Sorrow and Joy

Last Sunday was a big day here at the Hill farm.  Daisy, one of our goats, started showing signs of labor on Saturday afternoon.  So we spent a long night checking on her and waiting for babies.  Well...nothing happened.  So on Sunday we went out to the shop to work on a project Jeremy had for work.  We checked her several times as she was definitely in active labor at this point.  Just before 1130 we abandoned our work in the shop and went to assist Daisy.  Her first kid was born breach and still born.  It was heart braking to see that little tiny body limp and lifeless.  The best we can figure was that he had been dead for a while because he was much smaller and very stinky.    However within seconds she was pushing out the face of another kid and to our absolute elation the little nose was twitching and sniffing.  This kid was born in just minutes (maybe even quicker). We worked with her to get him cleaned off but he just did not want to stand and he was shivering a lot.  So we brought him in the house and milked her quickly so he could get some colostrum as soon as possible.  Once he was completely dry and warm he stood up and was a perky little goat kid.  He was quickly moved out to the shop in the kid pen (but not before he peed on my shower mat).

For the first few feedings the little guy, who has now been named Oberon (explanation to follow), needed help latching onto the bottle and we had to hold his head still so he wouldn't pull off the nipple.  Now though he just latches right on and is drinking lots and lots of milk.  He is much cuter then the below picture shows.  He didn't want to hold still for his photo shoot so its a little blurry but just know that he is SO ADORABLE in real life.

This is little Oberon after his first feeding when he was literally minutes old.  

So most of you are probably wondering about his name.  You may know that his daddy is named Romeo.  So we decided to follow suit and use names from Shakespeare.  So who knows which play Oberon comes from?  Anyone?  Well as much as I would love to keep you guessing I feel that it wouldn't be nice.  So, Oberon is the king of the fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream.  This is a play that I loved in high school so it was the first play I thought to look at for choosing names.  I am not sure if we will be holding with the Shakespeare theme for the girls since both of our current girls have cutesy names but we have a couple of weeks to decide and even then who knows, we might get both boys again.  We are hoping for two does from Cocoa but who knows.  

So even though we were totally heart broken that we don't have two little boys to show off in this blog but we appreciate this happy healthy baby so much and we love his little kisses and his little noises and as soon as his mom's milk is usable we will have wonderful yummy milk to drink and make cheese with!  (I will blog later about our plans for this years milk)

Changes

Oh how life changes.  After much prayer and pondering our lives are in for a change.  I have decided that although I love and will miss Camp Hippo, I am going to take a new job.  I will be working with adults again, mostly older adults, in a post acute rehab center in Idaho Falls.  It was a difficult decision to leave my wonderful coworkers and the kids that I have come to love so much.  However this change is something that we feel will be a good change for me and us as a couple. I will be working day shifts with rotating days off.

I am excited for the new adventure but at the same time I am very nervous.  I know that good things are coming for us though no matter what happens.

Other changes in our lives include the impending arrival of baby goats.  Daisy is due any time now, in fact she is overdue.  Cocoa isn't due until the end of the month but once the first set of babies come and we get back to milking the month is going to fly by and the babies will be here before we know it!  We bought a buck of our own this fall.  His name is Romeo.  He has gorgeous coloring and our Daisy is so pretty, we are hoping for beautiful babies from them!  I have no idea what to expect from Cocoas babies but am anxious to find out what they will look like as well.

We are planning on expanding our horizons in relation to our goats.  I have been doing lots of research on goat milk products like soap, lotion, body butter, lip balm, sugar scrub...the list is long and very exciting.  We are also working on getting our milk certified so that we can sell milk and food products made from the milk. Even though we aren't certified I am planning on trying new cheese for family use.  I'm really wanting to make Mozzarella which I think I will be ordering the necessary ingredients for that just as soon as we have enough milk.

Well, I will post more and I get settled into my job and I will definitely post baby pictures once they arrive.