You may have read my other goat blog entries…I’ve decided to continue this writing in the form of a journal.  Please feel free to add comments, answer my questions or ask your own questions as you read and share in my goat journeys…

Let me introduce them to you.  Tilly is grayish-brown Queen of our small herd of two Alpine milking goats.  Venus, mostly black with a white markings, the feisty, playful adolescent; she was just a babe a short few months ago.

My once felt post-partum feelings back in summer have shifted to love and loyalty to my new goat family.  “Tilly, Venus…good morning girls”, I yell to them each morning as I walk down to be greeted by them at the gate.  They are just so adorable, even though they each weigh probably 100 pounds by now.  Venus has turned into a little ‘porker’.  She’s still feeding some from her mom and eats more than I can imagine.  Tilly seems to eat even more than Venus, but she isn’t getting her mom’s fresh milk to supplement her diet like Venus.

Tilly is giving us milk now.  We seem to have a biodynamic relationship with one another.  Nick just finished closing in their ‘home’ for winter and right after this her milk seemed to double.  One morning I had a very sweet interaction with her while milking her.  After that morning I give her a huge hug every time she’s in the milking station or stanchion.  We seem to communicate psychically with one another, not always, but oftentimes.  Even Venus seems to understand this relationship that Tilly and I seem to be building together.

Venus is awfully cute.  In the mornings after Tilly is on top of the stanchion and Venus is waiting for her morning grains, Venus will sometimes lift herself into the window area and look at us to see what we are doing.  They know the sounds of our large blue metal bin door’s squeaky opening.  Sometimes during the day if I’m inside opening the door, they both come running to the familiar squeaky sound, looking at me as if saying “What are you doing, it’s the middle of the day; it’s not feeding time, but we’ll eat if you feed us”.

I really love this new lifestyle with these animals.  Learning about them is fascinating to me.  I feel more part of the natural world as I am around them, observing their actions, habits and ways.   They are earthlings for sure.  They do not like water, neither still nor running water.  Rain is not their friend.  Other than the rain though, the Northwest climate seems to be friendly for them.  The temperature seems mild enough to agree with their needs.