Disbudding

Well, we just disbudded our first kids of 2009. Two down, 40 or so more to go.

Yippee.

For those who are unfamiliar with the term, disbudding refers to the process of making sure that baby goats do not grow horns by burning the budding horns, either with a tool called a disbudding iron or by using a caustic paste. At Swede Farm we use the iron. The reasons are that it is faster, (60 seconds rather than days or weeks) and the paste can be spread elsewhere causing chemical burns to the skin that it comes in contact with. Despite the fact that it is pretty fast, and the kids are up, shaking their heads and running around within a matter of seconds, it is still traumatic. For the kids, of course, and for the one doing the disbudding, namely, me.

We were recently asked at a farmer's market why we disbud. Surely, the customer said, it is painful. It is. It isn't natural. No, it isn't. It deprives them of their inherent "goatness". Ah. Well.

The reasons that we disbud are many. The most trivial is that we cannot show the goats if they have horns. We started as a show herd and the American Dairy Goat Association has a rule that prohibits horned goats in the show ring. Another reason is that goats invariably fight, jockeying for position. Since some of our goats are hornless, they all need to be hornless, rather than see the hornless goats suffer at the hands (heads) of the horned goats. Our goats are handled multiple times daily by myself, my husband and any number of children of varying ages. Horns can be dangerous for the people who handle goats, just ask my daughter Kate who was at the receiving end of a set of horns when a goat (not belonging to us) was irked (not even really mad) that Kate didn't move away from the hay feeder fast enough.

Lastly we disbud precisely because of the 'natural' aspect of raising dairy goats, or rather, the UN-natural aspect. Horns can be very useful tools of defense when a goat lives on the side of a mountain somewhere, subject to being attacked by any number of predators. However our goats do not live in a natural environment. They have company and they have browse and they are well cared for, but let's face it, a fenced pasture is NOT a natural setting for a goat. Horns are notorious for becoming entangled in fences, feeders and the like. In March of 2007, our long awaited and much loved buck, Lynnhaven NYM Pure Brazos was caught by a scur in a fence. (A scur is partial horn regrowth after disbudding. It happens, sometimes, especially in bucks.) While he was trapped he became the target of a pack of stray dogs and killed. It was horrible--for him and for the children who found him and for our fledgling farm. So although I didn't feel the time was appropriate to go into detail with our well-meaning customer, we disbud in memory of Brazos (pictured above shortly after his arrival from New York), so that no animal will ever again, at least on our property, suffer in such a manner.

The pitter-patter of little feet...

Here at our house we are accustomed to the noise of little ones in the night. Our children tend to wander at night, starting out in their own beds and ending up in ours or one of their older sibling's. Last night was something else altogether. The noise was not as soft as it usually is, a staccato coming down the hall, closer and closer accompanied by the most distressed cries.

It wasn't until adrenalin jolted me awake, wondering what was wrong, and with whom that I realized what the footsteps and cries were. It was LaSalle's twins, "Navasota" and "Fifty-Dollars"* running down the hall, crying for middle of the night bottles. This was something that has never happened in now five years of raising baby goats! We have never had babies this early in the year, born by themselves and they were SO small and it has been SO cold (do you hear the pleas of my children here?) that they have been spending the days outside in their run and inside in a large rubbermaid tub. Apparently they missed the notice informing them that they are now down to three full bottles daily--breakfast lunch and dinner and managed to escape their bin and go running in search of Linnea and the sustenance that she had been providing.

I woke up Linnea, told her that her babies needed her and crawled back under the covers shaking my head--I think that they are old enough to move outside day and night. I know that my tender-hearted children will beg to be allowed to spend the first few nights outside with the babies in sleeping bags. I just might let them, after all that will ensure more than two less sets of pitter-patters in the night. For a few days at least.

*Fifty-Dollars is named for his price to keep us from getting attached to an adorable goat that we are NOT keeping. (Hear me kids, N*O*T keeping!) He really is very flashy and cute. Need a Nubian buckling, anyone?

Just for Linnea

Linnea (fifth daughter, a month out from 13 years old) said that she doesn't like the picture on the blog. Told her dad "I don't like that picture, it makes you look too city-slickerish!" (This from a girl who spent most of her life in the fourth largest city in the country!)

