Happy February Mockingbird Enthusiasts!
We hope that you were able to find some peace and stay warm throughout the tumultuous month of January. After all the rain/snow/sleet/ice and all other conceivable forms of falling water here in Appomattox, we are finally seeing the muck dry up a little more each day as the sun returns from Cabo or Cancun. The thick sheet of ice melted into a sort of muddy, Mississippi River-like lagoon, which became something that felt a lot like a tar pit but filled with sticky red mud and is now slowly drying into solid ground underfoot once more…oops, just kidding. As I look out the window, I can see rain falling once again. LOL. The joys of a newly settled farmstead during a modern-day Virginia winter.
It has been a nail biter of a first winter here on the farm for us newbies as we scrambled to maintain drinkable (non-frozen) water for all of the farm critters during the power outages, fretted over whether the little goats and the livestock guardian dogs would be warm enough, filled, and refilled all of the animal shelters with straw to combat the cold and the wet, and Byron worked tirelessly to find the perfect design for easily portable hay feeders to keep the hay out of the muck. Additionally, one cold, dark morning about two weeks ago, we received an epic shock upon going out to do chores. It was one of those cold crunchy mornings when your breath freezes as you inhale and it was not yet dawn. As I made my way to the first goat shelter, I heard a tiny, puzzling squeak sound as I approached. While scanning the space with my light from my headlamp I was stunned to find a wee little baby goat, still wet from birth, squeaking and wiggling about in the straw.
Belladonna (that’s mama goat’s name) had just joined our farm in October and we had never considered she could be pregnant so it would not be melodramatic to say I was stupefied. After going through all the classic phases of stupefaction, including the headless chicken and the deer in the headlights phases, we collected ourselves, took a deep breath, and realized the new mama was taking it all in stride. Handling it like a pro, the first-time mom had the little guy cleaned, fluffed and, upon his feet and nursing long before we had come to the realization that our “help” wasn’t needed.
Our lady, Belladonna is a brilliant goat mom, and her little fella is a prodigy. He was bucking all around the enclosure by the end of the day and climbing to the top of the shelter by the end of the week. We are thrilled the healthy, lively, and handsome little 100% New Zealand Kiko buckling is making waves as the first birth on the farm. It will be lots of fun watching him grow to drive his mom and all the other goats nuts over the next few months until it is time for him to find his own herd.