Kid Heaven

Just for the kids.

Welcome back, froggers!

I heard the wood frogs last night! Welcome back!
Next come the peepers. Soon, the night will throb with their songs.

Out Like a Lamb -- no, Kid, no, LION!

March did not depart gracefully. We shipped off the first batch of kids to their new home on the last day of March, and then it started to snow again. This endless winter just doesn't want to let go. More snow predicted for Friday. Such an April Fool.

Spring Training: Zero to 46 in 12 days

The first kid of the season was born on March 19. We're now up to 46 kids, with just five does left to give birth. We've gone from not milking to milking almost 30 twice a day, from no kids to feeding them all. We've already shipped off 24 to their new homes, so the kid peak has passed. In the meantime, the girls in the barn get their spring beauty parlor treatments: hooves trimmed, udders clipped. They have to re-learn milking parlor etiquette: no crowding please! no bullying! please use the In Door! And I have to remember how to make cheese again after a long winter's hibernation.

Signs of Spring

The saps buckets are up! Can spring be far behind? The stately old maples that line our road get the traditional metal buckets. Plastic lines snake through the woods and drip into tanks near the road in less accessible spots. We use milk jugs. I've seen almost every kind of container used to catch the precious sap, even plastic bags. It doesn't matter. It all means spring.

A Winter's Feast

Last night we had breakfast for supper. French toast, with slabs of my homemade bread with Brad's own maple syrup. A side order of Cheryl's breakfast sausage. Accompanied by a sparkling hard cider that we brought back from Quebec last year. It doesn't get much better than this!

Colorless

The monochromatic landscape of winter: gray skies, dirty snow, brown dead trees, leaves, grass. Black and white and brown goats, gray shingled house. Black, white, gray and dirty cars. Where are the colors?

I lust for a two-tone, candy-colored car. I miss the jewell-colored macs. So I had to go buy a pink shirt. Is this why Valentine’s Day is in the middle of February?