Bee Tree Farm

Slumped on the couch a few weeks ago, I asked Jeremy if perhaps the dairy, the farm, the goats were  a colossal mistake, wiping tears of regret as I fondled some rose-colored memories of our past life, all set to the tune in my head of “If I Could Turn Back Time.” Which is to say, in very blunt terms, so far 2018 has used us at its punching bag. I’m not used to being on the receiving end of a gut punch.

I’m not really used to punches at all.

Kidding season started fast and early – too early. Two weeks before the first expected delivery I found Pearl one freezing morning in a puddle of afterbirth and dead kids, born too early, too cold, 4 doelings – only one alive, shivering against a 30* chill, her mama too weak to clean her. I fed the herd fast, ran from goat to goat frantically checking to see if there were any OTHER signs of early delivery that I had missed, tucked Pearl into a stall with molasses water, grain, alfalfa and gulped back the realization that she was showing early signs of ketosis, which is a hell of a metabolic imbalance to reverse. Hell. I milked out the little bit of colostrum she had produced, swooped up the baby that seemed barely conscious and ran into the house where we curled next to a heater. Tucked against a heating pad and wrapped in towels, her temp was plummeting and her mouth felt like an ice cube when I inserted a finger to try and push in a rubber nipple. I didn’t want to tube feed her – a prospect that terrifies me (because if done wrong it can kill instantly), and watched in disbelief as her muscles mechanically swallowed, even though she had no sucking instinct. It meant the colostrum was getting into her belly. 3 hours later after multiple efforts to dribble fluid down her throat, she finally picked up her head with effort, her neck shook violently, but she looked right at me and yawned. Pearl’s only girl that lived this year, a red roan beauty with caramel legs – I named her Ruby Tuesday.

Pearl died 24 hours later. And thus the season began.

That’s the stuff of my nightmares, the sort of drama I feared for the duration of off season, the reason I stopped sleeping sometime in late December. Jeremy calls this sort of luck a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don’t know about that. Does dread lead to the actualization of our deepest fears? Nah. But it’s some tough-as-shit luck that it happened to me. Over the course of two seasons, I lost my first two girls, full sisters – Pearlsnaps and Jolene – both to metabolic complications due to pregnancy. It was, absolutely, the end of the romantic era of my life with the goats. The same animals that I fell in love with so deeply (enough to chuck my career) are the same who shattered my heart. I’ve had to work hard to accept the reality that their death was not a betrayal as much as some unfortunate genetics. And regardless, they’re gone. But the rest of my herd is not gone. Neither is the dairy. Neither is the business and despite the 15 solid minutes of shrieking grief I allowed myself to properly mourn Pearl, in my lap huddled her baby that needed round the clock care just ahead of kidding season. So I raised Ruby. Inside. In diapers. With my toddlers. It would be weeks before the rest of the herd kidded and more babies would join her, and considering the daily, freezing temps, I couldn’t bring myself to keep her outside alone.

2 weeks later, a fast and furious (emphasis on “furious”) kidding season began. We kidded 18 does in under 2 weeks during the wettest, coldest weather any of us can remember. Add to this, equipment that stopped working and an entire herd far too hormonal to attempt to be milked inside the milk parlor leading to milking sessions that stretched for hours with 2 people pathetically begging goats to behave between efforts to push/pull/convince them onto the stand. We were exhausted, angry, dirty, tired, angry, exhausted, dirty (oh – did I already say that?). You get the point. It was harder than it should have been, more ridiculous than I can quantify except that it did, eventually, take a real toll which cost a lot: I got the flu. For the first time in my life, I fell deeply ill and couldn’t even attempt to milk the goats for 4 (F O U R) weeks. As the sole cheese maker, it also meant that our months of planning and preparation ended with sending milk down a drain, an action so painful for a dairy farmer that it’s not worth further discussion. But when sweating and shaking inside with bulk tanks filling, there’s no silver bullet to turn the milk into cheese. Every aspect of the job here requires fairly extensive labor. And I just couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I didn’t.

But that was January. And February. And early March. And now it’s nearly April. The truth is that while, on paper, it reads as a ‘woe-is-me’ tale of desperation and hardship, the opposite is, in fact, the truth. I was able to shake and sweat inside because Filipa and Bekah milked. And while an entire, unfathomable WEEK went by without my even leaving the house and seeing the entire gang of new babies that required constant attention: Filipa (our new herd manager) managed all of their care, all of the adult goats and – eventually – was responsible for working through the hormonal drama and managed to coax them finally onto the milk stand. Finally. Our families whisked our children away when I was barely able to stand. My husband took care of everything else, and his insurance covered anything I needed. These are all enormous gifts. Crying over the milk we spilled is a spectacular overreaction. At least I HAVE milk to spill. At least I HAVE this dairy, this farm, these goats – who are (as it turns out) the loves of my life, with or without Jolene and Pearl among them.

Now we are making cheese, we are walking with the goats under skies turned sunny, in woods filling with leaves and wild onions and wildflowers and snakes and creeks and cactus and all the wonderful, delicious wild things that make what we do feel somehow spiritual – righteous even. Spring is always an explosion of life just beyond the gloomy hibernation of winter. And, oh, it did come in like a lion this year.

Now, I’m feeling strong – tired as hell – but strong. I’ve experienced my first real battle with another business that stole our marketing content for an original, creative and popular event conceived of here (Pro tip: turns out the sincerest form of flattery is NOT ripping off all my work), and my gut instinct to protect our farm and work like a mama bear made me realize something: just past what has certainly been the most difficult season, at a time when I felt emotionally and physically depleted, I realized how ferocious I still feel when it comes to this place. It answers that question I asked Jer so many weeks ago, when slumped beneath the weight of a still-broken heart, lungs still fighting hard to breath normally and a serious doubt I’d ever feel normal again – was this all a mistake?

So thank you, to the woman who attempted to trespass on our sanctuary of love, and toil, and the spirit that I hope embodies Bee Tree Farm. You can take a title and a concept and the words we write to try and re-create what we do, but unless you live it, walk these woods, love these girls – and learn to lose them – then you’re not doing what we’re doing. My deepest gratitude extends to her for reminding me how much I do care, how hard I will fight, to keep intact what we’ve cobbled together.

My experience with Pearl and her Ruby, the fierce protection that unexpectedly boiled up to the surface recently, the strength I always fear will fade? Lately, I find myself using Ryan Bingham’s words as a mantra, a rhythm, a reminder:

Pick up your crazy heart, and give it one more try.