Empty Trailers And Dreams

Shouldering shovels and a pitchfork, my helper, Renee and I made our way down to the empty trailer late this afternoon. My daughter's friend, Ellie tagged along to help. The mission: clean out two feet of old sawdust bedding from last spring's baby goats who called the trailer home for the first eight weeks of life.

As we shoveled and scraped and shoveled some more, I looked around the empty room. In my mind's eye I could still see last year's babies running and jumping all over the room. We unearthed a wooden box, half-buried in sawdust, and I placed it to one side, with a smile. It will be back in use this winter, for little goats to take turns playing "King of the Castle" as they fight to knock each other out of the way.

Very soon, the quiet room will be filled with the noise of the automatic milk feeder whirring in the background, as kids bleat and call out when we enter the trailer, stomping the snow and ice from our boots. Baseboard heaters on the wall keep the kid trailer at a comfortable fifty degrees which will seem very warm after the two hundred yard trek across the yard from the dairy barn.

It's a busy time when the babies start arriving. We are only expecting about two-hundred-and-fifty kids over a three month period. It sounds like a lot, but it isn't so bad. Last year, with almost three-hundred dairy goats, we delivered over seven hundred babies and some days, I thought I'd never see the house again.

For now, I will dream of those days to come; of cute baby goats and winter's wonderland, and try not to think about blizzard warnings and the twenty-below temperatures that seem to coincide with the day the does decide to start having babies!