A Joyous Arrival: Welcoming the Newest Member of the Farm Family
"Good morning, Ann. Good morning, little one. How are you doing?" The familiar greeting marked the start of another day on the farm, but this particular morning held a special surprise. "Should we introduce everybody to the newest addition to the farm? Cuz it's right over there." Excitement bubbled as the focus shifted towards a heartwarming scene unfolding in the pasture. "Yeah, I just came out here about twenty minutes ago. And it looks like I just missed the birth of our newest calf. Mom's still over there licking her off. So, let's see from a little bit of a distance what's going on. Okay. Come on, Toby dog. Let's get out of here. Come on." A respectful distance was maintained, allowing the crucial bonding process between mother and newborn to continue undisturbed.
The wave of relief was palpable. "So, that was an insane relief because I was actually starting to get nervous." Concerns had been mounting over the impending arrival. "You know, as you guys saw in our last video, Bonnie McMurray was like very, very close to giving birth. And I guess I finished recording that video about forty-eight hours ago, and Bonnie was showing basically all the signs that she was about to have a baby, but she wasn't having a baby." The waiting game had stretched on, prompting a touch of unease. "And so, I was getting kind of worried that I might have to call the vet. And I probably would have called the vet this morning if she hadn't had a baby. But no need for that." The natural course had taken its beautiful turn. "It looks like we got a little baby calf on the farm. I don't know if it's a boy or a girl yet. I'll go in there and check them out in a little bit. But yeah, Bonnie just had her first calf ever." This birth marked a significant milestone. "That is the first third generation animal born on the farm because Bonnie was born on the farm and so her daughter or son is being born on the farm. If it's a female, she's going to have a C name." Even the ever-curious farm dog, Toby, couldn't resist a peek. "Did you guys see Toby dog just snuck under there? He wants to take another closer look. I'm actually glad that Abby has not figured out that trick."
The significance of the moment wasn't lost. "Yeah, I don't think I can overstate for you guys how relieved I'm feeling right now. Like I just had to stop and take a second look and watch them." A pause to simply observe the miracle of new life was essential. "I don't want to like interfere right now. What's going on where you see Bonnie cleaning off the baby and, you know, licking and the baby like taking the earliest steps and probably trying to get a suckle of milk in a few minutes. Like all of those things are really important stages in the baby's development. I don't want to interfere or get involved with any of that." Respect for the natural processes of the farm was paramount. "So, we'll go do the rest of the chores and we'll check back in with them in a few minutes." Life on the farm continued, even with the joyous arrival. "You guys will notice that this is the time of year where the ducks are out in full force and really enjoying everything the farm has to offer. I've got to put the drain trap that goes underneath this stream back in place. Like I have it, but I took it out cuz it was getting clogged and I had to clean it. But yeah, the ducks are sneaking out or at least most of the ducks are sneaking out. It's not that big a deal." The changing seasons brought their own set of tasks. "But it's actually one of the nice things about spring, you know, despite the fact that it was taking so long for Bonnie's baby to be born. It was good that it wasn't born in the last two days because we've had nothing but like thirty degree weather and rain. And even last night it was raining and like I mean you can still see like everything in the pasture is just soaked and really muddy. The pasture behind me here is flooded up again in a more significant way. And so I'm just glad that the baby waited until like just now where it's about I don't know thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit and uh starting to have like sun come out and it should be actually a relatively warm and sunny day. I think the high is going to be about fifty maybe forty-eight or something like that. This is as good a weather as a baby could be born on and so I'm very happy about that. So yeah, let's do the other farm chores and we'll check back in with the baby."
The familiar greetings of the farm's other residents were a welcome constant. "Oh, it's always so nice to be greeted by dogs and goats and dogs and more goats. I bet you boys want some pellets. So, why don't you come with me? We'll get you situated before we start to feed the birds. Scamper all the way to your food area. Lauren, don't be such a bully. We have a couple of ducks that snuck in with the goats. All right, hang on, boys. Hang on. Hang on. I want everybody to behave themselves on that here. And then here, I'm going to leave a separate bucket so that everybody has plenty of space. Lauren, you're always such a bully. Here, Barnacus, you eat with your brother. Lauren is the king of the goats and he doesn't like to share. And I still love him, even if he is a jerk. And I mean, not like an irrecoverable jerk, but just like, you know, kind of a jerk. You know, just kind of like a moderate level run-of-the-mill jerk." The individual personalities of the animals shone through. "You are probably going to be so sick of hearing me say this by the end of this video, but I'm so glad that things went well this morning. I mean, like I said, I was generally planning on pulling her, penning her, and calling my vet if nothing had happened by today. So, uh, yeah, all's well, I think."
