It’s that time of year. Our goats are having their little ones. Sadly two of them died. They were born in the middle of a very cold night; their mother failed to clean them up, which caused them to freeze. Well one of them froze in the night, the other one lived till 4:00 pm the next day.

Oh! We tried our best to save the little girl! But she caught pneumonia  in the night. Mom mixed up a concoction with her herbs; we fed it to her little by little, several times a day. The little goat fought to survive. I knew she was strong, otherwise she wouldn’t have lasted so long, but she wasn’t strong enough.

Slowly we watched her die in my mom’s hands. My mom gently put her in a wheelbarrow and stepped back. All four of us stood around the wheelbarrow, watching. We’d all seen animals die before–it happens to often on a farm– but that doesn’t mean it’s any less sad.

But life comes and life goes–animal life that is. Human life–human’s soul never dies. But that’s for another story. My brother brought the little one to the back where our dogs wouldn’t find it. And that was it. The chores went on, the animals had to be fed.

I believe the mother goat didn’t take care of her little ones because she was sick. Hopefully next time will be better. Now she’s giving us delicious goat milk. milk doesn’t have a lot of cream, we won’t be able to make a lot of butter from it, but that’s alright, we’ll soon start milking more goats.

Now we have six little goats from other mother goats and they’re healthy little creatures. I say, they are just the cutest! But I’d probably say that about every little creature.

One can’t always save every life, but one can save some of them. Mom also mixed up a concoction for our little calf, which also caught pneumonia and that worked out just fine. A friend of ours said he was surprised the calf lived, but she did.

I’m surprised how calm the calf is. She lets us pet her like she is a pet. I’d like to keep her as a milk cow, but we don’t have a use for her milk. The goats supply plenty. Therefore, she must go back to the heard.

I couldn’t help it . . . I named her Loretta.

She grew up here because her mom didn’t supply enough milk so we fed her goat milk. And that got her going real soon. I think that’s why she’s so calm. She’s use to people.

Well, I’ve gone on long enough about our animals. There’s much more I’d like to write about, but that must wait for another time.

I hope you all enjoyed the simple step into our winter farm life. Have a great week!

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