My two sisters and I grew up on a small hobby goat farm in upstate NY, drinking the milk, eating my mom's simple homeade goat cheese, and milking, birthing, and playing with a bunch of does and kids (mothers and babies). Each was named by my mother or one of us from a list of our favorite flowers: there was Petunia, Iris, Daisy, Edelweiss, Magnolia, Lilac, and then Sparky when I got to name one. As we all got older, the goats somehow phased out of our lives. Pictured above is the lone remaining goat, Aurora, who is just a pet who looks pretty by the barn, and isn't milked.
Yesterday, while searching webrings for local cow and goat farms, sentimentality hit me hard, and I realized how much I missed that life and how jealous I felt every time I'd arrive at the next website of a cute, small goat farm somewhere in Florida.
For some ineffable reason, I've been feeling incredibly driven to this sort of farming - I've thought about working at produce farms and worked at a cow dairy farm, but never really felt any strong feelings for them. So this is the plan for my life: that I will someday in the future have a goat farm (although definitely not in Florida), give them all flower names (unless it's my mischeivous daughter's turn) and (probably illegally) sell the small amount of milk and cheese just to my friends and family and to Julia if she owns a bar in Brooklyn or upstate somewhere someday. Working towards this today, I hope to spend get back to Brazil (where I studied abroad in college) for some time WWOOFing on a goat dairy in Brazil during my upcoming grad school years.
Additional commentary from Julia
Hmm, I'm not sure I can sell "illegal" goat cheese at a bar. I think that might violate health codes somehow. And yes, one of my dreams to open a bar. More on that another day.
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