I told her that I would remedy that and she got a wary look...like she knew that she had just stepped into a trap and was already regretting it. "Fix it...how?" Well...you know all of the ways that parents can embarrass their teenaged and pre-teen daughters, posting family pictures online has to earn one special kuddoes. So here for Linnea...a non city-slickerish picture of her dad, complete with embarrassing ripped shirt and sweat.

Oh, and no snakes were harmed in the taking of the picture, it was a rat snake found behind the garage and Tim wanted pictures taken before he let the snake go in our woods.

Depleting the world's resources? Who us?

Recently a comment filtered back to us after one of the farmers markets that we sell milk at that we are depleting the world’s resources with our eleven children. Now obviously this kind of comment is not new. One doesn’t reach almost 21 years of parenthood without considering the varied reasons for having (or not) children. Obviously we weigh the different factors somewhat differently than most, after all one doesn’t have to be a genius to realize that most people do NOT have 11 children. (In fact the opposite has been charged because we DO keep having them!) Enjoying a good debate, I have in years past brushed up on the statistics and waged war against the naysayers. I will give the usual points a quick run through, lest anyone be disappointed, but this time when I heard the comment it really started me thinking…depleting the worlds resources. Are we really?

First the usual comments…not all scientists agree about overpopulation. Many believe that the issues at hand leading to the lack of resources for many of the poorer nations of the world are not linked to simple numbers but issues such as political and social instability. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the earth has the capability to feed 33 billion people while estimating that the world’s population will likely plateau at 9 to 11 billion. In many nations of the world the birth rate has fallen to well below replacement rates. And did you know that you could stand every single person in the world, shoulder to shoulder and they still would not fill the city of Jacksonville, Florida! I do not mean to make light of the horrible situations faced by many around our globe. I have seen it up close and personal. I grew up in Indonesia and have seen poverty on more continents than most people ever get to. But the truth remains that the oft cited warnings about overpopulation are not accepted universally and by more than those of us who obviously have yogurt for brains as evidenced by the little ducks that we have following after us in the aisles of Sam's Club.

But now that I have done my duty as the mother of not one but two basketball teams and rattled off the usual suspects..er…statistics, I return to pondering the question at hand. Is my family, happily running about Waller County, Texas, really depleting the world’s resources? That is a rather weighty accusation. How does one prove or disprove it? Well, I decided to take a rather scary step. I decided to join the ranks of those who have calculated their carbon footprint. While this won’t address every issue in question regarding the worlds resources I figured it is a step, and a step that cannot really be argued with.

I searched online. I found one site and plugged in our numbers. I closed my eyes and hit “compute carbon footprint”. Oh so slowly and cautiously I opened my eyes. I saw an angel figure flitting about under the cartoonesque tree on my computer screen. Oh no, I killed the earth! Wait...428 lbs per person. What does THAT mean? Oh! The graph on the bottom says that is “much less than average”. Wow! That’s cool! But…can it be right? I look around my house…filled to the rafters with people and their stuff and shake my head. That can’t be right…there is a bigger carbon footprint than that in my living room alone, it seems! So I search some more. I find another such calculator. This one even offers buying and selling of credits! (I may need that, I think.) So I fill out the blanks and drop down boxes. And this one does seem to be much more detailed and thorough. Again we come to that final “compute button”. I was right, the first calculator didn’t give the whole picture. This one was more rigorous and it didn’t give us as good a report. (Perhaps because the drop down box didn't allow me to put in 13 for number in household...the most it allowed was ten. Bummer. So we got a worse report than we really should have.) But I did do due diligence and this second one is the one that I will stick with.

It tells me…
*Your footprint is 4.93 tonnes per year.
*The average footprint for people in the United States is 20.40 tonnes.
*The average for the industrial nations is about 11 tonnes.
*The average carbon footprint worldwide is about 4 tonnes.
*The worldwide target to combat climate change is 2 tonnes.

Now, before I go further I have to tell you that I am not sold out to the idea of global warming. So there, just call me one of “them”, but that is the way I see it and is a topic for another day. At any rate, though, if someone believes that we are raping and pillaging the world, this is a powerful bit of information for my fact arsenal. Pretty nifty, huh? But I did continue to ponder. WHY are our numbers so low?

