Bridget and Willow - The Story We Forgot To Tell

When we first took Willow in and I started bottle feeding her, I became the closest thing she had to a mother. I took that responsibility seriously and did the best I could to give her the care she needed to recover and thrive, but couldn't help but be very aware of the fact that I wasn't a goat. I wouldn't be able to teach her how to forage, show her what to eat and the right time to eat it, or teach by example, the plants to avoid eating at all costs. I wouldn't be able to nurse her and know instinctively when she'd had enough. I wouldn't be able to support her while she learned the ins and outs of the social hierarchy of our goat herd. I wouldn't be able to assure she'd ever be accepted by them. These are all things that a dam or mother goat will do for her young, and I wished I could somehow do for Willow. While wishing didn't turn me into a goat, it did seem to turn a certain goat of ours into a mother. To our amazement, Bridget has taken over that role for Willow and watching their relationship evolve over this past month has touched us deeply. I realized, while talking about it with Scrapple's Dad last week, that we hadn't shared much of their story with you. Actually - I haven't shared much at all (postcards don't count) in the past weeks! A good long update has been way overdue. This seemed like a good place to start.

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Hard Work and Long Hours


Little Willow coming along for a paddock shift. Goats are lucky Izzy's not around to witness them licking her food bowl!This is a follow-up to @shmeedie’s questions from Twitter a couple weeks ago. The question was this:

I would love to see a post about how you're adjusting to the long hours, hard work, and general transition to farm life.

The first post addressed Social Isolation on the farm. This post is about adjusting to the labor intensity and the long hours. Same as the last post, I can’t comment for Sweetbreads since we have our own roles and responsibilities on the farm.

The hard work is something I looked forward to, so it hasn’t been too much of a surprise for me. I got restless in the city. I continue to work a day-job, so yes the hours are tough sometimes. I do an hour or two’s worth of work in the morning and at least two hours at night. That means waking up around 5:30am, working til around 7am and then working again from 6pm til 8pm or later. I don’t know what will happen when it starts getting dark closer to 6pm, but we’ll figure it out.

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