One evening I was taking pictures of the babies when Greyden said they needed me to feed Waverly. I set the camera down on the window sill and headed into the milk room.

When I was done feeding Waverly I brought her to the kid pen. I looked over into the other pen and saw Dad sitting there with Fantasmic.

“Is she going soon?” I asked, peering at her butt.

“Yep. There’s two hooves and a nose. I’ve called Mom and the boys.”

I plodded over to the window and grabbed the camera. It was only seven – that meant by the time I was done dealing with Fantasmic’s kids, it would be time for my shift.

When Mom and the boys got there, Fantasmic had just started pushing. “What letter is she?” Emery asked. I had to think about that one. We had started running out of letters when we were naming this years first fresheners. Some of them had been relatively easy, but when we got to Fantasmic we only had vowels, X and J left.

“She’s Jazzy Tazzy. J.”

Mom started laughing. “Look at her, being all melodramatic. Woe is me!”

I don’t know if you can see it, but in this picture she’s got one leg up covering her face.

After a couple of minutes she started wailing. “Wow – we haven’t had a girl complain like this since Zipporah. We expected it from here, but I didn’t expect it from Tazzy.” Colter said.

During the wailing, she got the baby out.

“Well? Girl or boy?”

“It’s a girl!”

“Wow – another girl? We’ve had more girls this year…”

“She’s J? Jane.”

“Janelle?”

“Janisa.”

Everyone was talking over each other, and I don’t think anyone really heard anything but their own suggestions.

“How about Jalapeno?”

When no one heard him, Colter said it again, but louder. “How about Jalapeno?”

We all stopped talking and looked at him. “I like it!” Mom said. So that was that.

Once the naming was done I left the barn. I had an hour before my shift started, and I still had to get ready. I wanted to get a snack and a bunch of warm layers before heading down a bit early. 🙂

Two or three days later, I took profile pictures of the newest babies. Isn’t Jalapeno cute? 😀

We were almost two thirds of the way done. Which was good – the shifts and the sleeping arrangement’s were making us cranky.

 

I had been out checking on the goats twenty minutes earlier, and it looked like nothing had been happening. But apparently something had been happening, because we got the phone call.

“Um, Brett? I think Persephone’s kidding. There’s goo, but nothing else is really happening. Can you have Mom come check? She doesn’t have her phone again. I’d ask Dad, but he’s still asleep, right?”

Mom is infamous for leaving her phone on her desk. I get calls and texts all the time asking me to relay information to her, because she almost never has her phone with her.

 “Yeah Em, Dad’s still asleep. He took a really long shift last night. I’ll try to find Mom and send her down there.”

I found Mom and held out her phone. “Emery wants you down in the barn. He thinks Persephone might be kidding.”

Mom took her phone and went down to the barn. A couple of minutes later she called me. “Go ahead and bring the camera down here. She’ll be going soon.”

An hour or so later, we had our first baby. It was a girl, and we decided to name her Pandora.

 Less than a few minutes later, we had another baby on the ground. It was another girl!

“Penny?”

“Penelope?”

“Pela.”

Mom looked bothered. “I don’t like any of these. How about Pembrooke?”

Pembrooke? No, not Pembrooke. I started grinning as I looked at Mom and suggested “Pemberley.”

Mom laughed and said “That’s perfect!”

The boys were looking at us like we were crazy. “What is Pemberley, or who is it, and why is it perfect?”

Mom explained. “Pemberley is where Mr. Darcy lives in Pride and Prejudice. It’s the perfect name for her! Pemberley is special and so is this little one – she’s a sundgau doeling out of Persephone!”

Sundgau is one of our favorite colorings. It means that she’s black with certain white markings. And Persephone is one of our top does – she’s the dam of our herdsire Panini. So this was a great doeling, and we were planning on keeping her.

 I brought them into the milk room and rubbed Pemberley down.

 I helped her stand up and take a few steps, then laughed hysterically when her legs went out from under her.

Pandora was already standing up, running around the milk room. She kept getting stuck under the milk stand. 😀

The next day I took their pictures (at the same time I took Waverly’s).

I just had to post this one. I was sitting down and a bunch of babies were crawling all over me. Except Pemberley. She was staring at me, and I couldn’t resist taking a picture. I love her floppy ear! It’s already straightening – they don’t last long. They’re so adorable though!

We had 27 baby goats – we were hoping for 35+. Were we going to make it?

