While I apprehensively await signs of heat from our goats, hoping they will not come back into cycle, I have been frantically knitting baby hats for friends and family for the holidays. The only babies in my personal near future are those that I am hoping are around one-month old, in the bellies of my lady goats in the barn.
If my math is right, and all goes well, we are due for baby goats in early April. Before then, we’d like to get in some big barn improvements: a more formal (and efficient) washing area for vegetables and a new milking room and a clean-up area for the dairy. If I am to be milking seven does next year, I need a little room to expand. So far, we have reinforced a foundation wall and got water lines in place for the new rooms. After the holidays we will start our construction project.
While I was aiming for an earlier kidding date than April, so we could get the milk flowing sooner, kidding in April could be perfect timing- slipping right in behind the madness of sugaring season. Last year the two overlapped, and in one instance a friend ran the 1/2 mile up hill to the sugarhouse to tell me my first goat was giving birth. I, in turn, sprinted down to the barn in the sloppy mess of snow and mud hoping I wouldn’t sprain an ankle, to find two tiny kids wobbling around in the goat pen.
Before the Spring thaw and the imminent goat nursery, however, we will have the frozen water buckets, the below-zero weather, and the don’t-even-think-I-will-follow-you-outside attitude from the goats. And I will take that time for what it is worth: improvement projects, lots of planning, and knitting baby hats.
Happy Happy Holidays to you all!
PS. Seriously, I am knitting a lot of hats. If you are interested in a custom-made hat (I can put names, pictures, designs in them) as a gift AFTER Christmas, I am available for hire! I can send pictures of previous work if you are interested.
