It’s been a minute since I’ve written anything, and that’s because we’ve got goat kids on our farm! Kidding season hit us with an impromptu I-didn’t-know-my-goat-was-pregnant flash-bang, and off we went! I went out to the barn to do evening farm chores on February 8, 2020, and I couldn’t find my goat.

“My goat has run away.” That was my actual thought.

She always stands at the pasture gate and mehs at me around the evening milking time, and this time when I went out there, she was nowhere to be found.

I went into the barn, and there was Killdeer, standing in the area where she and Buttercup sleep, and at her feet were three freshly born goat kids. I was flabbergasted!

I ran to one of the babies and scooped it up, and just sort of ran out into the pasture outside the barn. A little dazed. A lot confused. Not unlike how I felt when I went into labor with my own first human child. Just sort of stumbling about the pasture, trying to figure out what to do next.

And I laughed. Just complete and utter shock. And joy. Oh my gosh! The instant joy and excitement of goat kids! Especially ones I didn’t know were going to happen.

I’m reminded of another mother who didn’t know – or didn’t believe – that she’d have children of her own. Her name was Sarah. Not that human children are the same as goat kids, but just go with me on this one. There’s a lesson there; I promise.

I’ve been going through a study with a group of ladies at my church, and we are reading the Bible cover to cover in about a year’s time. And there are so many things I just simply overlooked in these stories of old in all my past readings. Stories that I’ve heard since I was a kid, or ones I watched animated vegetables singing about. But you know how when you go back and watch a movie as an adult and finally get all the jokes and catch things you didn’t when you were eight? It’s like that.

Things like how Sarah laughed when she was told that she would have a baby in her old age. How she was called out for laughing to herself, and how she claimed she didn’t actually laugh out loud. And then when she did finally give birth to her son, Abraham named him “He laughs” (Isaac).

Maybe her first laugh was more of a scoff, doubting and thinking about how she was technically too old to have a baby. I just think it’s interesting that when that promised baby was finally born, they called him “he laughs.” Maybe when he was born, instead of a laugh of doubt and scorn, it became a laugh of jubilation at the experience of the miracle that was this birth. I don’t know, but maybe.

Life is funny.

Something I’m learning is that the people of the past – whether written about in the Bible, or in other historical texts – people are people. We don’t really change much in who we are and how we operate. There’s just something inherently flawed in our nature. I still cannot wrap my mind around the fact that Abraham’s family tree is really more of a wreath. Have you looked into the genealogy? There’s a lot of marrying each other’s cousins. And I know things were different back then, so it is what it is. I’m just glad I didn’t have to marry any of my cousins; no offense, because they’re great. But they’re my cousins. Soooo… it’s a no for me.

Almost every time I read about Reuben, or Laban, or Rebekah, or Jacob and Esau, I think, “But why!? And how come??” I mean, there are some moments where I just kind of have to scratch my head, and I wonder about people. Have you read Genesis 34 about Dinah and her brothers Simeon and Levi? You should. It’s a real humdinger. Or the one about Judah (the man for which a tribe of Israel is named – and it’s the one from which Jesus came, by the way) and his daughter-in-law. I look at the stories of these people, and while I can shake my head at the audacity and the ridiculous things they did, I also have to realize I’m not that far off.

Sure, I didn’t marry my cousin, or slaughter a city of freshly circumcised men, or trick my father-in-law into believing I was a prostitute, but I’ve still done some pretty dumb stuff. Questionable things. I’ve had selfish motives, a bad attitude, jealousy, anger, etc… No one is immune to human emotions, and since we’re only human, none of us is immune to error either. Everyone messes up.

The people in the Bible, and in history, were real people, and they messed up, made mistakes, wrestled with God, doubted, murdered. They are not unlike the people on earth today. People are people. They’re just like you, and they’re just like me.

