Humans love stories. In fact, one thing that makes us unique is the need to translate our lives into narratives. It’s the way we relate to one another and a way we connect. One of the downsides of being storytellers, though, is that the mundane and normal are often swept aside for the fantastical outliers.
I’ve noticed that in this newsletter, too. Sick children, falling over, choking, barfing goats, dying animals - it all makes urban farming, which is supposed to be a calming hobby, sound like a non-stop drama-fest.
With young children, many moving parts, and oft suicidal prey animals walking around, a lot goes wrong. That doesn’t negate, though, the overwhelming volume of what goes right. Ultimately as my own narrator, it’s my responsibility also to convey the magic of the norm.
Even when building a life where my median is many people’s best day, I can still forget how fortunate I am.
Baby goat watch started in earnest this week. Three of my does, Alta, Bella, and June, were full term over the weekend. I tend to breed the experienced does to kid earlier in the season. Kidbirth is less likely to go wrong with an animal who knows what she’s doing, so I don’t need to wait for the warmer months.
Friday morning, I was on the phone with a friend. We were discussing work challenges, and I was tossing grain out to the chickens and goats in anticipation of a frigid weekend. Most of my friends are used to hearing animal sounds in the background of our phone calls.
June ambled up and munched a bit and then, while I was still talking, walked over to a patch of ground, slid down on her side, pushed once, and her water broke.
“Hey, I have a goat giving birth. Can I call you back?” I asked my friend, “Unless you want me to FaceTime you?” “No, no. I’m good. Let’s talk later,” he laughed.
Kidbirth is my favorite time of the year. Although I’m sure there are some out there who don’t think the best way to start a Friday morning is by watching a goopy baby goat emerge, there’s really nothing like new life to ground you back to your own.
Last year was June’s first kidding. I was amazed at how nonchalant she was about it all. She was clearly in labor and didn’t seem to care, then she mainly just laid down and snacked on grass through the whole thing. When her kids came, she looked surprised for a second but took it all in stride.
I hoped that this year her birth would be similarly easy. After a hasty goodbye to my friend, I led June into one of the kidding pens inside, happy I still had half a cup of warm coffee to sip on while I monitored the situation. Less than 20 minutes later, I was clearing the baby goo (not the technical term) off the face of the first kid as she emerged. Less than five minutes after that, another girl appeared as June licked and dried her first. It was remarkable in that it wasn’t at all.
That’s it. That’s the whole story. There was nothing harrowing or scary or sad or even particularly interesting. Friday morning, I woke up with three goats due to kid, and by lunchtime, I had two goats ready to kid and a mama with two little girls.
The moment each baby took their first breath still floored me, though. That pause between the moment they slip out to the first expansion of their ribs feels vast and perilous. I hold my breath with them until they jumpstart. I hope I never lose that awe that accompanies each new life.
Of course, I am looking for any excuse to head out to the pens to “check” on everyone, but I know that June has her little world firmly under control. The checking is more for me than it is for them; snuggling baby goats is one of life’s great pleasures. I will never regret a single moment spent holding a baby.
Meanwhile, the two other pregnant goats, Bella and Alta, are doing their best impressions of baked potatoes, curled up in the straw. I hope their births are also uneventful, as they seem likely to be. I also hope that even if so, I will always hold my breath for that moment before each baby takes her first.
Each life is a small miracle, and I am here for it all.
The odds that brought me to this exact moment to live with such overwhelming blessings are so infinitesimally small; it’s just shy of impossible. Add to it that I get to live tiny but magnificent miracles every day while urban farming.
There’s no story, and yet it’s the biggest story. Just another average day is astronomically unlikely and insanely beautiful, and it’s happening all around us.
The story is that there's no story