Our Easter Day started off quiet. It was a balmy actual temp of 18 degrees with a real feel of -1. This made for all to want to hunker down in the cabin for the morning events. The older boys came from the “bunk house” as we call their current humble abodes and after we had our usual Easter greetings proclaiming the glorious resurrections we went ahead with our morning Easter events.

The snow blew ferociously outside. I would like to insert here that it was always my belief when living down in southern Michigan that if it were that cold outside it was too cold to snow. I believe that the north has yet to understand this shadowy fact as it seems to snow at all unreasonable temperatures up here.  But then again in all fairness it also oddly can melt when the sun is shining and the temps are a heated 20 degrees.  As I’m sure you realize, the weather description does indeed set up rest of our morning Easter Story.

As the winds howled and the animals were still nestled in their shelters………..

we had our breakfast.  Shortly after breakfast RJ announced he had to run back to the bunkhouse for something and would be  right back.  At that point Ron and the little ones where just starting to get ready to go do the morning chores.  Within a few minutes of RJ leaving he came busting through the door, holding in each arm, an almost frozen baby goat.

Seeing of course what we were but taking a few seconds for it to settle in, once we were able to comprehend what was going on, everyone sprung into action.  Grabbing towels and wrapping the poor babies in them, we rushed them to the heat of the stove where we had 2 to 3 sets of hands rubbing hooves, legs, ears, and torsos trying to get two poor little lethargic baby goats warm enough to keep living.  Honestly it didn’t look good at first. With the temps the way they were and the snow they were practically froze to death.  

We turned our attention to them right away and it took the better part of an hour to feel that they had a fighting chance. As I sit here tonight writing this I am happy to announce that you would never guess that their start in life had begun so rocky.

After RJ had brought the two in he had rushed out to make sure that the momma had not thrown triples with one left out there, thank God it was just the two.  We could not figure out why a seasoned momma would leave the shelter of her shed while in labor and have her kids out in the snow. It didn’t make any sense.  Also what was odd was despite being cold, wet and froze from snow they had appeared to be cleaned off by the momma after the birth. 

After all was looking on the upside Ron went out to check on the momma and see if he could figure out what may have happened.  It appeared by the evidence that the momma indeed did have the babies in the hut, which must have happened something early in the morning, early enough to get them cleaned and get them up running around. If you are at all familiar with goats you will know this happens in a relatively short amount of time, from newborn to romping.  Ron figures after a few hours they followed Momma out into the outdoors and must have fallen and got cold quickly and unable to get back up.

It has been a rather busy, eventful and most challenging kidding season this year. Honestly I prefer the ones that come and go quietly. But today all came out well to which we are so grateful to the Lord.  We had Easter babies and they both are white as snow, except for one that had a dusting of charcoal down its back.

One of the most amazing things we found about this today was Molly, Zeb’s and Simeon’s dog.  She jumped right in to lick the babies faces. This of course is something that momma’s do not just to clear the nose area after birth but also to get the circulation going as well as the response. There was one goat that was in worse shape than the other and that was the one she paid the most attention too. Right now she is laying next to the cage where the babies are at (in my kitchen of course) watching them.  Animals are an amazing example of natural instinct to nurture.

Molly with the goat kid that was in the worse shape. Josiah is holding him by the heat of the cookstove.

Zebulun holding the other goat whose response came back much quicker then the other. However Molly is still there to make sure all is well.

RJ and one of the goat kids, both wore out from the morning events.

Praying you had a blessed day to celebrate our glorious Lord and savior and his most amazing sacrifice!

Lea