First Day on the Farm

Yesterday, Shelly and I spent our first day on the farm. We helped Abbe and Anderson trim hooves and vaccinate all the goats in one of their two barns. The other barn houses a few prize pigs, two horses, a llama named Darrel (a herding animal used to protect the goats from coyotes), four billygoats, and a few other creatures.



The female goats are remarkably gentle, docile, and even affectionate. In reality, they're probably looking for a little grain, but it seems that they're eager to be pet when they stand up on the gate and extend their necks to greet you.

The kids (babies) are especially cute. As we gently pinned the adults to the ground to trim their hooves and administer the oral vaccine, the babies bleated for attention and nibbled at the backs of our shirts from their nearby pen.



It took about four hours to do all of the work, and after we finished up, we joined Abbe and Anderson on their deck for lunch in the sunshine. It was a pretty rewarding day, to say the least.

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Today I'm going to meet Shelly at the Tremont Farmer's Market on Cleveland's West Side, where Lucky Penny sells cheese every Tuesday.

I'll post later this week with a little about Book 2 of Vergil's Georgics. Until then--