Scary Sounds in the Goat Barn...

Just when you thought it was safe to go out in the dark...

Dogs bark.  Cats hiss.  Something is rustling in the Goat Barn...

Last night as the Halloween moon waned over the Farm, fearful eyes peered from around trees and under straw beds as moans escaped the corner goat pen and hung on the chilly night air.

Hair raises on my neck and my breath hitches as I open the door...to...find...

 

Our Newest Additions!!!

 

We named them Spooky and Boo!!

 

 

 

This sweet Halloween treat actually began as a "teenage" trick last June!   The teen-ager in question would be Elvis:

 

 

Yes, you!

 

What?!

 

One warm June night, exactly 5 months ago (that would be perfect goat gestational timing), Elvis scaled two fences and slunk into the girl's dormitory for a wild night of partying...Big Time Rebel, Elvis just wouldn't listen to reason and wait until August breeding season began...Oh no, Elvis was in a hormone-induced haze.  He started the party early!  And after all, he snorted, it was just one night...

 

One night is all it takes.  (Now I sound just like my mama!)

 

And do you think those teen-agers listen?  Of course not... they can't see beyond the next feed pail.  Do they even consider the consequences?  More children to feed, the end of sleeping in, not to mention saying good-bye to that girlish figure...

 

So, here we are 5 months later, under a moon-lit night... falling head over heels in love with Spooky and Boo!

 

 

No mistakes here...

 

Elvis, you may have rushed our man-made timing,

but there's nothing rushed with God's Grace-Filled Timing...

 

Gift of soft, warm, cuddly, goat-baby fluff... times two!!

 

A bit of Heaven for this Happy Goat Herder,

Love and Hugs,

            Jane

New Kids on the Block!

It's Twins!!

Our Cashmere herd has grown by two.  A boy and a girl!  Such fun in the barn today.  Nanny and kids are doing well!

A mother's touch...

It's universal, the awe of creation. A miracle everytime...

 

So, this is the Breakfast Buffet!

Hello.  Have we met?

Big brother is dying to know what all the fuss is about!

All tuckered out, napping under the heat lamps...

Welcoming these new little ones is always the highlight of our farming endeavors.  Their satiny coats and wobbly first steps, floppy ears and baby bleats make all the manure-hauling, fence-mending, 7-days a week feeding, hoof-trimming chores of the past year so very worthwhile!

Hours slip by, unheeded, as we watch the kids take in their brand-new world.  It dawned on me just moments ago, that for whole chunks of time this day cancer hasn't crossed my mind, nor spoiled the joy...  These kids are my therapy for today!

Mom and I talked often about ways to cope with the brutal reality of her pancreatic cancer, both physically and emotionally.   Being given a terminal diagnosis is like having sandbags slung around your neck, weights tied to your feet all the while standing on the edge of a very slippery slope into despair.

We struggled with the coping everyday - and many nights... 

We didn't find a magic formula, but we did come to realize that coping means different things for each of us.  Mom loved to travel, and she loved the symphony.  The coping was so much easier when she indulged in her loves.  Even when she became too weak to travel or attend the symphony, she listened to her favorite symphonic harmonies and took great pleasure in sharing stories of past trips.  Cancer would loose it's bitter hold during these brief respites.

For me, it's the farm and the animals.   Like today, while I reveled in the adorable antics of the new kids and ruffled coats of silk.  There was simple pleasure in the time spent soaking up the exuberance of new life.  Cancer took a back seat, if just for a little while. 

Pancreatic cancer can limit our ability to do the things we love, but giving them up isn't an option.  Finding ways to indulge our loves is so vital.  Whatever it is that brings you joy, opens your soul to happiness - that can be the means to coping with cancer for you.

Cancer weighs us down enough.  Every now and then I wake up to the fact that cancer is consuming my life minute by minute.  And I imagine yours too.   So, I'm giving myself permission to just wallow in the soul-satisfying, honest-to-goodness charm of this sweet face for a little bit longer...  Join me!

May your weekend be filled with simple pleasures.  Go indulge your loves...

Always in Grace, Jane

The Stretchmarks of Love

We're officially on Baby Watch!

Our beautiful angel-in-law, Kelli, is just days away from giving birth to our second granddaughter.

What excitement at our house!  The anticipation of seeing this precious baby face and counting all those fingers and toes can't be measured.  She and Travis are busy preparing the nursery, stocking diapers and packing overnight bags for the hospital.

In the meantime, Leroy and I are keeping busy with another kind of Kid Watch.  Our cashmere nannies are growing heavy with kids as well!

There is much to do in preparation on the farm for their anticipated arrival.  While winter days in Texas are usually delightful, the nights can be chilly and sometimes downright bitter, so our job as Happy Goat Herders is to make ready the stable:

Fences to keep the predators out...And the babies in!

Heat Lamps for Warmth,

Mangers overflowing with fragrant Hay, and, of course

Alerting Daisy, our faithful Goat Guardian to the impending arrival ...

Soon the birthing pains will begin.  As mothers we endure the unthinkable, bear the unbearable to bring new life into this fragile existence.  I watch Kelli cradle her belly, the dwelling place of her baby sweet.  Her frame is distended, skin drawn taut in protection of the unborn.

All mothers experience this miraculous stretching, expanding of self to make room for the frailness of love.  We acknowledge the pangs of birth, embrace the stretching, the pulling of ourselves to the outer edges of all we think possible...

The pain leaves stretchmarks.  On skin and on soul.  We will never be the same, the marks, the scars are but a breath-taking signature of life's design.

I know mom bore the stretchmarks of leaving us too soon.  She held to life when medicine and science said it shouldn't be.  Mom stretched in a gift of grace, letting God extend Himself in her life.  Even through the pain and brutal weakness the cancer caused her, she endured to the outer edge of selflessness, bearing love and hope to each of us.

Never deny the beauty of the stretchmarks in your life, the work of stretching, expanding, enduring.  They are the signs you are full to bursting with Love and Grace,

                                       Always in Grace,  Jane

Kids on the Lam

Here I am with one of "The Boys" from our cashmere goat herd.

Looks sweet doesn't he? You'd never know he was a fugitive from the Law. A kid on the lam. A rebel on the run... Scary, but true.

Leroy and I got home from running errands this weekend and found an ominous, but official notice on our front gate warning us that our "livestock had been found on the road. Future incidents would be met with possible impoundment and fines." signed sincerely, your local County Sheriff's deputy. "P.S. We have returned them to you this time, and closed your gate."

Hello?! Leroy and I exchanged theater-caliber glances filled with all the "What???????????" we could muster. Then we proceeded through our gate, down the lane, around the pond and smack-dab into a herd of horses, that, by the way, were not ours. Granted it was a small herd, only 5 head, but definitely not ours.

And just past the house, snug in their locked-up-tight compound, "the boys" looked on with innocent interest while their mama's bleated desparately for their babies to stand back from the fence. Stranger-Danger, and all that.

Rest assured, the Sheriff's office was called and all was straightened out in a matter of hours. The Houdini herd of horses had slipped through a neighboring fence and the "kind, but completely confused" deputy thought they must be ours, because, well, your front gate was open and that's how they must have escaped. As I ponder that logic, it occurs to me that "escape" usually entails getting out of a closed gate, but respect for authority prohibited me from pointing that out.

All in all, it was an eventful weekend. And, you may wonder what that has to do with mom. Really nothing, except maybe a distraction from the rigors of cancer treatment. I just somehow felt compelled to share our close brush with the law in the hopes of encouraging other lost souls.

Hang in there, the truth will come out! "The Boys" are enjoying their short stint of notoriety. But they really are sweet, don't let them fool ya!