Spring is so close: Daylight Savings begins in just 2 weeks. The goat ladies are resting and panting as the first week of April and their due date approaches. They're not so keen on butting each other any more; just want a quiet corner to eat hay and meditate. A few feet away from them the lavender shows no sign of life, but the forsythia and quince are budded tightly. I think it's time to bring a few branches into the house.

This is our first year to collect maple sap: the color of clear water, the taste of minerals, and a far off faint sweetness.

My favorite sign of Spring is the smell of the earth itself, especially in the woods: a deep musky, damp fragrance that still carries winter cold mingled with barely perceptible thawing under the fallen leaves. A hint of oak with a touch of sassy cinnamon and currant......oh, wait, that was the last bottle of wine....

Above ground all is grey and still. Below ground, mmmhhhh, deep inhale: coming back to life!

The Season Thus Far

2010 has been interesting, exciting and more than anything, successful for Mountain Farm. Us girls in the herd are almost all done kidding. Aurora is the only one left and while the humans wait for her to deliver, they're busy harvesting all of the lavender here.

The running joke is that they have to grow lavender to calm down after "dealing with goats" but we think it's the other way around!

The total number of kids this year is 14! From Desi having sextuplets at the very beginning of kidding season, Nina having twin girls, Charlotte having three boys, Juliette delivering another set of twin girls and finally, Hero gave birth to a bouncy baby boy!

And speaking of new arrivals, we have 4 additions to the farm here. Greta, a Great Pyrenees puppy in "Goat Guard Training" with Ginger Bear, a Great Pyrenees and Anatolian mixed puppy, along with two Babydoll Lambs, Abelard and Heloise. We are hoping they will be a breeding pair and Mountain Farm will eventually have a small herd of sheep.

Mountain Farm's Baby Goat Day was busy with visitors coming to see our kids to bottle feed and pet them, learn how to milk a goat, dye the Farmgirl yarn with Kool-Aid and to enjoy all the farm has to offer.

Many visitors from Baby Goat Day returned for the 5th Annual Lavender Festival held Father's Day Weekend. We had tons of people coming to see us, watch a shearing demo on the Jacob Sheep, pet our kids, take a lavender garden tour, see an essential oil demo, listen to live music, eat at our Festival Cafe and shop in our store.

Stay tuned for more news and pictures from me, Hero, and the other girls in the Mountain Farm Dairy Goat Herd!

Why Goat Milk Soap?

Hi everyone. It's me, Juliette. I just had twin girls and am now milking along with the other Mamas. I wanted to answer a question that some humans ask about Goat Milk Soap and the benefits of using it as opposed to commercial "supermarket" soaps.

Let’s start with the advantages of handcrafted soap. That bar of soap from the supermarket looks so clean and pure. And yet, most big-brand soaps contain harsh chemicals that can irritate the skin, alcohol that dries the skin, and sometimes petroleum products, which is just disturbing. Handmade soap is made from natural, gentle ingredients that doesn't leave skin itchy, dry or irritated.

Handmade soap has another basic advantage: glycerin. All soap is made by combining a fat with an alkali. During the saponification process, the fat turns into soap and glycerin. In commercial soaps, the glycerin is removed by adding salt to make the soap and glycerin separate. The glycerin is then used in other, more profitable products, including cosmetics, medicine, printing inks and the production of the explosive nitroglycerin. But in handmade soap, the glycerin remains in the soap, providing deep moisturizing benefits.

So all handmade soaps have advantages over commercial soaps. But goat milk soaps offer even more. All milk contains natural emollients, vitamins and triglycerides that moisturize the skin. Goat milk specifically contains the reputed highly effective moisturizer capric-capryllic triglyceride. People who prefer goat milk soap claim that it is far less drying and harsh than ordinary soap. For those who have sensitive skin or eczema, goat milk soap is a godsend.

The best goat milk soaps are made from fresh, not powdered, goat milk. Take it from me and the girls: Our milk is 100% fresh and pure!

Check out the soap and other goat milk goods here: http://lavenderfarm.etsy.com

Bring Out The Bucket!

Pretty soon, all of the first two "batches" of kids will be moving from bottle feeding to bucket feeding. They are getting big so quickly! Desi, Charlotte and I [Nina], are happy to be done with our pregnancies and have moved into the milking parlor twice a day.

Hero and Juliette are due on the 23rd and 25th of this month, with Baby Goat Day being right in the middle on the 24th. Knowing how things usually go, they will probably be delivering right in the middle of everything!

All of the bucklings [six altogether] have been neutered and my two Saanen girls have already been de-budded. It's hard to believe that they've only been alive since Easter Sunday! Before we know it, we'll be off getting bred again for next year!

Things here on the farm are moving along at a pretty steady pace. The 2010 season has gotten off to a great start, especially with being interviewed because of the sextuplets. They are already famous. The doelings [of the sextuplets] have already been reserved. But, who can blame them? They come from great stock!

That's it for now. Stay tuned for more updates from Mountain Farm and us girls in the herd!

Fiona: "I Am Stubborn!"

Hi, I'm Fiona. Lately I just haven't wanted to get up on the milking stand. Grain isn't doing it for me anymore. It used to get me on the stand pretty quick but not anymore.

The interns and Marilyn have had to pick up my front legs and set them on the stand. That and pulling up on my tail still hasn't got me up there every time.

Maybe this is just a funk that I'm in right now. Now that I'm not pregnant anymore, my moods have been swinging more often than not.

I'm sure that everyone [including me] will be pleased when I can just hop up on the stand like most everyone else. Even Hero and Juliette who are still pregnant and about to pop jump right on up there.

"TinyTim"

My for-now name is "Tiny Tim" because of the braces on my hind quarters. This is not unusual for this to happen to a kid with so many brothers and sisters.

Our first week on Mountain Farm has been exciting! Everyone has gotten the hang of drinking from bottles while standing up, except "Little One". She is the runt of us sextuplets, so it's normal for her to take awhile to get used to feeding without being held.

We have had loads of visitors coming to see us. So far, we've been bottle fed by 4 different families. The interns love coming to see and feed us. Sometimes, they just pop their heads into the Kid Barn to see how we're doing.

Pretty soon, we won't be the only babies here though. Nina and Charlotte are going to have their kids anytime now! In about 3 weeks, we'll be having Baby Goat Day where people can come meet, pet and bottle feed all of the kids here. There's a milking demonstration, usually done on my mom, Desi and a baby goat naming contest, too!

Well, I'm tired now. Hope you come to Mountain Farm to see me!

Sextuplets!

Desi here. I went into labor this past Sunday afternoon and I had SIX KIDS! No one could believe their eyes after the first three.

All of my babies are beautiful, healthy and surprisingly big. They are already jumping and playing around with one another.

The interns learned how to bottle feed my kids quickly and since have become "old hands" at it. Milking us, however, still needs to be learned.

I'm glad everything went well and I can finally walk without waddling. Now going up and down the hills isn't too taxing. I am ready to get back to the herd.





Here are my six little ones, huddled together while they nap