There are several things that we do that would contribute to having a lessened impact on the environment. We use cloth diapers. More wash loads, but we do use the most water and energy efficient washing machine to be had. And we often hang clothes out. We so rarely shop for new as opposed to used clothes and furniture and toys and bikes that my children are scandalized by the price of new clothes—at Walmart. We do not eat out (few places can accommodate us!) and when we cook we cook from scratch…no frozen lasagnas here (well, unless mom just had a baby!). We are pros at garage sales, thrift stores, craigslist and freecycle. We garden. We do drive a huge behemoth, a fifteen passenger van that gets a horrible 14 miles per gallon BUT we pretty much drive it to only three places—the farmer’s markets, church and to buy animal feed. Anywhere else we take the smaller, older and more gas efficient Geo. But there had to be more to it then just being…well…cheap. Well, I concluded, it has to be something about spreading those carbon costs across our vast numbers. We are a household of 13, eleven children and two parents. Given that these eleven children are already here, and are here to stay, let’s say they were in average sized families. Let’s say 2 to a household with one household with three children. That makes it five families worth of children that we have. But we don’t have them in five homes, driving five families worth of cars (likely ten more cars on the road), buying five homes worth of electricity…we have compressed the resources that would usually be required for the average eleven individual children into one home. Economies of scale at work for the family.

So. I do agree that there is much work to be done around the globe regarding poverty and education. And I do think that we should all endeavor to be the best stewards that we can be of this incredible world with which we have been entrusted. I, however, cannot agree that simply by having eleven children we have created great harm to the world’s resources. In fact I have great hope that by having eleven children and by working hard to instill in them a respect for the world and for the people around the world that we have a pretty good chance of seeing the world changed in the next generation by eleven more families that are careful stewards. And that is pretty efficient and effective as well.

(Now to have a chat with those goats about those methane gasses...)

And on a lighter note…we just made 4 gallons of yogurt (vanilla bean) in the new pasteurizer turned yogurt vat and it was fantastic! I cannot WAIT to have enough milk to be able to bring it to market every week!!!

I miss my girls!

Our numbers are seriously depleted here at Swede Farm. Last night I drove two of our girls to the airport for the trip of a lifetime. Christin (19) and Grace (almost 17) are going to spend two whole months in Europe with my brother's family. They have been told to bring their list and that they will make sure that they get to everything on that list. I seriously doubt that my brother and sister-in-law have any idea of what they have gotten themselves in for. Here at Swede Farm we homeschool. Specifically we homeschool so that we can read and study all we want about history. World history, church history, art history, history, history, history. Can you think of a better place to go for two history lovers who have spent that past two years studying the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation?

Of course their lists also highlight their other interests...Grace, our resident horse person is jazzed about going to the Spanish Riding School while Christin is pumped about actually seeing where Martin Luther nailed those 95 theses. Thanks to a serendipitous meeting at the Bayou City Market they hope to visit a dairy goat farm in Switzerland. All in all a trip that promises to be full of rich memory making and life experiences.

They hadn't been gone more than 12 hours, though, when something came up where I called out "Grace, hey Grace I have a question for you about a breeding..." and I sent someone to go get information from Christin about how much milk LaSalle's new kids were getting at each bottle. Everyone here has specific responsibilities to tend to, usually according to their talents and goals. Grace has always been our buck person. She tends to them, orchestrates breedings, and acts as our general on-site vet in training. Christin has a soft spot for babies and this year has really come into her own in shouldering much of the responsibility of getting the babies from dripping wet eight pounders to ready-to-be-bred 80 pounders, all within a very short seven or eight months. With them gone these responsibilities have to be carried by others and this is an adjustment.

Beyond the work shuffling, though, is an adjustment that is much harder. I miss them desperately! They are such a part of the fabric of our lives that with them gone it is as if there is a huge rent in the tapestry of our day. They carry a burden beyond chores. They make me smile. Grace's acerbic wit keeps my mind sharp (well, sorta!). Christin has learned the art of the bearhug when I am down and a good cup of tea when I am frazzled. There is such reward in parenting teenagers and young adults for which I was unprepared. When we started our family all I had in mind was a baby. We lost three before we ever held our first live crying baby so that idea of a baby that cries, coos and smiles was all I saw. Somehow the view beyond infancy escaped me. Then when one baby followed another with such rapidity and astounding regularity it was easy to still focus on those baby years. Then all of a sudden I looked up and those babies had become young ladies. Beautiful young ladies, smart young ladies, serious young ladies and best of all, Godly young ladies. And what an unexpected perk...I found that these young ladies had also become my best friends. What a reward, to realize that your favorite people in the world to spend time with are your very own children.

