Back Porch Farm

Shoosh, shoosh, shoosh, shoosh….

Shifting my butt, I glanced up through the barn doors at the snowy southern mountains. My hands ache from the repetitive motion.

Shoosh, shoosh, shoosh, shoosh…

After 10 days this all seemed so… normal now: me with the shiny stainless steel between my knees, my nose mere inches from a goat’s butt, while Isla jumped off a hay bale, taking turns with her caprine siblings.

Shoosh, shoosh, shoosh, shoosh…

Hazelnut leaned on her right leg and stomped her left hoof once. Being a (self-proclaimed) expert by now, I smoothly slipped the bucket back until she settled, then took her teats again…

…and continued my ruminations on how I might actually be using my college degree in my current Dream Life.

10 days ago, on a stormy Sunday, Isla (my almost 3 yr old), Randy Grubiss (loyal friend and vice president of the Three Goats Health and Fitness Club), and Kim Keyser (kayaker/rafter/neighbor/parmacist), walked ceremoniously through the gate of the goat pen – the gate that was being tied onto the posts as we had not yet had time to mount the hinges. RG carried 20 day old Fiona, Kim – Fiona’s 9 day old buckling cousin Buckbeak, I led Mama Hazelnut on a spare dog leash, and Isla showed us the way through. It was not the ribbon-cutting event I had imaged – me weeping with joy and publicly thanking my husband for his timely change of attitude and undaunting, backbreaking work to help make my Dream of Goats become a reality. I had even imagined breaking a bottle of champagne on the gate post to properly christen the beautiful barn and pen, expensive bubbles succumbing to the force of gravity as they wound their rivulets through the fuzzy cedar bark. But instead of scissors and red ribbons, there was nervous stress, fresh snow and moody skies. Randy, back at his paying job, was conspicuously absent for this monumental event. Molly, our farm Pyrenees, lunged at the end of her cable, attached firmly to the back porch, dying to lick the babies into slimy, wet heaps. The goats were jumpy and frightened. The gate listed. And my fingers fumbled at Hazelnut’s collar.

Breathe…..

Would I be able to milk her? What if Buckbeak wouldn’t take the bottle for me? What if we ran out of hay (a very real concern as a tragic hay shortage was threatening many farms and animals in our area and the supply was just about out)? I did not have enough money saved to stockpile through the 5 months until July and the first cutting of the year – yet. But I would by god! If I could just sell our LED monitor… or my black, leather motorcycle jacket…. or my lovely, old road bike… And how will I get the money together to purchase a used horse trailer before fire season?

Getting a loving greeting from Buckbeak and Fiona at the Pieper's farm.

14 yr old Gwendolyn Pieper says goodbye to her sweet Fiona...

Chris gives Hazelnut some encouragement from the rear. She is not keen on a car ride. And Elana and Gwendolyn get their last snuggles from the kids.

All 3 kids in the backseat. Buckbeak is still sporting his homemade sweater.

Bringing the goats through the gate of their new home.

Randy sneaks home from work to help with the first bottle feeding. Fiona, the amazing lap goat, is ALWAYS in someone's lap!

I had lain awake through a good portion of last summer’s drought, designing mobile goat/chicken/bee barn-trailers to evac the farm animals in case of wildfire (and I didn’t even HAVE goats then!). It was a very real concern as the largest wildfire in New Mexico’s history was raging unchecked a mere 60 miles to the SW, sweeping past the Los Alamos National Labs, past the barrels of nuclear waste stored above ground in fabric tents waiting for a forever storage location to be approved. And that was just one of several fires that had filled our high desert valley with choking smoke for weeks. I finally packed up my 2 yr old and a SUV full of group camping gear and drove…. away. I wasn’t sure how far we would need to go to reach clean air once more. We found an ideal guerilla camping spot in the National Forest, a few miles outside of Pagosa Springs, CO, on the banks of the East Fork of the San Juan River. Over the 10 days the 2 of us were refugees, 3 other Taos families joined us for a few days here and a few days there. It was much harder than I had imagined – guerilla camping with a 2 yr old. Randy had to stay at home as he managed the BLM Lower Gorge rec area. He explained that he couldn’t very well dessert his staff unless they all decided to bail as well. I had made a mad scramble around town before leaving, borrowing enough dog transport cages to hold our entire flock of chickens. I gave him specific instructions on how to catch them, what food to bring, etc. It was all worked out in my mind. But though the smoke was horrific most days with 1 mile visibility at times, he persevered and did not leave his post.

After too long away from home, Isla and I were finally convinced to return. There had been several days of clear skies as the fire had moved north and Papa missed his girls as much as his girls missed him. But the day we began our drive back, the noxious smoke bank moved back in. I pulled into our driveway in tears – both from smoke and from disappointment. I was too tired to turn around and just frigging wanted to be HOME. Ah – but thankfully it was merely a tease and the wind graciously nudged the wall back west in time for my birthday dinner outside in the yard. That was a scary time. I didn’t doubt it may happen again this summer. I needed to be ready to move the animals out of harms way and with very little notice. A dry lightening strike down wind of us could send up a blaze on a windy summer day in a short hour. It could travel north through our neighborhood so fast the wildfire crews would barely have time to assemble and mobilize their rigs. It has happened many times in our town’s history. The scars on the hillsides and painful memories of the great losses of property and forest, remain as proof.

Shoosh, shoosh, shoosh, shoosh…

The pressurized streams of warm milk frothed the surface like one of Isla’s bubble baths. I felt pride at having figured it out after my harrowing trial by fire. Note to others: Never bring home a lactating milking goat, as a newbie, 30 minutes before the previous owners are leaving town… to spend several days in an area not accessible by their cell phone. Just don’t do it. Trust me. Don’t. Hazelnuts teats were beginning to resemble elongated prunes. My job was almost done. I massaged her udder and gave the bag some bounces and jiggles, approximating the abuse regularly given by a suckling kid. A few more squeezes, and I patted her on her rump and thanked her for her milk.

Yup! It’s finally true –

I Milk Goats!