Frosty

Dixie lectures Lisa about the joys and troubles of motherhood.

Spring actually did not have to arrive this year — spring weather is here since Christmas, when even in the mountains at seven thousand feet, water does not freeze overnight. We were able to catch one weekend, when it had snowed a little and things got cold enough to permit skiing without one having to wade in mud, but that was all there was. We had anticipated the trend, so Martin and I took kids out to The Wall, Kirkwood's double black diamond slope, for it was most likely their first and last chance to ride it in this season. And the fact that I would be the only member of the group who couldn't not master an icy ditch, has been, I hope, already clear. Wall has a narrow entrance, always a tricky piece; but once you overcome the first ten feet, it's great. On this weekend, the surface had been the closest thing to a powder we have encountered during the season.

After athletic performance, we went to have a beer — we already had agreed to get together at Kirkwood with Martin and Rumiko, and since Kovars are a permanent installation there, it was quite easy to get a gang going. Hence we drove back home relatively late, and arrived rather exhausted. Hippo and the kids had liked it, saying it was just right, but I had found a one-day return trip a bit too heavy on sitting in the car. Alas, snow conditions don't motivate us to spend more money on local accommodations.

When February turned into March, I had an epiphany: I realized I was missing a hamster. And I decided not to keep finding excuses that the kids enjoy a pet, when in reality it was me who wanted one. After all, every pet eventually lands in the care of the parents — children are able to feed him or clean up the cage, but the logistics — who does what and when, where will will the critter be during holidays or weekends out — all that is left to me anyway. So the kids could pick a hamster, and they had a fight about it, for each found a different respective favorite. A pick like that is always difficult for me — especially the thought that all the remaining hamsters shall, well, remain there waiting. Thus I had sided with Lisa's preference, for that one looked a bit more tidy and (hopefully) healthier. Our new hamster is all white with a gray snout, and his name is Frosty (after a snowman in a kid's song).

Lisa and Comet the goat.

What a litter!

Frosty is all grown-up and large. He remains quiet, not a scaredy-cat like the jumpy Brownie when he was a baby. Alas, he is probably not too smart — he had already several times stuffed his access tube shut so that he could not get out; and never learned to use his toilet. These shortcomings are more than overwhelmingly compensated by his strength — he spends entire nights feverishly exercising in a wheel. We had to buy him a sound-proof carousel, in order to get some sleep in the same house with our rodent athlete. However, I feel better in the company of this mouse — I got so used to including a caged inmate in our family.

Spring weather implies being able to see ponies without having to deal with sticky clay mud that erupts at the ranch after every small shower. One day, having arrived with Lisa at the stables, we had found a commotion in progress at the goat pens. Jenny, the goat owner, had announced that Dixie will have baby goats. I glanced at the cluster of rubberneckers, the unperturbed mother goat, and reckoned that it was OK to see the ponies first, for nothing was likely to happen in such a zoo. Yet, before Lisa and I finished cleaning up the porsies, baby goats were born — three of them at that.

And since three small girls happened to be around, they could each name one baby goat. Lisa chose a black boy and gave him the name Comet — as he would, from the get-go, run up and down on wobbly legs and curiously inspect his surroundings. His sisters, Tilly and Twilight, were much more shaky, and kept closer to their mom. And they were also easier to catch and pet. Dixie stayed unperturbed, as long as her babies were held by humans; as soon as she spotted a dog or a cat in the yard, she was ready to destroy such enemy.

Blizzard and Tuxedo, later rejected by Fawn.

Here is Fawn still with her whole litter.

Uplifted by the baby goats, we had invited Klárka for Saturday (whom we had met in the mountains) — she is of the same age as Lisa and the girls get along pretty well, and so we thought it to be a good idea. All the kids jumped out of the car right into the pen, while I was still putting on my horse boots, so that I would not tread in the manure in my sneakers. The whole yard was in an uproar, a vet was inoculating some horses, and there was a whole line of them with their owners; some horses were nervous, people were talking, horses were neighing, dogs were barking — and our kids screamed that there were newborn goats.