Emery came running into the soaproom. “I’m getting a drink and going back out. I think Zenith is going to be kidding soon!”

I finished the order I was working on and got the camera out of the office. I checked to make sure the SD card was in and grabbed my fleece and sweatshirts. I found my boots and sat down to tie them, scooting out of Emery’s way as he came running through the soaproom.

When I got down to the barn I scanned the stalls, locating Zenith. She was in the stall next to the babies, all the way at the end. As I walked down there I pulled a ponytail off of my wrist and put my hair up.

I got to the stall and stepped inside, turning on the camera just in time to catch this shot:

“Emery? What are you doing?” He looked at me and blushed. “Um… just mimicking Zenith. She keeps making that face, so I was showing her how ridiculous she looked.”

Whatever he was doing, it was enough to get her to start pushing. A couple of minutes later, we had our first baby.

“It’s a girl!”

“She’s Zenith’s Light, so L names.”

“Lady.”

“Lavinia?”

“Lanie.”

“No, I don’t like those…” Mom said. “Hmm. Layla?”

“Mom – call her Larken. Then we can call her Lark.”

Everyone agreed that was a fine name. So we took Larken into the milk room. A few minutes later, they brought her brother in. “His name is Leonardo!”

They were the smallest babies we’d had in a while – not as small as Sandy, but close!

Normally we’ll take the new babies out to join the others relatively quickly. But because these two were so small (and they were cold) we kept them in the milk room a bit longer. We put them together in a bin so they could snuggle and warm each other up. 🙂

About a week later I went to take their pictures. Don’t they look cute? 😀

We only had five does left to kid! We were so close!

 

It was a Saturday morning, and we were in full “goat preparation” mode. We had five baby goats going home that day, so we had to get them ready. We’d tattooed and de-horned them the day before, but I still had to get paperwork ready for three of them.

I was in the middle of printing out the paperwork for the first one when Mom came running out of the green screen room.  “Belle’s kidding!” she said. Well, that was a good thing. Every once in a while there is a goat that we don’t have a due date on – Belle was that goat. So the fact that she was kidding before our last one meant we wouldn’t be waiting on her.

“How long do I have? Do I have time to finish Sandy’s paperwork?”

“I have no idea. You’d better come down to the barn.”

I sighed and pulled the SD card out of the computer. Sticking it in the camera, I grabbed my sweatshirts and headed out the door. It had gotten really warm! The weather was beautiful! A perfect day for babies to go to their new homes.

“So… is she actually doing anything?” I asked as I walked in the barn door. Sometimes these first fresheners took a while to actually get going.

“Yeah, she’s doing something. But you probably have time to go finish what you were doing.”

I ran back to the soaproom and finished the kid papers. The moment I was done  I ran back to the barn with the goat notebook clutched to my chest.

Belle was panting, pawing at the ground. When goats are in labor they gather a big pile of hay/straw for their babies to be born into. Since it was Belle’s first time, she wasn’t doing as good a job as a second or third freshener might, but she was still getting a pretty good pile!

We had Red Bird and Ivy in the stall with us, and Red Bird kept coming over to annoy Belle. After a while we finally got her to go away.

Twenty minutes later, Belle actually got going. There’re a couple new pictures up on the birth pictures page, if any of you want to see those. 🙂

“This is the biggest baby we’ve had in a while! Look how big his head is!”

“His?”

It’s kinda funny, but it almost always works. Someone will say “Oh, look how big his hooves are!” or Dad will say “Let’s get you turned around, baby girl.” We don’t do it on purpose – if we did, we’d always say girl. But it’s what comes out, and it’s usually right. I don’t know how that works. LOL

Sure enough, it was a boy. Someone asked “what letter is Belle?” “She’s Y – she’s Yellow Belle.”

“Okay… so Yak?”

“Yabba Dabba Do?”

“Yaccident?”

“Yale?”

“Yarn?”

Red Bird came over and started sniffing the baby.

“Okay, we need to figure this out. I like Yale.”

“Yale works.”

“So his name’s Yale? Because I need to know to write out his collar.”

“Yep, it’s Yale.”

I headed into the milk room with Yale and got his collar written out. As I came out, a family came into the barn, ready to pick up their new baby goat. I could hear Mom talking to them. “Oh, you should have come twenty minutes ago – you just missed the birth!”

I arrived in the barn for my shift, computer and internet cord in hand. I was hoping to get three blog posts written in my three hour shift, and I needed the internet to upload them.

