This afternoon we got rained out of our barn building, so we headed out to www.graceharborfarms.com to get our fix of raw cows milk. When we walked up to the office door, a sign said "I'm in the kidding barn", so that's where we went. Just so happens a doe had babies shortly before we got there, and they were still being dried off & settled. While we stood there watching, another doe kidded, and we were drafted to help. One of us got the doe baby and the other got the buckling, and we sat them in our laps and started drying them off so they could go in the baby pen under the heat lamp. They still had their umbilical cords hanging on, and couldn't stand yet. Mom's colostrum got milked out so they could be bottle fed, and mom returned to the milking herd. Then we got our milk and learned a whole lot about why milk is pasteurized (poopy, crowded, indoor-only, cheap industrial daires). Well worth $3.99 a quart for creamy fresh milk from happy pastured cows.
It was still raining buckets when we got home, but the neighbor's trailer was still parked under our trees, waiting for us to unload the pile of mill ends he brought over for us to use as kindling. So we got soaked and covered in sawdust, but now we've got nice hot wood to burn, and the trailer is cleared out to go back across the road.
Naturally it's starting to dry up a bit, but we've declared it beer:30 so more chores will wait til tomorrow. And the next day...and the next day....
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