So...now the challenge is to survive until they return. We'll manage, we will muddle through. Then they will return and all will be well. Until they leave again and again, to take other trips, marry...how do other mothers do this?!

The above pic is of Grace (left) and Christin (right) working on the concrete footing for Adonis the Bulk Tank Cooler. They did that project pretty much all by themselves. Not bad, huh?

Ruby Update

Ruby, the goat discussed a few posts ago continues to be nursed back to health. She is up in a sling for much of the day as she is too weak to stand. She has gradually started putting more weight on her feet and yesterday walked three feet to nibble on some yaupon (a perennial goat favorite) being held out to her to entice her. There are reports that she has been seen chewing her cud which is a sign of rumen health. So...we are still not out of the woods, she needs to be able to bear her own weight consistently and move around but she is not going backwards and seems to be making tiny steps towards health. If I listed all of the things being done for her it would likely boggle your mind but it is a commitment that we made so I guess as long as she isn't in pain and seems to be making improvement we continue.

The worst job?

The Tuesday, January 6, 2009 edition of the Wall Street Journal (favorite publication of dairy farmers everywhere) had a most intriguing article. This article reviewed a study that ranked the best and worst jobs in America. Dairy Farmer actually made the list! This study determined that dairy farmer was the second worst job in America to have.

Alrighty then. Time for a change of plans. Let's dust off that ole resume.

The study looked at the jobs on the basis of five different criteria inherent to every job: environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands and stress. Interestingly enough when you look at the best ten and the worst ten some intrinsic differences are immediately apparent. The top ten are all largely desk jobs. The bottom ten all involve physical labor. The top ten involve advanced education, in many cases several degrees worth of advanced. The bottom ten for the most part involved either trade or vocational school or old-fashioned apprenticeship. The top ten involved jobs that would be well served by the "job search portal" that released the study whereas employment in the bottom ten will be gained the old-fashioned way; by starting at the bottom, at a job that likely your father or uncles also had and getting your hands calloused and rough by the doing.

The worst jobs are all jobs that we are all told by concerned parents that we need to go to college to avoid. They are jobs that those in the best ten are thankful that someone else is there to perform the jobs so that they don't have to.

These studies are great at promoting the idea of a genteel society where everyone has multiple degrees and doesn't have to dirty their hands (except at their hobbies) and lives "the good life". (These studies are also good at promoting the services of the organization that releases them, nothing like job security, huh?)

So...if this is true, why do we keep hearing at almost every single farm tour "this is great, I wish I could do this"?

Let's go back and look at those five criteria. Perhaps I missed something.

Environment. We have to work outside. No comfy lumbar-support chairs in our personally decorated cubes. It gets hot outside. We sweat. Or cold outside and our toes might get wet when sloshing through mud puddles when it is cold and rainy. We do not get to live in our temperature controlled environments, going from our 73 degree home to 73 degree car to 73 degree office. We are stuck with the weather, whatever it is. If it happens to be a brisk 38 degrees when that baby kid is finally born we have to be there to rub it off with towels and make sure that it stays warm while watching it totter and stumble around while finding out that it's feet belong underneath him. If it is really bad we sometimes have to tuck it in our jacket to warm it up while it tries to nurse off of our chin. It is rough. It's really hard to work while giggling.

Income. Now that one is true. We don't have the highest income. Not only that, but our income is not stable in that an employer tells us what it is and guarantees to maintain it. It is entirely up to us, how hard we work, how fast we expand, where we sell. We don't even have the luxury of being able to budget items like commutes, and business attire.

Employment outlook. Phew. No assurance of stable employment. All we have to pin our future security on is the fact that the goats will keep having babies and making milk. And pray that people will keep drinking milk. Some days it is really stressful knowing that we might go out to that milk room and be told by Cinnamon the Alpine that she is really sorry, but with the economy being what it is, our position has been eliminated.

