WooooooooooWhoooooo SPRING!!!

Lets just say that spring....is initially not a "pretty" season.  Everything is brown and dingy, dog poop and manure piles cover the ground....everything is soft and mushy and tracks in on your muck boots.  Yet around the granite foundations of many a Maine house, there are hardy little flowers popping up and getting ready to produce there little fragrant blossoms....Oh the joy of spring and what it entails....that is after you get through mud season. 
This time of year makes me long for the green house and dirt of the earth...It makes me want to grow stuff, flowers and food for beautification and sustenance.  Its such an exciting time.  I'm looking forward to our first year at the farmers market here in Casco and know we will develop friendships and a loyal following of our farm products.  This year, because of our unlicensed status, we will give our products away and hope that our customers will give a donation to the building of the farm cause.  A commercial kitchen and a licensed milk room are imperative to making this farm financially viable.  And those are just steps one and two.  The future of this piece of property, our farm is unbelievably exciting....Don't you think.
We want you to come and visit...come see our process....see the animals....try our milk, cheese and other wonderful dairy products, like Vanilla Bean Ice Cream. 
How else will you know how cool farming can be, how exciting this life choice is and what a rewarding life you can lead living on the farm.  Come check it out...
Thanks for reading folks.....feel free to comment on my blog, I would welcome feed back and ideas.
You are all the best!
Thanks.
the friendly female farmer

This is the view from the back of the barn.....Not bad EHHHH!

Full Moon

There is just something about a full moon that makes you want to stay up all night and watch it move through the sky.  Its majestic and alluring.  It definitely has a very magnetic feel to it this evening.  The weather is clear and bright and perfect for star gazing.  I really enjoy going out late and looking at the sky, seeing if I can see a shooting star in time for a wish. To contemplate life and my choices.  Its a time when no one is bothering you for this or that and you can just be CALM.  The days have been long, with school, the farm and everything else that life entails.  My life under the full moon is sweet people....sweet I tell ya! 
Thank you all for checking this out...new things are happening and they are all exciting...stay tuned for some big announcements and plans for our farm.

the friendly female farmer....

IN a total tired zone....

So I have been starring off into space for the last 2 minutes, not sure exactly why....I know one thing, I'm tired.  It just hit me, my brain is tired and my body is tired...so I am only going to be a few minutes here tonight folks.  Another set of babies was born this afternoon, a buckling and a doeling.  A beautiful brown color with black and white markings.  I'm dumbfounded but I keep finding myself in a daze....( giggle ) there are still 5 more does to kid out....goodness who was I kidding thinking this would be realitively easy....Ha ha ha ha....no way peeps is this easy.  So I am going to bed to sleep for a few hours...then back up again to milk the mom who kidded tonight, feed those babies...back to bed up at 4am to feed the other 5 and the 2 new ones....and on top of all this...I have to think of 2 really cool names for these little beasties...Wish me luck Ya'll.
the friendly female farmer....

Mother Nature, Your such a Tease!!!!

Looking out the window right now, you would never know its about 23 degrees.  The trees are swaying back and forth, the sun is shining, and you can see bare ground, where the snowmobile trail "used" to be.  But it is 23 out and the wind is blowing like a royal bitch....excuse my french....but my god its windy here....Chicago ain't got nothing on us baby.  Mother Nature is really playing with us right now...I heard on the news that we have storm coming on Tuesday, a doozie that may just drop 12 inches in our neck of the woods....Yippy skippy, if I still had the Durango, I wouldn't blink an eye...but when you drive a tiny VW Beetle, things are much different in the world of racing down the Maine turnpike....
Maybe If I am super duper lucky they will be getting similar amounts in Wells, and school may be canceled, mind you I am not excited about missing class, but I am excited about not having to drive in the shitty snowstorm....
Well can you feel that I am sick and tired of cold and snow, and ready for spring and its renewal properties...I need to dig in the dirt, plant and replant seedlings, transplant poppies and share with friends.  Fix fencing and release the goats for a day of nibbling....Rake and mow, rake and mow....perpetual motion on the farm, milk the goats and make cheese....bake bake bake and day trip it to our local farmers market....giving our products away in hopes of a donation to the cause...
This past winter has been a real challenge.....ups and downs and all around...but we have come out of it positively in tack and motivated for the arrival of spring....For us its the beginning of our next chapter here at the farm.  So many new and exciting things happening here, and we hope you all who take the time to read this silly little musing can be apart of it as we progress....Stay tuned for some very exciting things happening here....
Thank you for taking the time out of your day....I appreciate it!

the friendly female farmer...

Sleep Deprived and thrilled about it....

For those of you who have ever been in the barn and liked it, you know there is something special about a barn.  Especially when its warm and full of happy animals.  OFten I have found myself quiet and introspective in the barn....and when I think back, it was always during the day.  In the last few years, and especially in the recent few weeks, I have found that the late night feedings in the barn have a totally different feeling...a quiet that is much different than the quiet of the day.  In the wee hours of the night, when the animals have relaxed enough to lay down and really sleep, layed out with their legs flung to the sides....now thats really sleeping...The sounds they make, that comfort me in knowing they are dreaming away in total comfort and safety.  I feel as if I am the guardian of my warm and comfy barn, and especially now that the first kids have been born.  I go to the barn, bleery eyed and tired, but rejoice in the fact that two perfect little goat kids, jump up and rush to butt me in the knees as I enter their stall for their feeding.  I then get to watch them suck down their bottles, eyes often times rolled in the back of  there heads....they finish with a bleet and go to climbing on me like the human jungle gym...I could spend all day sitting in the hay playing with them, but before I know it 45 minutes have gone by and its 1245am and I need to get up at 5.....Goodness I am pooped right out...but again, I am thrilled to be a farmer chick, and I wouldn't trade this job for anything else....
I am thankful everyday, for the farm and my friends, and you all that read this crazy postings...even when I haven't posted in a few days....
Thanks Again Ya'll....

the friendly female farmer and DiNozo and Ziva....

Spring has sprung...in the form of wobbly legged goat kids...

I can't really express to you in words the feeling you get when you go out to the barn and see the beginnings of a goat birth....I ran to the house to tell my husband it was starting, and to grab towels and the like to clean up babies after they were born.  Our first goat to kid, is a first freshener and she didn't take to kindly to being a mommy...Which is totally fine, because we are bottle feeding all the kids anyway....Another whole story all together. 

As I am technically a first freshener as well...Meaning this is my first run at having goats, I went to the bad place first.  The doeling that was born first just had here little hooves sticking out, and all I could imagine was that it wasn't going to be alive...but with a few good pushes by her mommy, the little baby slide out onto the hay and inside the sack I could see it moving around.  I got the baby all cleaned and waited to the other to show itself....15 minutes later a baby buckling came into the world all gangly legged and awkward...

All I can say is that its amazing to watch birth first hand.....to give a little assistance when needed.  I didn't do much at all except clean them off and give them there first taste of moms milk...I need to hold them up and direct the teet into there mouths so they could suckle.  Now we are onto the bottle feeding and that in itself is worth all the wee hour feedings that will be done over the next few months.....

I know each and every birth will be different and awe inspiring, and some may not turn out as well as the first, but each will have a lesson, and will be a learning experience.  I am thrilled beyond belief that I have choose this path.......It has and will continue to bring me, Joy and Happiness I believe couldn't be found anywhere but on this little piece of heaven we call our farm....

Thank you all for being kind followers of this silly little blog.....Pictures of the yet to be named baby goats to follow....

the friendly female farmer....