City Girl Meets Country

Our trip to Calico Acres Farm all came about because my friend wanted to milk a cow. I told her I knew a family with goats, contacted my friend and scheduled a day and time. A goat is close enough, right?  All we really needed was a pair of, well, nevermind...

The four of us-my friend Elena, myself, Baden and Ryder-loaded up the van and were on our way to milk some goats.  When we arrived, Baden was distracted by two cats on the sidewalk, a beautiful Clematis full of purple blooms captured my attention, Elena noticed the aroma of goats, and Ryder was just thankful to get out of his carseat. Linda and a couple of friendly dogs welcomed us at the front door. After some chit-chat and meeting one of her sons, we stepped outside to the meet the goats.

Once again, Baden was distracted-this time it was by a giant jungle gym that he really wanted to play on, but I told him we were there to see the goats.  After passing through the first gate, we met the male goats. An unexpected sight on the fencepost caught our attention, a spider carrying a cricket. What a sight! Elena and Linda paused to take a few pictures. I'm pretty sure Linda's turned out the best because she had some help from Bibs, one of her goats.

Next, we were at our destination-the female goats.  We went into the milking barn and Linda's son got a goat ready and gave us a brief lesson on the "how to's" of milking a goat. I had the pleasure of going first.  I did some "milking" and did all right for a city girl with very little experience, unless you count nursing children and I've got 23 months of experience so far. I've milked a goat once before at the fair so I wasn't an official rookie. When I was done, I noticed Baden was kneeling to watch me-kneeling in some goat poop to be more specific. Elena had her turn milking and I was able to capture some pictures. I suppose in the world of milking goats, she was successful and was thrilled to get to fulfill her desire to milk a cow-except that it was a goat. Baden liked to pet the goats, was comfortable standing close to them, but he passed on the actual milking part. Maybe next time.  Oh, and Ryder had fallen asleep by this time so I didn't even bother asking him what he thought about the goats. Or the milking. Or the poop.

After the milking we thought we were done, but Baden noticed a horse standing at the fence. He's into horses these days so he and Elena walked over to meet the horse and pet it. I was busy taking pictures.  I tend to miss out on some of the actual experiences in lieu of getting a record of the memory, but someone's gotta do it. We said goodbye to the horse and goats, walked through some more poop, and were escorted back to the house by algae covered dogs who had just taken a dip in the lagoon. 

I guess this is normal life on a small farm. Nice people, animals, pretty flowers, more animals, poop, bugs, wet dogs, and "nice" aromas.  We thoroughly enjoyed our adventure and are very thankful to Linda and her family for letting us interrupt their day to welcome us to their home, teach us a few things, and spend time with us!

The moral of this story is, you never know where you will end up when you're in the mood to milk a cow.