I had assumed that the remaining two goats had finished their term as well since Thursday, but I did not expect the babies to be arriving at that very moment. Over Dixie's fence I spotted wet squeaking heaps on the ground, and in that instant I realized that I had absolutely no idea what to do. When I ran through the second pen, I was already dialing for Jenny (luckily it's on my contacts list), and I managed to declare, "she's giving birth now, it's triplets". Jenny instructed me where the suction cup was, but by then I had spotted Glenda, the stables' manager, who satisfied my criterion of a person who, unlike me, KNOWS what to do, and so I just hollered at her that a goat was giving birth and that I needed help.

Fawn, sadly, needed helping — she was quite taken aback by the number of the babies; she cleaned the first, leaving the two most tangled ones behind, and went to the corner. I would not have believed even in a dream, but she gave birth to a fourth kid there — while the first one, briskly named Walker by our Tom, was still stumbling over his newborn sister, Glenda and I tried to disentangle the two middle kids. The situation quieted down over time, Fawn sniffed all of her babies and managed to feed a few of them. The smallest one, an all white boy named Blizzard, was still unable to get his legs, and so we pushed him toward his mama. He did not look well at all, lying on the hay and shaking. Jenny carried him away to the vet, who agreed to intubate him eventually, so that he would get at least some food in.

In the midst of goat craziness, we don't forget our ponies.

Well-rounded Muffin and skinny Tuxedo.

Meanwhile I ended up with hypothermic Blizzard in my lap, and Jenny shoved me a syringe with milk and glucose. Blizzard recovered enough to start stirring a bit, and I managed to stick the tip of the syringe between his teeth. With some massaging under his chin, he swallowed — apparently this works for baby goats just as well as for preemie human babies — and after a while he began to move. Before we left, he began to get his legs, but was still very unsteady. Still, he had avoided the vet and the tube.

We had promised ponies to Klárka, and so we still went on a walk around the ranch, and subsequently had a lunch together. Lisa insisted on coming back in the afternoon, to check on the baby goats. I was a bit afraid whether Blizzard would have lived by then, but he was there, standing on his wobbly legs. Three more kids got added to the bunch, by Pixie. She managed to give birth without any children happening around, and Lisa immediately named all three herself. And because one was white, one black, and one with black and white stripes, they became Marshmallow, Licorice, and Oreo. Licorice is the only girl, and thus the final kid balance is six boys and four girls.

I had spend the first half of my birthday in a goat pen

Walker the baby goat does not mind at all that the human boys talk about tank game battles.

They said that Fawn had a fifth kids in the afternoon, but it was dead. This small mother goat is simply not built for such a volume. Especially since goats usually have one or two kids in a litter; this year they all broke the record. It had naturally been an experience for us, but what fascinates me is how much effect it had on our children. For once, we have practically resolved the question, "where do babies come from", but Lisa's comments still surprise me. Like the one that every child should see something like this before puberty, to realize how much work babies take and what must a mother endure for her offspring. A goat eating her own placenta isn't the prettiest thing to behold, but in the light of the fact that the surrounding woods are full of mountain lions, coyotes, raccoons and birds of prey, it makes sense even just from the safety perspective. And Dixie, who's a great mother and chases her kids together, making them fall asleep in the corner — then goes away to the other end of the pen, to finally get some food in peace, is a very good example how exhausting offspring can be.

There was an Open House on the following Saturday, and twenty-some children streamed through the goat pens. It does not seem too many, but since some kids came, were issued a baby goat, and refused to leave the pen for several hours to come, it was eventually quite a zoo. It was interesting to watch how a cuddly kid can captivate even a relatively restless child, or one with whom you would not, given his or her (low) age, expect the ability to focus for more than a few seconds.

When we had finally stumbled out of the ranch and away from the goats, time had come for our original plan — my birthday celebration. I consider it positive, having spent the first half of my birthday in the midst of hay and manure. I wanted to spend the second half in a beer garden (and if possible, after a shower and change of clothes). We made a lunch stop in the Indian Chaat Paradise, and another, hygienic one, at home, where we left our children — and we were ready to go. The party eventually extended into a dinner, and our poor little orphans had to prepare their microwave tortillas all by themselves, but they managed it. It seems that I can follow the example of the goat moms, and sometimes put some distance between me and my offspring, and go my own way.