Physical demands. This is a rough career. In an office setting you don't have to put up your own cube and the IT guy is there to set up your computer. Here, there is much in the way of physical labor, hauling feed sacks and hay bales, putting up fences, delivering baby goats. The work doesn't end there. Being a family business, there is also teaching your children the ins and outs of the family business. Teaching that six year old how to carry water to plant "her" trees that will someday tower over her and having to walk that fence line with your teenager and listen to them talk. And talk. And talk. You don't even usually have time left over for a gym membership!

Stress. Well, I have to admit that they got that one right as well. It is stressful beyond description to sit at the side of a goat in labor and wonder how many babies there are. The anxiety of watching your daughter walk into the show ring with a doe that she delivered herself, raised, groomed and has such high hopes for. The nerve-wracking experience of handing someone a sample cup of milk at the farmer's market and waiting...how will they receive the fruits of your labor?

SO, after reviewing our life I have to conclude that the article is dead on. Dairy farming is the second worst job in America today.

At least that is what we want everyone else to believe...we don't need a nation of people leaving their cubes to come milk goats (or cows). That WOULD hinder my job security. Plus, those other jobs? Those top ten jobs? I am really thankful that someone else is here to perform those jobs so that I don't have to...I don't think I'd like being an actuary or statistician very much.

Reading the article I am also humbled by the sacrifice that my husband made, squandering his degree to leave that cube, commute and job security to enter the second worst profession in America.

So...from those of us in the trenches at the second worst profession in America...its really rough down here, but we are glad to serve.

Ruby

There are times in farming when we don't make decisions based on a business model but on the heart. Ruby is one such time.

We first heard about Ruby when a friend asked us if we wanted two Nubian does. We are always willing to consider adding potential milkers to the production line so we asked for more information. Seems he had a friend who was unable, due to some family situations, to care for these two purebred Nubian does. They had never been bred, so obviously weren't in milk. There would be no guarantee that they could be bred and come into milk as they were pushing three years old but there was always the potential for that down the line. We said sure, we were interested and went to take a look. The does were pitifully thin, but beautiful. You could tell that they were from good stock originally. They would definitely be a project, but it was worth a gamble, all things considered. Cash and registration papers were exchanged, we loaded up the sisters and headed home. On the way home I looked at the papers and my heart sunk. Ruby and Priscilla were not TWO and a half, they were FIVE and a half years old. At that age it was incredibly unlikely that we would ever be able to successfully get them bred and kidded and into milk and right now there just isn't the flex in the checkbook to accommodate "pets". The deed being done, however, we brought them home, got them settled into the quarantine pen (all new goats to Swede farm spend the first couple of months in quarantine for the protection of the herd as well as their own health), had their blood drawn to make sure that they don't have the unfortunately common goat ailments that we work hard to keep from our herd and started eating. And eating. Boy could those girls eat!

Well, the months of quarantine flew by. The girls were still thin but filling out. Having passed the blood tests and the time of quarantine we moved them in with the dairy herd. They were giants! Yes, still thin, but SO tall and lanky! They were really beautiful goats, you could tell. I started thinking "if only..." for I so wished we could see what babies from them would look like!

Then one day we came out to the pen and Ruby, the thinner of the twins was down and wouldn't come to the fence. She looked at us, but wouldn't get to her feet. We went in, stood her up and realized that she wouldn't put weight on one of her legs. Goats jockey for position, and it is not unusual for one to get hurt, be sore, limp for a while. We try to arrange pens so that it is minimized but still it does happen, especially when introducing new animals so this wasn't unexpected. When we helped her to stand she stood and ate hay, feed and drank. We realized that getting up and down was hard for her but that she had a good appetite and was doing relatively well, so we separated her again, fed her and decided to just allow her time to recover. All went well, with help getting up and down to get to her feed and drink (and some goat pain reliever) she seemed to be doing fine and we assumed that it was a matter of time until Ruby was 100% again. Well, she hadn't been at 100% due to weight, so maybe 80% and headed towards 100%.

Throughout all this was Priscilla. Quickly growing hale and hearty she never-the-less did not leave her sister's side to go do goat things, she stayed. When Ruby was on her feet and swaying, Priscilla was there, so close as to almost seem to be holding her steady. When Ruby was laying down Priscilla was right there, keeping Ruby warm with her body. When another goat was nearby she stood over Ruby as if to protect her.

