Goats, Thanksgiving and Black Friday

I find most holidays hectic. While I love having family over, I don't often get the chance to visit because I'm busy putting the meal together. This year I decided to do things differently.

First, I wasn't using my best dishes (they can't go in the dishwasher). Instead I got nice plastic throw-aways.  Also, I wasn't cooking the Thanksgiving turkey on Thanksgiving. For the past few years our homegrown turkeys have been much bigger than most cooking charts cover, so I've guessed the timing and we've had to wait for the turkey to finish while the potatoes got cold and the stuffing got mushy. This year I cooked the turkey the day before Thanksgiving- it took 6 hours. I also carved it up and laid it out on a steaming rack, ready to heat up quickly when needed.

Thanksgiving morning I woke up with the delusion that everything was done and I was ready to enjoy the holiday. This was going to be the first year I would actually have time to talk to people while sitting in the living room. I was in the midst of enjoying my quiet kitchen and smiling over this thought when Joe came in from the barn and changed everything. A doe - a very big, pregnant doe carrying kids we'd been anticipating arriving for the past two weeks decided to kid - now.

I guess I should have known this doe would pick this day.  There she is in the picture. Her name is Valentine. As her name implies she was born on Valentine's Day. Last year she had her kids on Christmas Eve. Since Thanksgiving is a holiday, she'd clearly decided it was the perfect time for her to have her kids.

After 4+ hours of labor she presented us with two great kids - black bucklings. They are wonderful, but the time she took to have them ruined my dream of a casual Thanksgiving Dinner with the family. Instead, I was wearing barn grubbies and up to my wrists in goat goo, pulling kids from their tired mom. Once the kids arrived we figured we'd retreat to the house for our Thanksgiving feast, but Valentine hadn't appreciated the holiday guests who wanted to see the new babies. They made her so nervous she fumbled around the kidding pen stepping on baby toes and almost laying on her kids in an attempt to protect them from people she didn't know. We had to ban the guests back to the house while we stayed behind to keep her from accidentally injuring her babies.

I spent the next hour running back and forth between the house and barn taking care of goats and finishing dinner while Joe stayed with Valentine. Once  everyone settled into the meal, I took Joe's Thanksgiving dinner to him in the barn and went back to eat dinner hurriedly with the family.

I didn't get time for nice conversations with anyone as I gave Joe a needed break. By the time I finally made it to my living room to sit down everyone was gone.

Joe and I ate leftovers for supper in the house and even put our feet up for a few minutes to watch TV. Then he went back out to check on the Valentine and her kids. When he came back it was with the news that another doe was in labor and about to deliver.

We went back to the barn for a couple more hours. Dulcie gave us two beautiful does. Being as there was no longer any company around, we lingered in the barn. Joe fed the goats and I took pictures of the new kids to share on Facebook and put on our webpage.

It had been dark for awhile by the time we closed up the barn and went back to the house. Having yummy apple pie late went a long way to making the entire day feel so much better. It also kept awake. I stayed up way too late Thanksgiving night putting kid pictures up on Facebook and revamping the farm webpage to announce their births.

The pictures above are Valentine's boys and here is one of Dulcie with her doelings.

After going to bed late - very late - I woke up the next morning and was was lazily enjoying the idea of sleeping in when Joe (who always gets up early) broke into my happy thoughts to tell me there were  more kids in the barn. Three more kids to be exact.

After a mad rush to dress and race bleary-eyed to the barn, I was presented with a set of triplets by Suzy-Q. She had spared us hours of waiting by handling their birth all by herself. Her babies were clean and fed and ready for us to admire. She had two bucks and a gorgeous doe. They were Our Black Friday deals delivered to the barn.

Here's Suzy-Q surrounded by her lovely kids. They all have spots and are the most colorful group of kids we've had born on the farm.

After taking more pictures and doing all the things that needed to be done to make sure they were on the right track to staying healthy, we went in the house - but not back to bed.

Our twice a month housekeeper arrived within minutes to noisily clean the house and we had errands to run.

Its a new day now, almost 2 am Saturday morning. It's been a long day, but my kidding pens are full of moms and babies. My email and Facebook friends have kindly offered congratulations and nice comments about the new additions to our herd. Who could ask for more? But I did get more. When I ran through the rain to visit the barn this afternoon to see that everyone was doing well, it was quiet. It was kid nap time, no more fuss, no more needs, just happy moms and sleeping kids. Peace at last and enough quiet time to feel thankful.