the bottle babies.
When we started filling up our little farm space with animals, Hank and I decided that we would use our grandparents’ names (and crazy aunts and uncles as well) for goats. We can’t name the chickens – there are too many. Also? I can’t really tell them apart from one another, aside from, perhaps, two of them. But the goats? Naming goats is AWESOME.
We started with Minnie and Roscoe, after my paternal grandparents. We named them without even knowing their personalities, but we got it so right. Roscoe was a RASCAL with a bum leg (my grandpa’s leg was amputated, mostly from stubbornness, but that’s another story), and Minnie is flighty and bossy and really gave Roscoe the what-for. Minnie is also quite cantankerous at times, but then runs over for some loving whenever I go in the pen. She’s a conundrum.
Next, is Rosie. Rosie is short for Rosalind, who was Hank’s maternal grandmother. I’m not sure how she would feel about her namesake or if they share the same personality traits, but Rosie is the SWEETEST THING EVER. Rosie’s twin brother, who we were going to name “Frank” for Rosie’s husband, came to live with us as well. To tell you his name is to tell you his impending doom, but please know that he is living the best life ever and will only have one bad day.
His name is Gyro.
K. We’ll just move on, but we couldn’t fathom eating a goat named Frank.
When the babies finally came to live at our farm, they were two months old and needed to be bottle-fed for an additional month. Now I want to bottle-feed all the babies.
Sometimes, the babies got a little over-zealous about their milk. They could nearly bowl over a 7yo.
And I would never save our children.
Because it’s funny.
Meanwhile, in pen number two, our nursery, even smaller babies bounced around. They were just fine on momma’s milk (Minnie is the momma).
We’ve switched our naming philosophy a bit since those first days. Now we’re going region-specific according to their breed, so we have Heidi and Gertrude for Alpines and Nala for the Boer. Sadly, there are no Swiss misses or African babes in our lineage.
At least not of which I’m aware.
Perhaps it’s time for a genealogy thing.