Then, on day four we went out and Ruby was worse. Much worse. She could not stand at all. We stood her and where before she would stand strong on three legs and eat she flopped down like a rag doll. None of her legs were coordinated or working, she was very weak. She was not dehydrated, she ate well, she just could not stand. At all. There are several ailments that are opportunistic, they hit goats that are already weakened. We considered one after the other, started treating for what seemed most likely and hoped for an overnight improvement of some kind.

But there was no improvement.

We discussed it and decided. We simply could not afford expensive, protracted treatment for a goat that was not contributing to the farm. That is the business decision. That is what our heads screamed at us. We knew that the vet would be only too happy to put the charges on our account but our account was already very large with no end in sight. If we were to spend resources on an animal it should be reserved for those animals that were likely to bring in income, either in the form of milk or babies. Ruby was not going to do either. The decision was made, when Tim got home he would have the hard task of putting her down. The one benefit was that we knew that she was in pain and that her pain would be ended. We explained it to the children. Sara, who had been caring for Ruby was especially sad. She nodded, but confided "But I really *like* Ruby." I held Sara (all five feet seven inches of her) in my lap as she cried. She left, then returned with a crumpled up ten dollar bill--all she had saved from her recent rabbit sales and handed it to me. "For Ruby" she said. Then other children did the same. They all wanted to contribute so we could possibly take her to the vet. Sweet children, but an X-Ray alone would run us almost $100! And then there was the fact that honestly, I didn't see positive outcome from a trip to the vet. We still had a down animal...in pain...so we discussed it again and they all reluctantly agreed. Ruby was in pain. We cared for her. We wanted to end her pain and this seemed to be the only way.

Tim came home. We went to the pen together and all took turns saying goodbye to Ruby. He put Ruby on his shoulders...for a thin, undernourished goat she was still heavy. He struggled to his feet and Tim and Christin started hiking to the back of the property. I went inside, sad, but relieved that her pain would soon be over. But I hurt inside, for Ruby, for Priscilla and for my tender-hearted children.

A few minutes later Tim was back. And shocked me with what he said.

"Are we sure?"

Of course we were sure! Don't drag this out any longer! This was already so hard, why revisit the situation?

Well, he explained, he had struggled carrying her. She was still heavy, even thin. He had to put her down for a rest and she had walked over to some yaupon in the woods (a favorite goat treat) and started eating with obvious delight. He looked at her and an image of her sister Priscilla flashed before his eyes. He just wasn't sure...his heart was over-riding what his head was saying.

So we brought her back to her pen.

We called the children together again and told them that we would try the vet but that we could NOT afford expensive tests and procedures. We were just going to at least SEE what the vet had to say, perhaps we were missing something.

We loaded her in the back of the van and made the 20 mile trip. I walked in and Dr. Goodman chuckled to some students standing nearby "looks like we get to see a goat today!" I explained the whole situation, how she was basically a rescue goat, the history of her injury/illness, reminded them of the sizable nature of our current tab, told them how we were going to put her down ourselves, about the children breaking open their piggy banks (to the tune of $20) and that we did NOT have the funds for X-Rays, etc. He understood.

He thoroughly and gently examined Ruby head to toe. He had her suspended in a large sling and he examined the injured shoulder that triggered the downhill slide. He spent a lot of time looking at her feet and listening to her rumen and her chest. What he said shocked me.

He did not find an injury. What he found was a goat with an obvious history of sub-par nutrition. He was able to show us on her feet the impact of mineral deficiencies and inadequate feeding along with a likely pre-existing severe anemia. Basically what happened was that we were feeding her and feeling like because she had been gaining weight that she was doing better but in truth she was almost a time bomb. The years of not having optimal nutrition had taken their toll and she finally reached a point where it hurt even to stand and walk. Where we thought we saw a dislocation was really an area where her lack of muscle mass made normal movement seem almost grotesquely deformed. She did have the beginnings of pneumonia setting in from being somewhat immobile for almost a week, but that was to be expected. Her sister was not as bad as she, likely because she had probably always been the stronger sister so better able to withstand the deficits and likely had also been the one who, as queen of their little herd of two, got first dibs on food, minerals, etc. We do not hold their condition against the people that we got Ruby and Priscilla from. They obviously greatly cared for their goats and did their best, but Ruby just apparently needed something *more*.

