I just finished Kurt Timmermeister's Growing a Farmer. So much of his journey from city to farm life is familiar. Of his first experience milking a cow, he says, "As I look back now, I am grateful that I didn't know what was to come, for fear of never starting out."
This took me back to that day in April 2012 when our little herd of five arrived. Scout's honor, the first time I ever remember seeing a goat close enough to touch was when I laid eyes on the ones that were moving into our backyard.
Still, as Timmermeister recounts, "When you buy a cow and drive her home, you have to milk her within a few hours, at the most, of her arrival. Once she arrives, she is ready to be milked, and milked completely, immediately. I was not ready."
And so it was that I met my first goat and milked her all in the same day.
What were we thinking? Thankfully, we were foolhardy and oh-so-blessedly naïve. Otherwise, we never would have set out on this journey. I suspect that many of life's best adventures begin in just the same way. In our family, certainly several of our greatest stories so far began with leaps.
If we had stuck with just our little backyard flock of hens and not struck out into the realm of dairy, we may have forever been comfortable in our house in town and its fenced-in backyard. We might not have moved here to this farm where our kids run wild and count deer and climb trees and build teepees and string up their fishing line and bottle-feed the critters and gather eggs by the dozens.
The blog post from the day our goats arrived: http://www.broodfarm.com/broodingon/2012/04/there-are-goats-in-my-backyard.html
Razz on the milk stand for the very first time. My, how shiny our milk pail was!
Girl 2 bottle feeds Copper, our old herd sire, on the day he arrived at the farm. Baby Izzy can be seen in the background.
Honey loved me from the start.