shed, but she wasn’t alone. Around her plump body that was still quaking with the last contractions… There were four baby goats! Early, before I was awake she had delivered herself of four babies without announcing them and without any fanfare. They teetered around her on their tiny little legs, none walking gracefully just yet. Seeking their balance as they tripped about like tiny furry drunks. Some of them were wet. So I went back in found a towel and rushed out to help the new mama.

She licked them, and I dried them. A perfect conveyor belt operated in the shed this morning. Every time I would pick one up it would shout the only word it knew, “Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” As fur dried, they became fluffy with soft feather like fuzzy fur. They are tiny and adorable. They smell like new baby and they scream boisterously every time they are lifted up.

We moved mama and kids to a separate special section of the shed to keep the others away. I watched her feeding some of them. Unfortunately eventually farm chores called me away. But all day we have been back and forth to the shed where they are comfortable and warm under heat lamps all night and through the day. It should be warm enough now that freezing isn’t a possible way for them to go as quickly as they arrived. All the same survival and comfort needs are not the same thing. For us, it is important our animals not only survive but have comfort and good lives. I cleaned every umbilical cord with iodine, then to try to ensure that they will be healthy, we worked on the frustrating chore of trying to fill them with colostrum using a baby bottle. Thus far they don’t seem to understand the concept of the bottle. But since the mother has not rejected any, I feel pretty secure that they are getting plenty from her. The only reason we offered a bottle, was because we had only actually been present while two of the four ate.

I got on the phone with my mum, and told her the babies had arrived! Then, my dad called about something and I told him too. Next thing I know, the american goat grandparents are arriving to meet the new babies. It is hard with the other half of the family so far across the world. I would have loved so much for them to come also to visit with the new babies…. Unfortunately even if they could come from so far away… I could not invite them right now. It wouldn’t be safe with ice all over our airports, in our streets…. Everywhere, murdering people and kidnapping them and dragging them off to concentration camps. I don’t want that kind of suffering for anyone I care about. So for the moment inviting half my family to visit is not something I would feel safe doing. One day, the orange and his nazis and his brown shirts will find themselves in prison and out of power. Then, it should be safe to visit again. But right now, the best thing to do is to avoid this country if you are not from here. I never thought this could happen here. But it is happening here. So we wait till things change. I have faith things will change, because change is the only constant in the universe.

Saturday, there will be another No Kings protest, I hope many millions attend. There are many ways to protest. One of my favorites is the good old fashioned boycott, or as my in laws might call it, boikotti or boikotoida. As I have said before, I have dumped most social media to remove my content and info as a product for these evil companies to sell and then donate massive sums to the worst person on earth. The person that puts ice in airports. The person that makes it dangerous to invite family to visit. Boycotting, is my new super power and favorite hobby. At the end of the month there will be only three options on my tv.  TV apps and services also donate to the orange evil. Which is why at the start of April, only PBS, The Great Courses, and junk I borrowed from the library will be showing on my tv. Screw every one of these companies that makes it impossible to have family visit. I avoid Amazon, like the plague. I have abandoned Windows, microsoft, google, etc… But if you think I am miserable without this stuff, think again. My time belongs to me again rather than to an algorithm. I get to walk through my life as a non complicit participant in the evil that is currently being unleashed here. I sleep well at night, unlike most who continue participating as things continue deteriorating into chaos. I can say, I do not feed the beast. I don’t think living with myself would be something I would want to do if I participated in all that is happening. I keep hoping more people will begin to understand, change starts with each one of us. It begins with a choice about who we want to be as people. How we want to exist in this world for the people around us. While I have given up at this point on other people taking a hard look at themselves and their choices… I will continue on this course indefinitely, because it is the only way out of the mess we have made for ourselves.

The mess we have made is vast and deep. Especially here right now. Every day it begins to take more and more from all of us. For example, safe food is a thing of the past. Which is one reason I bred the goats. For the dairy. I am busy right now in the greenhouse starting all the baby plants that will grow in our garden. But how do we grow without all that junk from the middle east? How do we function when the cost of what the food needs is so high? Before there was a house on this acre piece of land it was used for decades as a cow field. We are changing some stuff up. No more raised beds. We will plant directly in the ground to avoid high cost garden junk. When federal oversight of meat processing stopped operating, we changed how and where we buy meat. Now we get it up the street from a neighbor. The meat was born raised and processed here in the state that has a deep undying romantic love for regulation. So for us, nothing has changed in regard to the oversight of the meat we eat. Massachusetts continues as always with it’s high standards and oversight. But it has changed our habits on a number of levels. Cost is higher. So we eat less meat which might not be a bad thing. We use up less fuel to obtain it. Which saves us money on sky high gas prices thanx to the orange man’s dumb assery in Iran. In case you are wondering… I don’t support this war anymore than I supported the one in Iraq. There was no reason for this that they seem functionally able to offer.

I suppose what it comes back to for me, is the small every day joys of good books, educational entertainment, and the small joys that have upped the population of the goat shed from seven to eleven. The adorableness of new life, somehow offers respite from the evil and bad things going on. You can’t look at those little faces and hear that ragefull shout of “baaaa,” without smiling. Waiting for the regime to change, waiting for a pregnant goat to kid…. Waiting is waiting. Eventually, good things come into this world. I will wait and hope for more. Eventually family will be able to visit again. Eventually the orange man will be wearing a jump suit that matches his orange face. Till then, we will just keep navigating around the dangerous chaos, staying peaceful and happy to be of help if needed. We will just continue on enjoying time spent with our baby goats. I have been singing them protest songs. Sometimes they Baaa along to the tune. Anyway, we are ok staying a step ahead of the chaos train that seems to be crashing here right now. 

Thank you for reading
Amanda of Wildflower Farm