Soooo...where does this leave us? We still have a goat who is too weak to even stand. She had pneumonia. She may be too far gone to save, she will never be bred, have kids and make milk for us. But she has a shot. We brought her home, have her cuddling up with her sister away from the rest of the herd. It will take lots of hands-on care, rigging up a sling and intensive therapy, physical and medical and nutritional. But she has a chance at life and she has Sara dedicated to fighting with her and for her. So for today at least, the story of Ruby is a story "to be continued"...

Phone calls

I hate talking on the phone. Ick. I would rather be in labor. Back labor.

OK I lied, I'd rather not labor. I would like it if I had a secretary who would kindly take my list of calls and make them for me. Today I had to...call a vet at Texas A&M to ask questions regarding a surgical procedure we were considering for a milking doe. Then I returned a call to a midwifery client and discussed with her options for an issue that she is having. Then I called our regular vet to discuss a different issue with a different goat (a sad subject for a different post on here). Then I fielded a call regarding the upcoming trip to Europe that two of our children are making next week. Next came a question from home (I was out and about seeing midwifery clients today) about a math assignment. Then back to A&M to cancel tomorrow's surgical procedure (I decided having kids and surgery all in the same week was best to be avoided if we can help it). A call to the church in East Texas where we are burying my dad later this week. Then a call to the OB who often sees my midwifery clients to arrange a consultation. Then a conversation with a gentleman whose new goat is the daddy for one of our goats. (Small world!) Then another with a prospective milk customer. And another from home about chore assignments. And one with the credit card company. Seems we are late on our payment. Oops. What can I say, it is a slow time of year at a goat dairy. Then, as I was finishing up this entry I ended up, telephone to ear, making arrangements to have Chocolate Sundae (the alpaca) bred.

Does that fill my quota for the week?

Productive day!

Thanks to Senora Maria coming into milk a few weeks ago we were able to bring more milk to the market today! It didn't keep us from selling out in just a few hours, though. I can't WAIT until the does due in February all kid and we have enough milk to bring a good supply of milk, chocolate milk yogurt and kefir. Right now we are so low on milk that if I even venture to suggest keeping some out to make yogurt Tim responds with horror because then we won't have ANY milk to sell. (sigh)

Then, as we were on our way home we got a call that Maria's twin sister LaSalle kidded! A buck and a doe! YAY! Pictures will be forthcoming, in the meanwhile Tim needs to get on the ball coming up with names. Tim names the animals of Swede Farm and there is a pattern and a plan to the naming. The names will follow the trend suggested by one or both parents and sometimes by any extenuating circumstances surrounding the breeding or kidding. One thing is in common always...the names have to be, in some form or fashion, related to things Texan. Well...Senora Maria and LaSalle were born (on another farm) to goats named Spotted Explorer and Captain's Gabby, so there seemed to be a bit of an explorer/expedition theme going on. So, Tim looked for explorers linked to Texas. One was easy, LaSalle. The other took a bit of looking and is more a connection in an esoteric sense, but you can take a look and see what you think as to whether Senora Maria fits as an explorer name.

Now to name the daughter and son of LaSalle...and to find that camera so that we can take pics. Anyone seen a toddler around here snapping pictures?

What are Dairy Berries?!

I have been prodded to explain the title of this blog.

When we were planning to get our first goats my father asked why on earth would we ever want a goat if we had room for a cow?! Well, besides the fact that they have a better feed to milk conversion ratio, besides the fact that they are easier for the kids to handle in the show ring, besides the fact that if they step on your foot your foot stays intact there is the little matter of clean-up. What a cow eats comes out the other end in big, semi-solid plops. Lots of them, which stands to reason if you consider the size of the animal. What a goat eats comes out the other end as small marbles, also called "berries". (Picture a rabbit cage, same idea.) So, when we sell bags of fertilizer from the dairy, we call them Dairy Berries. It seemed appropriate to term the...ah...droppings from our minds similarly. And, of course, these droppings are fertile as are all things on Swede Farm, ourselves included. Kind of a joke, you see...or maybe just to me and he.

