I'm LINKED!!

I've been putting a lot of time this year into setting up and updating regularly our Kindlehope Farm website. Now I have finally linked the website to this blog!  Hopefully, there will be some folks who enjoy the site and want to know more about what Kindlehope Farm and it's inhabitants are up to.  Well, this is the place to find out!

March, for instance, has been an incredible month.  In late January and February of this year we doubled the size of our Boer goat herd with lots of kids arriving.  Many of those kids turned out to be bucklings. Normally, that's not what folks raising goats want. But as it turns out, this year all those buck kids became a major blessing when 4-H kids started contacting us for show wethers.  This month we've sold every available show wether we have on the farm!  That feels incredible.  I'm so thankful for those kids and moms who diligently hunted down their 2011 market animals at our farm.

This is the first year we've sold 4-H show/market wethers and it's been fun and interesting to meet these kids who are really excited about picking out their wethers with us. They've all been great kids. I love their enthusiasm for what they're doing. I look forward to the 'going home' day when after the bucks have become wethers and they go home with their new owners. We'll sadly be saying good-bye to the babies born on our farm at the same time these 4-Her's are happily embracing new relationships with their goats. An ending AND a beginning.

There are lots of those living on a farm. Somehow these endings and beginnings and all the challenges and emotions that come with them are changing us. Even being 'retired' feels like a beginning with all the new things to learn and all the new experiences that crop up everyday. I'm glad we bought the farm and I think often how it's name "Kindlehope Farm" really is kindling inside us the hope that there is so much more to come, many firsts left to have and lots of life yet to live.

It's not like I'm feeling really old - we 'retired' pretty young - but there are those moments. Achy joints, graying hair, and sleepy afternoons that want to make me feel older than I am. Until I deliver a new kid or two, put in a day of caring for goats that need a 'spa day' bad and walking away feeling like I've done something significant, worked hard, and deserve time sitting in my comfy reading chair with a good book.
A well earned rest is lots better than long days with nothing to do or look forward to except more long days with nothing to do... well, you get the idea.

I'm really a farmer junkie... gotta have a healthy dose of farming and animals to feel good.