In The Goat Pasture

When the boys were younger we visited my father at his remote home in Minnesota. We hiked down the dirt road and picked wild berries before he hoisted little Abram onto his shoulders. I stopped mid-step remembering thirty years ago now, riding on my Dad’s shoulders, a belly full of wild blackberries we’d picked on our horse pasture near Bemidji, Minnesota.

Though things are very different here, this goat pasture reminds me of that time in my life.

Passing time has a way of making you feel blessedly small; birth has much the same effect on me.

We just finished up our final kidding and I watched new life come into this pasture surrounded by the five miracles born into my own arms. Our oldest is now up to my shoulders and carries his baby brother around as I once carried him.

I tucked the three youngest ones in for naps the other day and headed out to the pasture to check on the last pregnant doe and the three other does and two kids we now call our herd. I ducked beneath cedar trees and waded through various weeds and grass and these lovely Lemon Bee Balm flowers covering the pasture.

I saw these goats browsing for grass and cedar and everything in between while one of our chicken flocks scuttled around looking for bugs and greens.

And I saw Belle, this new meat goat we added to the herd.

Within a couple of hours Elijah came bursting into the house announcing that Abby had just had a kid. We all headed out to watch the second one be born and I wondered if they would remember late spring kidding in the goat pasture, surrounded by lemon bee balm and the smallness of birth.