The BABY GOATS are HERE!!!!!!

Happy Saturday friends! (and what a happy Saturday it is! Prepare yourself for an exclamation heavy post lol)

The Spice Girls have arrived! After finding out the plan for their names, our friend Bonnie gave the group of them that name, how darling :-) Bright and early (1am!) on Thursday morning the three little girls (doelings is what we call them in the goat world) came into this world. About a month ago I had asked the babies what their names were and I immediately heard the Simon and Garfunkle song Scarborough Fair 🎼"Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme..." 🎶🎶 and thought: Wow! Those are awesome names for baby goats! I wondered if we would really have four!

Here they are, in order of birth:

Parsley, black and white, blue eyes, a little mini me of Dancer and Dancer's mom Alaska. Parsley is the tiniest, thank God, because she was born completely breech aka rump first. All we could see after much pushing, was her tail flipping about. If you were around for our first year of baby goats in 2018, she's the size of Maple Kiss's "Pip" who only weighed a pound except Parsley is so much stronger.

I was so scared to see that little tail because just Wednesday morning my goat vet called me back to tell me that she has dropped all clients who don't see her every few months and if I needed help with Dancer's birth I would have to load her up in the car and take her 20 minutes to the NC State University vet hospital! My goats have always been pretty darn healthy and we do our own shots so I don't need a vet very often. I can see her point but also felt like I had been kicked in the gut. So, seeing little Parsley's rear end coming out of Dancer had me pretty scared. I gloved and lubed up and started to very gently probed about thinking about pushing her back in and fishing her rear legs out when Dancer yelled and Parsley's itty bitty rear came out further! OMG! She's going to fit!? I gently gripped her little hips with my fingertips, pulled down and out with her next contraction and out she came. The relief just flooded through me! Probably through Dancer and Parsley as well!

Next up was Sage, she looks like she's wearing a little brown jacket over her white spotted fur 😍. She also has blue eyes and is the biggest of the three. We aren't sure what will happen with her, if she will survive, she seems like she has some neurological issues but maybe it was just a hard birth since her sister Parsley was holding up the works by arriving backwards. Dancer licked her clean but when Sage started throwing her head from side to side Dancer stopped, looked at her, and very clearly made a decision that she couldn't take her on. Try not to think poorly of Dancer, in the wild she would have had to make that decision and her intuition says she can't risk the other two or herself. Sage is in the house being bottle fed her mom's milk and is able to eat, sleep, pee, poo. By 12 hours she was standing more securely, able to get up from when she fell, and pivoting in circles. By 24 hours she was starting to take her first forward steps before she would fall, roll around, and then get up. By 36 hours old she was able to walk forward in large (like 4 feet) circles and not falling as much. If she decides it's time to go, we will honor that but as long as she's trying so hard, we will do the same!

Right after Dancer's decision to let Sage go, we scooped her up and kept her warm and then Rosemary was born! Another black and white mini me with blue eyes. I have been telling Dancer from the beginning that it would be lovely to have all girls lol, what a delightful surprise!

Since Dancer doesn't want anything to do with Sage, on Thursday afternoon we took her out to the birthing pen, took Dancer out, and put Sage in to snuggle with her sisters. We've decided to do this many times during the day, giving them time together in case Sage pulls through and is able to someday live with the herd (that would be after her being weaned between 8-12 weeks depending)—she will need her sister's love and support!

I have so much to tell and show you but you can imagine with a 1am birth on Thursday, not getting into bed until 4:30am, up again at 5:30 to get Sage fed and ManChild off to school, we are just a wee bit exhausted and trying to catch up again! I have more baby pics and of course a 3 hour birthing video to condense and upload to YouTube but that will have to wait until next week I suppose darn it! Or, maybe I'll post a midweek newsletter who knows.

In the meantime, enjoy a few more pics of the babies!

Firstborn Parsley with Dancer who was still round as a beach ball with two more babies to go:

Brad and me working on baby goats. So thankful Bonnie was there to take pics, hand us stuff when needed, and hold babies to warm them up:

Dancer and Rosemary:

Trying to catch up on sleep, pretty happy with my napping buddy!:

Friday morning, the three sisters reunited:

B-Rad with Sage who has a bit of a milk mustache :-) Mama Dancer is a trouper and allowing me to milk her with no fuss whatsoever which I have never seen with a new mom!

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One memory from my Colorado ranch, back when my business name was the White Horse Whispers, one of my favorite pics of our front pasture and Meeker and Long's Peak in the distance:

The MEMES:

And my favorite of the week:

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Let's talk about the Women's Group I'm starting soon! For those of you who are thinking about it, would you answer these questions for me:

1. What interests you most: 4 weeks, 6 weeks, 8 weeks?

2. Are you only interested in an in-person group, an online group, or either?

3. If in-person, would you prefer daytime or evening hours?

4. If online, would you prefer daytime or evening hours?

5. What is your biggest fear for attending a weekly group?
a) fear of strangers/talking about your life to strangers?
b) fear of art/perfectionism/newbie?
c) fear of committing to how many weeks the group is held?
d) fear of being out at night?
e) I'm a little nervous about new things but I've been following you for awhile and I can't wait!

Just reply to this email to tell me you are interested and/or to answer questions! Thank you to all who have replied so far!

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