Goats, goats and less goats

We started our goat "business" back last June. We bought thru the summer milk goats, meat goats and half and half. We watched them breed, watched wrestling matches between the big buck and my oldest athlete son and farmdad. Sometimes they won and sometimes he did. We had baby goats and had a 50% success rate keeping them alive. It is COLD up here and we didn't know when they would give birth. We have milked them. As of this date we have figured out [ we hope] , how to keep most of the babies alive. it is depressing to have them die. We have learned alot about the milking. We are getting almost a gallon a day from our Alpine/Saneen mix [ doesn't that sound like I know what I am talking about ]. But the meat goats were a bust. No one wanted to kill them and if truth be told no one wanted to eat them. So we put an ad in the paper and farmdad sold all 12 of them for $700.00. He figures we only lost about a $1000.00. but we learned alot.
Now we have 3 great milk goats, two baby milk goats and a milk buck who does not like to fight anyone.
I kind of hate to see our big mean buck go. I have had a bunch of laughs watching him take down my macho athlete son and my even more macho husband.

Husbands getting Old

I guess I ought to start with an intro. I am mom of 18, live on a farm and have terrible PTSD. Maybe next blog I will give you a chart of everybody in the family so you can know who I am talking about. But today I want to write down the profound thoughts I was having on the way to church. I have 10 children that are biological and 8 that were adopted. Most of my bios are grown and married, so we only have 10 left at home. I have been married to farmdad for 33 years. And we have had disagreements about all the kids. The most recent tho has been about athelete boy, age 16. He is our oldest adopted child and is hugh. His muscles are like tree trunks. Trying to move him is like trying to move a sturdy tree. He also makes mostly Fs in school because all he wants to do is play sports. As I write this he and his dad are working in the kitchen talking about....duh....sports. He played football, made the newspapers and the radio. Farmdad loved it. But farmdad, athlete boy and I had an agreement, one sport and then he focused on grades. But football ended and athlete boy and aging farmdad started lobbying for basketball. I could not figure out what happened to my sensible husband who was supposed to be on my side. What about grades? Farmdad said basketball will motivate him to study. Yeah right...They must think I am stupid. So I am trying to figure out what happened to my companion of 33 years and why he is sounding like a teenage boy. And then it hit me. He is having a HARD........ time adjusting to the fact that we will be 60 this year. He can't quit lifting heavy things and so walks around with a stiff hurt back all the time. He can't jog anymore and track was his favorite all time sport. He keeps trying to jog and his back won't let him and if he has one good day with his back his knees give out. So why have I adjusted so much more gracefully to old age. Well I figured it out. I was pregnant 10 times. Each time he walked around the whole time like a major STUD. I walked around the first 5 months like a fertility goddess and the last 4 months like a 100 year old woman. I went thru the Valley of the Shadow of Death 10 times praying I would come out on the other side of child birth alive. So I have already experienced all this old age stuff. He is just now having to accept it and can't. So he pretends he is the teen jock still thru our 16 year old. Well hopefully I will survive two teenage boys.