It Takes a Special Kind of Crazy
A good number of years ago, I learned that there was a dairy goat farm looking for help. The job was for two days a week, milking does in the morning, feeding the bucks and any kids that might be around, and cleaning the doe enclosure near the hay racks. Relatively easy work and I got to bring home a couple of gallons of milk a week in addition to my pay. I grew to really love the does — it’s hard not to do when you spend so much time with them on such a personal level — especially a little brown doe named “Deedee.” When I found out that Deedee was for sale, I made arrangements to buy her. My little lot, pre-Not 1040, was located where I could keep farm animals. I already had a few chickens and some dogs. I had experience with the does I was milking. What else did I need?
It turned out, I needed a lot more. It takes a special kind of crazy to start homesteading and I didn’t have enough land to support Deedee, the wether I brought home to keep her company, and the older doe that eventually joined the two of them. While my chickens thrived, I knew I needed more for my goats. I managed to feed them well on grain and hay that I purchased, but I was not a happy person for needing to spend all that money with little return. Over the next couple of years, things happened and I left my little property behind. Not 1040 Farm was born on the grounds of a larger farm.
Since that time, goats have come and goats have gone. There’s a steep learning curve with goats. They are born seeking to die. I lost a lot of goats as I learned, all three of the originals passed, either due to age or misadventure. I learned about goat polio and wilted cherry tree leaves. I learned about bloat. I learned about 3 a.m. deliveries on the coldest, windiest, wettest day of the year. I learned about failure to thrive kids and goats that simply laid down to die without explanation. I learned about kids being born, half reabsorbed by their dam. I learned about bottle jaw and joint ill and Haemonchus contortus worms. I learned about sitting up all night under the pine trees with a sick goat, rubbing her belly and forcing vitamin B12 and baking soda into her while a cat had kittens on the ground between us. I learned about shooting a dangerous buckling and butchering him so as to not waste the meat.
And those are just the highlights.
Homesteading is more than owning some nice animals and playing with the kids. Homesteading is early mornings and late nights. You have to feed and clean up after your animals, even if you feel like death warmed over on a soggy saltine, no matter what the weather. It means watching every single one of the quail that you struggled to bring into the world, die. It means starting over when your chickens all escape their temporary coop and it means abandoning the idea of having rabbits and ducks when you decide you simply don’t like owning them. Homesteading is hard work and hard decisions, every day, all wrapped up in a daily routine that needs to be maintained. Homesteading is simply farming on a smaller scale and farming is no easy task.
What brings on this lament? Well, Mimi, a purebred LaMancha dairy doe, decided that she was going to take her own sweet time having her kid. Sunday morning, January 31, 2021, I go outside to hear a bleating sound. Not the usual buck bleating or doe bleating, but a high-pitched kid bleating. I went out to Mimi’s pen to find that she’d had a beautiful black Swiss-marked buck kid. They both seemed fine and I went off to work at Dan’s, processing venison. When I came back at 5 p.m., the kid seemed “empty” and Mimi hadn’t eaten her grain. Every hour, on the hour, until 11 p.m., I was out there with Mimi encouraging her to eat and attempting to get the kid to take a bottle. She was uninterested in both her food bucket and in her kid and he seemed to be unable to latch on to either the bottle or the teat. By 3:30 a.m. I had to admit I seemed to be fighting a losing battle. I expected to lose them both, even though the kid seemed to be taking in a few sips of milk each time I went out to them.
Monday morning came and went. I needed to go about my day, even on less than three hours sleep. Mimi was still not eating, although she nibbled at a little grain in her bucket and showed a tiny bit of interest in the feed bread and pine branches offered to her. The kid was listless, but was able to latch onto the teat for a few seconds before giving up his attempts to eat. I left for Dan’s at 1:00 and came back at 6:00, prepared to find a dead kid. To my surprise, he was alive and had a tiny bulge in his tummy. Progress! I gave Mimi the large armful of organically-raised mustard greens that Dan had sent home with me. She ate two leaves as though she were starving, although she just pushed the others around in her bucket. Progress! I poured molasses onto some grain for Mimi and went out every 90 minutes to check on the two of them. On the 11 p,m. visit, the kid latched on to the teat and nursed with enthusiasm. Mimi had eaten all of her mustard greens, a slice of the feed bread, and a few mouthfuls of grain. As I picked up her kid to “weigh” him, Mimi brought up a cud and started to chew it. I figured I could go to bed, satisfied that both the kid and Mimi would be alive in the morning.
On Tuesday, the kid was bouncing around, being a crazy goat kid. Mimi, while she still hadn’t eaten her grain from earlier, seemed excited as I was bringing the grain ration past her to the bucks. I gave her a fresh scoop and she started to nibble it. As of this writing, she still hasn’t started eating normally, but she’s eaten a second large helping of mustard greens and is nibbling at her usual hay and grain.
So yes, it takes a special kind of crazy to start homesteading. Homesteading work doesn’t pause because of extremely low or high temperatures. You can’t simply put it on hold while you recover from illness or go away on vacation. However, for all the pain that can be caused by the animals that leave your life without warning, it is, overall, a great way to try to support yourself. I haven’t quite made it to self-sufficiency, but Dan is teaching me as much as I can learn about farming on a small scale. I wouldn’t give up Not 1040 Farm for anything, but the biggest thing I’ve learned about homesteading is that it’s not for the faint of heart.
