Goat Dreams

Two years ago we started our journey with the purchase of 2 Nigerian Dwarf Goats. Bonnie (a doe) and Don Pedro (a whether), won us over with their antics and affection and we found ourselves spending hours watching them.

In the second year, we started dreaming of goat cheese. OK, I will admit I tend to leap over every early step to the end and really was dreaming of owning a goat dairy that made the best marinated Chevre in the state/universe. I know...I had never milked a goat at the time so feel free to laugh loudly. Secretly, I still believe it will happen one day. Even if it doesn't, what fun is life without outrageous dreams?

In the year in between, we bought a bred doe and watched her like proud parents for the months leading up to her freshening. Now cue the real laughter. We stayed up all night on her due date in a kidding pen prepared for this big moment. There were Christmas lights twinkling, fresh shavings on the floor and all sorts of stainless steel milking equipment shining brightly in the kitchen. I could taste the goat cheese. I had read every book and blog possible, been to the Vermont Cheesemaking Festival, toured Maine goat farms on Open Farm Day, and taken a class at local farm. So, when Chianti began pawing the ground and trying to sit on our laps, we just knew this was the moment. Many sleepless hours and hopeful blog posts on Goat Beat later ("Sometimes they go way past their due date right?"), we discovered Chianti had what a man at the Cumberland Fair called a "Precocious Udder". Meaning a tricky one that looks to be developing because a doe is pregnant, but actually is just a way to make the new goat owner with crazy dreams look very silly. She is still my favorite goat even after her false pregnancy, and it helps that I believe she truly thought she was pregnant too. My friends at work will forever have a wealth of ammunition when they want to make fun of me.

This Christmas, a visiting Buck Renga came for a holiday and finally the magic happened. Five months later, we are now a step closer to those crazy dreams. Three sweet kids are in the barn, healthy and scampering and unbelievably cute. And truthfully although that goat cheese is still a faraway dream, for now, it is dreamy enough just to spend hours in the stalls holding our first kids.