Tradition

We had black-eyed peas twice yesterday, so Swede Farm is all set for the next year. (We had them here then went to a good friend's farm where we ate them again.) In the course of the meal we had our (traditional) discussion about this Southern tradition. Some of my more literal children claim that eating black eyed peas on New Years Day is superstition. I do not agree, and to explain why, shared with them my definitions of superstition VS tradition. Superstition tries to shape the future by today's action, by and large unconnected to events in the past. Tradition looks back to the past, to the ways of our parents and grandparents and carries those actions forward as a way of honoring them and our history. Tradition is becoming a lost art in American culture. I guess it is not surprising that a nation founded on forging new principles and territories often clings to the new rather than to the old, but this is shortsighted because without a foundation how can a house stand? This applies across the board, whether the house is a nation, region, state or household.

When I was a child I was both immersed in tradition and devoid of it. Growing up in South East Asia and the Middle East I was exposed to the traditions of those cultures and still today carry an awareness of them, Chinese New Year, Ramadan, etc. What I did not have was the sense of my own cultural traditions. So much around me was overtly taught as tradition "This is how we celebrate in Indonesia" that those events in my own house that were not promoted as tradition simply did not receive much notice by me. We had black eyed peas and cornbread each New Year's Day but I do not recall it being discussed as "tradition", more as the answer to the usual question of "what's for dinner tonight, mom?" Now I am the mom and I take very seriously my responsibility as the one who will be passing on tradition to my children and through them, to my grandchildren. Some of these traditions, such as black eyed peas, are a part of their heritage as Southerners, particularly as sixth generation Texans. Other traditions, like St Lucia Day breakfast in bed for mom and dad comes from their Swedish ancestry. (And what a nice tradition it is, too!) Lighting candles and reading Scripture during Advent comes from their Christian heritage while eating the once-a-year cherry coffee cake on Christmas morning is specifically a Carlson tradition.

Growing up overseas meant that I did not have as close a relationship to my extended family stateside as I now wish. Having lost both parents now in many ways solidifies this fact. Being married to an only child who was also the only grandchild of parents and grandparents who were older means that their tradition has to be carried on by Tim and myself or it will be lost. It is a joyful burden to carry for it both anchors us to the past and gives us foundation for the future. It is part of why we homeschool, so we can have our children around us to teach them as we move through our day. It was intrinsic to why we left Houston and moved to our ten acres to try to create a farm and a lifestyle more akin to that which my father had when growing up.

Our traditions will be different than that of any other family, but that is to be expected. I am to teach our children our traditions. The challenge for you is to make sure that you are passing on your traditions. It is one of the most important jobs that we have as parents and thankfully, one of the most enjoyable as well. And usually some of the most yummy jobs as well!

The Coogs streak is happily over, ours continues

I, who swore I would never blog now have more than one post in a single day! How shameless!

Anyhow...it struck me. 24 years ago today I sat in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas watching the Houston Cougars play Boston College and Doug Flutie. I was there with a cadre of friends (and my dad, a UH alum). It had been 4 years since UH won a bowl game, not too bad. Although UH lost that game, it was a great (though frozen) experience and one I will never forget. In that cadre of friends was a fellow Cougar Guard member...Tim Carlson. I NEVER would have guessed that 24 years later I would be married to that friend and share eleven children and 59 goats with him! WOW! AND...drum roll please--(NO we are not pregnant!) the Coogs played in another bowl game yesterday and after a 28 year post-season losing streak they beat Air Force 27 to 24. GO COOGS!

New year, new dairy, why not?

I always swore that I would never blog. It always seemed like the perfunctory Christmas letter raised to the nth degree. What ego, to think that the whole world would hang on every twist and turn of the Carlson life!

And in truth, my mind hasn't changed much. It STILL seems to be seeking the limelight in a manner so brash that any well raised Southern lady should blush. Yet...here I find myself, blogging, my only defense that it really wasn't my idea, it was forced upon me. After 6 weeks of selling at the Houston area Farmer's Markets we have made friends who are tied to the city. Nonetheless these new friends greet us every week with "how is that goat, the one that got hurt?", "any new baby chicks?", "when are those new baby goats due?" and it seems that blogging is the best way to include these new partners in farming in the reality of farm life.

So...welcome to Dairy Berries, the official blog for Swede Farm Dairy. We hope that you enjoy your visit to the farm through the entries here so much that you decide to come out and pay us a real-life visit, or better yet, decide that what you really always wanted to do was leave the city, run out to the country and start your own crazy goat farm!