Dear Farmer's Morning Call

It is slightly unusual that Dear Farmer will call from the barn.
If we get a phone call, it's usually not good.
"I need help!" is most often the message.
So when the phone rang this morning, the Wife shouted-"It's Pop!"-before she even answered.  Children began scurrying and searching for shoes.  The house was in general chaos.

On the other end, this is what we heard:
"There is the cutest baby goat down here!  He's about four hours old."

A hip-hooray from the children went the cheer, and out the door they flew!
Babies are the chocolate of the job, with whipping creame and a cherry on top!  Baby Goats are nearly the most adorable thing we have ever seen.  They even rank higher than baby ducks(which are pretty darned cute as well).
And so, the children rushed down to say "good morning" to our newest member of the farm family...Peppercorn.  And a hearty congrats to his mom, Cumin.

We don't mind these phone calls from the barn ONE BIT!

Late-Night Hay Feeding

Dear Farmer was all in a tizzy...rain was coming!
 Lots of rain, over a relatively short time, makes the fields very sloppy for the tractor.
Sloppy for the Farmer.
Sloppy for the feeding process.
Dear Farmer HAD to get fifteen very large square bales out into the fields before the rain came and he would not be able to traverse the tractor-path due to rain.
Hooking up to the hay-forks and loading a helper(WhizBang!Farmer's Daughter) onto the tractor, out they went....two bales at a time...this means they would need to make ten trips to get the cows the needed fourteen bales of hay and three new-to-us feeders into the fields.
They started the process at four-thirty in the afternoon. Tractors don't move very fast.  The process of just picking up two bales can be time consuming.
By five the rain started coming. Little drops can feel really big when you're in an open cab riding in the open fields.
By five-thirty the temperatures started dropping. The two made a quick dash inside for winter coats and gear.  They were feeling the cold chill quick!
By six in the evening the wind kicked up. They were on trip six and just hoping to get in before...
By six-fifteen it was pretty dark.
By six-thirty it was dark and the family was sitting down to dinner...feeling a little bad that we were eating grilled pork chops(Dear Farmer's favorite meal) and he was still on a tractor working. DONE!  Now they just had to park the tractor back down at the machine shed and walk back home in the cold, dark, rain.
Dear Farmer and the WhizBang!Farmer's Daughter sat down to dinner.  We had the food warm, the woodstove hot, and the fellowship lively.
Dear Farmer won't be doing that one again soon.  He can sit back and enjoy the rain...

The Goats are Messing Up the Barn

Dear Farmer is in the midst of a frustrating situation.  The Goats are being goats.
They are climbing his hay like mountains and while doing so, they are making a mess of the hay.
The Goats are jumping and romping up the steep cliffs of the bales as though it were nothing.  They bounce around like they have anti-gravity-hooves.  They are healthy, happy, and energized Goats.
Gone are the days of Dear Farmer having the barn all to himself, the hay remaining neatly stacked until he fed it...the Goats are terrorizing his solitude.  The Goats seem to have no concern for the neatness in the hay bales.
 Dear Farmer is aghast!
He comes inside at night shaking his head and moaning..."my hay.  they are wrecking my hay bales..."
The Wife looks at Dear Farmer.
She has two children hanging on either leg, snotty smiles and giggles.  She is holding a baby who needs a diaper change(again).  The living room is covered in legos and children. An art project is strewn out on the table with more children.  There is lots of activity inside the house.  Yelling, laughing, thumping activity. Happy and healthy, energized children.
The Wife offers to Dear Farmer, "I'll send the children out to the barn to help you clean up from the Goats."
 Dear Farmer actually looks around, at the Wife, at the house, at the children.
"No...I'll go clean it up later." , he says.
And Dear Farmer goes back out to his barn...and the Goats.  It's really not that bad of a mess down at the barn.

What Country-Folk Don't See

The trip to the City was eye-opening for both Dear Farmer and the Wife.  There's oodles of ladies walking around in fashionable muck-boots and riding-boots...they've never seen and ounce of muck or manure. There were no animals in a ten square radius of where we were.  There were lots of stop-lights at nearly every corner.  There were lights absolutely EVERYWHERE, we couldn't see the moon there were so many lights at night, it looked like daytime.  There were more cars than we count in a month.  There were so many restaurants to choose from, and then you could go to an indoor gym on each corner or strip-mall.
Country-folk don't see things like this.  When we look outside we see fields and trees, barns and equipment, fences, the moon and the stars. When Country-folk go to town, we don't dress like we do for the barn work.  So far as all those stop-lights goes...Dear Farmer has always said, "If the town has to get a stop light, it's time for us to move, it's getting too crowded."
For the record, Dear Farmer and the Wife are pleased here in the Country.  A day away from where you live is fun.  To see all the things you don't see on a daily basis.  It was wonderful for us and then to go home to what we know and love.