Complex. Irrational. Conflicted. Surprising. You name a trait of someone today, and I’m sure there’s bound to be someone just like them in the past. Genesis, Esther, John, or otherwise.

I don’t know what all of this means, exactly, but I am glad that in spite of all my fears and failings, God stays the same. And He’s patient with me, just like He must have been with the people He called out and made promises to in the original covenant. And that’s why I’m thankful there’s a new covenant, that Jesus came to die, came to seek and save the lost. Because I so desperately needed to be sought and saved. I still do on a daily.

So back to the goats.

I’d had a brief moment about a week before the surprise goat triplets, where I noticed Killdeer’s udder getting larger than it had been, and she seemed a little bit fatter than she had been before, but other than that she looked completely normal, and I thought to myself, “Killdeer, are you pregnant!?” And then I just sort of dismissed it because I just knew that darn buck had only gotten out of the pasture that one time.

(Sure, he did. Go ahead and keep telling yourself that. Wesley has Ferg to thank for the wingman action that led to goat kid triplets. Ferguson, that’s literally your mother, and you just let your buddy… Okay, nevermind.)

I knew Buttercup was pregnant, and she was due sometime the next week. I had been making lists, watching kidding videos, consulting goat mentors, collecting kidding supplies, all in preparation for Buttercup’s babies, not even realizing that Killdeer was about to need all these same things. And what’s funny is that I bought all these things, and then Killdeer just did the entire thing by herself, with no help from me or anyone, and nature pretty much just took care of nature, without me. Which is fine. I’m bummed I missed the birth, because that would have been awesome. But I’m just glad it all went without a hitch. Sometimes you can prepare and prepare, and then life just throws you a curveball.

My training and mom instincts finally kicked in, and I thought to call Hubby and the kids to help bring the goat babies into the house. That way, I could finish drying them off, suction their noses, and give them a check-up.

Two bucklings and one doeling. We started calling them P1, P2, and P3. The American Dairy Goat (ADGA) assigns a letter for the year, and then the number following the letter is the birth order of any goat kid born on your farm during that year. The letter P is for the year 2022, and we had three goat kids. I actually have no idea the order in which they were born, but I just went ahead and assigned them all a number.

A week to the day later, and Buttercup threw twins. Guess what? I missed that kidding, too.

I wasn’t as surprised by this kidding, since I knew that Buttercup was pregnant. But that girl had not shown a single sign of being in labor. Her tail ligaments were still there, she was quiet, she didn’t have any kind of fluid leak. Nothing. All was quiet on the western front.

Of course, it seemed like a perfect day to make soap.

There was a moment where I just felt like I needed to go out there and check on her. I knew she could kid at any point during the week, so I went out there to check on her. And there were her two goat kids – one buckling and one doeling – on the ground, still slick with amniotic fluid, squirming on the ground just in the door of the barn. I must have missed these births by mere minutes.

Because of soap.

But no matter, Buttercup was a rockstar. Everything went off without a hitch, which I am so thankful for, since this was her very first kidding. She had a look on her face that begged to know, “What the heck just happened to me?” because she just sort of stood there with her typical bewildered gaze. I scooped up the babies and whisked them away to the house because it was a little colder that day than it had been a week ago, and the babies were shivering.

I yelled for the kids to come help me, and I tasked them with toweling off and blowing dry the kids with a hair dryer. I ran back outside to check on Buttercup.

Fortunately, I’d already done this the week prior, so I was a little more level headed this time around.

Ask my husband and kids, and they’d probably tell you otherwise, but in my mind, I was the epitome of goat kidding and postpartum knowledge.

So, within a week’s time, we went from four goats to nine, and it’s been a roller coaster ever since. I wanted to keep them all, but because I want my goats’ family tree to not look like Abraham’s family wreath, I need to find them new homes on other farms, so they can bring joy to other families with dairy goat farm dreams. We just have three goat kids left to sell, and I’m hopeful that we will soon find a buyer (or buyers) for them.