Dad came around the corner of the stall. “Hey.” He leaned against the stall, watching the kids.

I set my stuff down on the chair and stood next to him. “Are you going to bed? You’ve got the 12-4 shift – you’ve gotta get some sleep if you’re going to.”

He shook his head. “I think Red Bird’s going. I’m going to sit with her.”

I looked around the barn, trying to locate Red. There she was – in the stall that I couldn’t see her from if I was using the internet. I sighed – it looked like I wouldn’t be getting my posts written.

Mom and the boys came out and sat with us for a couple of minutes. Dad sent them all to bed. “We’ll come get you. Go to bed.”

I pleaded with Red Bird. “Red, sweetie, listen. If you’re going to kid, either go now, so I can get to bed as soon as my shift is over, or wait until after midnight, so Mom can have birthday goats. Okay? Can you do that for me?”

Her response was a groan.

Dad sat down in the corner (so she wouldn’t be able to) and Red decided that sitting next to him would be a good idea. Dad grimaced as she settled down. “Um, thanks Red. That’s exactly what I wanted.”

 At eleven, we could tell that something had changed. Dad gloved up and went in to check everything out. I was holding Red, which didn’t go so well. Every time she pushed I slid another inch down the wall. Finally I couldn’t go any farther – my leg was pinned against a beam.

Fortunately, that beam made it easier to hold her. After a couple of minutes, Dad said “The babies are tangled. Call Mom and tell her to come down here.”

I pulled out my phone and waited for Mom to answer. “She’s not answering. I’m going to go wake her up.”

I ran to the soaproom, woke her up, and went to get a banana. I was hungry, and I didn’t know how long this would take.

When I got back down there I looked at my watch. “Okay Red, you’ve got 27 minutes until Mom’s birthday. Do you think you can wait?”

Dad started rearranging the babies once Mom got there, and soon we were ready to go. Five minutes later we had a little black baby on the ground. (There’s no pictures because I was needed to help.)

“It’s a boy.”

Well, that was disappointing. We were going to keep a girl out of Red.

“Raleigh?”

“Randal?”

“Rainbow?”

“Rambling.

“Rambo!”

“Okay, I like Rambo.”

The moment we were done decided his name, the second baby was coming out. I caught it and brought it over next to Rambo.

“Another boy.”

I looked at my watch.

“Seriously, Red? You couldn’t wait FOUR minutes?”

“It’s 11:56?”

“Yeah. Well, that stinks. I wanted Mom to have a birthday goat! And so did Indigo!”

After a couple of minutes, we decided on the name Rebel and Mom sent me to wake up Colter.

I walked into the milk room and shook Colter. “Colter?” I whispered, not wanted to wake up the other boys.

He didn’t do anything. He didn’t even move.

I took out my phone and turned on the flashlight app, covering the light with my hand. Then I found his face, moved my hand and shone the light full force into his face.

He might have been a little mad at me. 😀

It didn’t really matter though, because Mom came through the door with Rebel and turned the light on. Emery and Greyden woke up and they took care of the babies.

I went to bed then – it was almost 12:30 and I was SO tired!

A week later I went to take their pictures:

We were SO close to being done with kidding season!

I was lying in my nice warm bed, pretending I didn’t have to get up. It was the first night we’d been home in over two weeks, and it was so good to be home. I’d taken a nice long shower the night before and then fallen into bed, falling asleep immediately.

I heard someone pushing on my door (it’s a little sticky) and hid under the covers.

“Brett, honey, it’s time to get up. Dad and the boys are already up in Scottsburg, and there’s a new baby.”

I sat right up. “Who – Pegasus or Tesla?”

“Pegasus. Sundgau doeling – Bathsheba.”

She’s Blackjack Pegasus, so her babies would be B. (If you want to know, Blackjack is the name of Percy Jackson’s pegasus. :D)

When I got up to the soaproom I went to meet her and take her pictures. She was standing up in the stall, staring at me when I arrived. I took her out to the run and dropped her off at the end, running back to the front of it. As she came running towards me I took her picture.

When I was done, I brought her back into the stall. She was still a little cold, and it was windy out. Then I went back to the soaproom and created her profile page on the website. 🙂

We only have one goat left to kid – Tesla. We think she must have caught the second cycle, which means she won’t kid for a while. Hopefully it will be soon though, so we can get back to normal! 🙂