Some of these farm projects aren't for everyone.
Character Building
This courtesy of The Female Farmer Project: From our friend Blair of Madstone Farm... "The tender absurdity of farmy mama [and grand-mama] multitasking. Can't say it is easy but I imagine it builds character on all our parts --bovine included."
To motherhood -- in its many farmy forms.
Picking Up The [Rake]
This happens sometimes.
Read moreMilking Postures
Through a [Chicken Wire] Darkly
Holding back the Burgeoning Spring: all the young ones behind their protective barriers until they're big enough to venture out.
Equality on the Farm
Equal pay for equal (lamb bar prepping) work: milk, meat, honey, cheese, love.
Did he who made the [vole] make thee?
[Farm] Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the [safe inside the house] forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
William Blake's version can be found here.
What the Happiest [Human and Goat] Kids Know
We at Capering Goat Dairy (coincidentally owned by a Hollander?) just discovered (thanks to a New York Times Travel feature) the Netherlands are full of farms called kinderboerderij, or children's farms, where children can pet, play, and feed the animals: “It’s very healthy to bring your children into contact with animals in farms; then you have stronger and healthier [human] kids...Children have a natural bond with animals anyway, so it’s good that they’re being given a possibility to explore that.”
Naturally, we agree.
And when it comes to the goats, Corine Riteco, who with her husband founded a goat farm in the late 1980's to demonstrate the benefits of organic farming to Amsterdam's urban population, says "We liked the goats because they’re such pleasant animals, and they like the attention of people who come in, and of course the baby goats are very cute.”
Well we agree with that, too.
New York Times Travel, "The Dutch Way: Tulips,Windmills and Barnyard Animals," Nina Siegal, March 21, 2017.
Here's Bandana with her first baby, who will get to play with lots of goat and human kids.
How to Pick Up Chicks
Why, what did you think we meant?
Thanks to Red Hen Farms for our one-month-old spring chickens!
The standing hold (with Black Astralorp).
The seated hold (with Americauna).
A Good Rooster is Hard to Find
This is our Good Rooster, Mr. Bling, so named on account of his fancy hair.
It's all real, and it's all his.
Our early spring is off to an auspicious start.
Cocoa Puff delivering, and us gals caring for, goat babies on International Women's Day.
A baby girl no less! (Standing first).
It's not always work, work, work...
Some of us have a sense of humor.
We'll miss you, Pumpkin!
Easing The Bees Along
This is the winter hive insulation set-up a few years back. This winter they've got tarps wrapped round instead of hay bales. With a few supplemental dishes of honey (with crushed up comb to stand on), so far, so good!
We don't harvest the honey unless a hive doesn't make it, in which case there's a sweet side to the otherwise sad loss of hard-working lady friends.
Being bee guardians lets Capering Goat Dairy's organic garden (and every other pollinator-dependent plant everywhere), flourish.
Hoofprints to Heartbeats
Farming takes a lot of love.
so much depends
The Red Wheelbarrow, by William Carlos Williams - and Capering Goat Dairy
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
...and upon the little farmer who pushes it.
The Ice Bucket View
Even the cold mornings of winter provide their entertainments, their beauties, their little windows on the world.
A Further Sequence of Events
Here we are, pregnant and cuddly.
Soon we'll be here, milky and chaotic.
No, wait! Here! Full of sighs and squees.
And you could be here! (as bottle-feeder, not goat)
Use the Milk Share/Farm Volunteer form on the home page if you'd like to help with the baby goats for the March 2017 kidding season.
A Few of Our Fellow Non-Fellow Farmers
"Many of my fellow famers are women. You look around in the field, barn, or greenhouse and you're bound to find women breaking down and building up our understanding of gender roles."
Stella Natura, 2017, "Balance Through Agriculture in the Hudson Valley," Jesse Ezekiel Tolz.
This Photo is Slimming
We're due for baby goats in a few weeks, as you can see from these expectant mothers in their custom wallows enjoying a sunny February morning.
I'm a ____ , not a cheesemaker!
Not so, you too can have at-home (at-cottage) cottage cheese!