The Great Goat Experience...or...You Would Have Been Laughing Hysterically at Us.

We are now the proud new owners of three lovely goats. They have been dubbed thusly: Princess, Lady, and lil' Shortcake. They are milking goats. We have never had milking goats. We have had chickens. Just a lil' FYI, chickens and goats are nothing alike. We have had horses....the only similarities thus far are, that they are both mammals.

I would like to take the moment to offer a word of advice to any and all who may be looking into a similar venture. The word is: milking-stand. If you get dairy goats and you do not have said milking stand, prepare to feel like an absolute goober. You will quickly find that a goat can climb anything. By that, I mean that a goat can climb you, the bales of hay behind you and then...the barn wall.

We did not have a milking-stand on our first day. I will pause while those of you who are experienced with goats, laugh hysterically at us........
Anywhooo, we did not have the aforementioned necessary piece of dairy goat accessories. In our naivete, we thought to ourselves, 'Surely, we can just tie them whilst we milk them.'

'Ahah!' thought the goats,' Surely not!'

Just to assuage all fears at this moment, the goats are all alive...and so, by the Grace of God, are we.

My poor daughter, who is a romantic to a fault, had her romantic vision of gently and serenely milking these beautiful does, pummeled into the ground along with her toes as these dainty ladies danced the Cha-cha  all over our poor unsuspecting bodies.

Now, you must understand, these lovely ladies are not bad...we were just not very bright and were utterly unprepared.

First of all, no milking-stand. Second, no grain. Third, no brain. Oi.

There we were, with these goats who have never seen us before; excited children dancing around, other excited children riding their bicycles around us (showing off for the goats dontcha know!), some not so thrilled children crying, dogs acting like their brains had been removed and running circles around us, and my daughter and I...looking for all things like we were part of a goat rodeo. We were at a loss...why wasn't this working?! My daughter had to leave to go to work. My heart went out to her. She looked so discouraged and sad.

Through much wrangling, we were able to milk these poor girls enough to, at least, feed the little doeling and relieve them of some...uh...pressure. I was not looking forward to the next morning.

That evening, as I studiously researched "How to Milk a Goat,"  my husband was off leading a Bible study.  One of the ladies, who attends this study, has had dairy goats. In her sweet and forthright way she quickly informed my husband of all that we had done wrong...which was almost everything.

Those poor girls.

But, they are forgiving wee lassies. A fact for which we are extremely grateful.

In the wee hours of the morning, this morning, my husband arose from the cozy warmth of our bed, bundled himself and stepped out into the frosty morn. What a man. He went out to the barn and built my daughter a milking-stand. We were still without grain, however, the morning milking session was much less traumatic than the previous evening, and, this evening (after purchasing some grain) it went even better still!

We are bruised. We are sore. We are getting closer to getting the hang of things. And the goats still like us. Now if we could just keep their feet out of the milk bucket...but, hey, baby steps right?

Praise the Lord!

Oh...and just so you are not worried...no, we aren't drinking their milk yet.