About 10 years ago , after years of driving back and off to northerly Vermont for weekends and vacations , my wife , Bunny , and I finally start up the nerve to pull up our suburban roots . We ’d thought about the move for a foresightful time , and we had a somewhat upright estimate about what we want : distance , mostly . Space to be outdoors with our kids and to have a vegetable garden and some animals .
We purchase an old farm from the demesne of a 96 - year - old woman who ’d lived there for almost six decades . Good karma , we opine . The seat was a mess , and we log Z’s on the screened - in porch that first summer while we fix up the house and shored up the barn . We ’d never be bluff enough to call ourselves farmers , but we parachute into farm life with both foot : Honey bee , apple trees , Capricorn the Goat , domestic ass , berry , grape , a rabbit , and enough zucchini and cucumbers to sustain a little army . We were very ambitious .
Despite our best effort and purpose , the bees teem , deer girdle the apple trees , the donkeys bullied the butt , the goat ate the grapes , and the poor cony did n’t make it through the first wintertime . We refocus our elbow grease : got more bees , replant the apple tree and recall the donkeys to the farm from which they had come . For Christmas that first year , I gave Bunny two baby Pygmy stooge . The weekend before , our boy and I had meet two little crate with shuck and gone to pick them up . The male Capricorn had just been neutered , and on the drive home , I tell apart the boys about the hoot and the bees . This pleased Bunny almost as much as the caprine animal did .
We list the Pygmy goats Bud and Genny , for Budweiser and Genesee , because they looked like little beer kegs . Together with our twoOberhasli butt , Lucy ( named for the prior farm owner ) and Helen , they double our “ ruck ” to four . That same winter , we borrowed a handsome young dollar named Jacques to engender Helen and Lucy . After they kid the following spring , we began milking them , and we experimented withmaking cheeseand soap . Our cheese calculate like latex caulking and savour worse , but our goat’s - milk grievous bodily harm was pretty good . We contribute it aside to friends and put it in Christmas stockings along with the jam , jellies and dilly beans we ’d made from the garden . We began selling our liquid ecstasy in a few local stores , and jolly shortly our kitchen , the free elbow room on a higher floor and last the service department were overrun with bring around bars of fragrant liquid ecstasy .
Somehow , butt seem to get a bad rap . The old byword aboutfencinggoes : “ If it wo n’t harbour weewee , it wo n’t hold a goat , ” and it certainly seems to peal true when one of our Pygmy goats has just finish clear - cutting my blueberries , but generally verbalize , goats are well-off to keep and give back far more than they demand with their offbeat personalities and peaceful behaviour . Each night before bed , we shut them in for the eventide and expend a few minutes nuzzling with them , cancel their heads and enjoy the smell of their strong hay - breath .
Bunny and I make well together . She fuck accept care of the beast and making soap . I ’ve enjoyed creating the art for our packaging and commercialize our product in the local area . Every yr , my vegetable garden gets a little bit bigger . Our exfoliation is modest , which is how we wish it . Our farm and our labors support us in ways that go well beyond our fragile bottom line . If they somehow allow us to subsist the way we want to and to do what we love , that will be enough .
This clause originally appeared in the November / December 2011 issue ofHobby Farms .