Next on the agenda were the more unusual members of the flock. "All right, weird chickens. Time for food. Come on, weirdos. Come with me. Come on. Let's go. Here you go. Dig in. Probably only another two weeks or so, maybe three weeks, before I move you out of here, and you'll be going back to the Clucky Ball, which is the geodessic dome that I built for the weird chickens last year. You can see it right here. Just got to give it a quick clean out and get their area set up. And I have a couple of repairs to do because the goats have actually done a number on this thing. They have tried to play with it a few times. And so, yeah, you can actually see a couple of spots where things are broken. Unfortunately, that is the direct result of goat damage. You know, when I designed and built that structure, I actually had no intention of ever having goats. And so, uh, it was not engineered with goats in mind. If I tried to build it now when I had goats, I would not do it." Even the persistent escape artist of the farm made an appearance. "This is the one goose that is always escaping. How did you get out again, girl? Are you going the same way the ducks go? Or you have a different method? Come on in. Come on in. This isn't a trap. I'm inviting you in. Come on. There we go. All right. Don't worry, chickens. We're going to feed you. We're feeding everybody this morning. Come on. See what we got for eggs this morning. Nothing in here. Nothing in there, I don't think. Oh, here we go. Two nice fresh goose eggs right here. How are you doing in here, girl? You going to let me in here, please? Excuse me. She's actually only got two duck eggs underneath her. She should be having eggs, but she's not laying an egg today. Or at least not yet. Abby, stay away. You're in the danger zone, Abby. Be careful. Yeah, Abby, I don't think you want to be involved with that goose. She is pretty territorial. Here, Abs, help me find some duck eggs. We got one here, one here, one here, one here. There we go. You know how the other week I was showing you guys the black egg that we had? Well, here is another Kauga egg that is might even be laid by the same duck where it's still not like a normal white egg color, but you can see it's a lot lighter than that first black egg. Like I said, as time goes by, these eggs get lighter and lighter, but right now they're still pretty dark. So, most of the goose nesting spots are working out really well this year. One spot I don't like is actually right under here underneath the chicken coop. And unfortunately, all of the birds seem to like to lay right there. So, here we're going to do a quick inventory and figure out what our total haul was for today. Here you see we have three goose eggs and then one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten duck eggs. One chicken egg, but actually, if I had to guess that this chicken egg probably was laid uh yesterday and I just didn't collect it. The chickens usually don't start laying until the end of the day, but I've been getting about twenty eggs a day just from the chickens alone. So, yeah, we are flush with eggs. Actually, if anybody's out there and they want to try eating our eggs, um, if you are in Peach, Vermont or in the greater Northeast Kingdom area, go to the Peachum Cafe where the food that they serve is cooked with our eggs. And like Avery, who who's the person who's kind of behind all the food there, he has been making some incredible baked good. like see he's like such an incredible baker and to hear about what he's been doing with our duck eggs. I haven't actually tried it myself cuz I can't eat our duck eggs, but to hear about it uh it's pretty incredible. And so yeah, go check out the Peacham Cafe. Not sponsored."
The intricacies of farm life extended even to the seemingly simple task of providing water. "So the South Peachum Glacier continues to melt, but it is making getting water to the birds trickier. Let's see how we line up our shot today. Yeah, it's uh requiring a little bit of a balancing act trying to figure out which water needs to go where and like closing valves to change pressure and do all of that, but it's working." A moment was taken to appreciate one of the farm's long-term residents. "And here we have one of our farm's oldest chickens, Barbara. How's it going, Barbara? Your hair's looking really good. So, we got her guess it was the spring of 2020 or I guess July of 2020. I still have a few chickens from that original batch. So, there's Barbara. There's Carmen, who's that big fluffy black chicken over with the weird chickens. Uh, there's Pingu, who is this anana, so like a black with white speckled chicken. And then I think I have like one or two bard rocks and one or two New Hampshire reds. Um, that are all from that batch that I got from my friends over at Murray McMurray." The farm's avian dynamics were also observed. "You see Ralph the Duck in action. You know, speaking of Ralph the Duck in action, uh earlier this morning, I saw him out by the main pond and he was definitely getting some love with the ladies. So, a shout out to all the short kings out there. And for those of you guys that don't know, Ralph is a call duck, meaning he's a lot smaller than our other ducks. It's actually a little bit harder to tell because they're in water and he's kind of like short and stocky. But when you see them standing up side by side next to the regular ducks, like even that runner duck that's right there, it's pretty drastic. the size difference. But yeah, I love Ralphie. He was a rescue from what about two years ago or so. And uh yeah, he's doing really good. I just heard a crashing noise and I don't know what it is. I feel like I got to go check it out. See, this is why I can't have nice things with goats. The goats are over there knocking over empty buckets and trash barrels. I love them, but they they are a little bit troublesome." The ever-present antics of the goats provided a touch of farm chaos. "Aby's getting a drink of fresh water. Tastes good, girl. Yeah. Toby dog, don't feel left out. I asked you to come. You don't want to come here. I'll let you come in for a visit. You're so polite, kid. Pardon me. Sir Bartleby Deimsy Porpington, please report to the door. Where did he go? Do you see Toby dog? Where is he? Mr. Toby Dog, what are you doing? Doing your rounds. Well, I got something I need to be a for. And Abby, I want you to stay right here. Okay. Oh, look how excited he is. Toby, come here. Hang on, buddy. You know what time it is. You do know what time it is."
Finally, it was time for a closer look at the new arrival. "Looks like baby's up and running around. I saw that she was getting a little bit of milk or he was getting a little bit of milk. So, I think what I'm going to do is actually come in here and distract mom and then I'll give shots and we'll get things started here. You ready for that, Bonnie? I'm pretty sure I didn't have the camera recording when I just did that, but I just actually got perfect execution on the shot. And she is a girl. So, we're definitely looking for our first Came on the farm. Little black calf with a C name is what we got on our hands. I got to admit, I'm ridiculously excited about that news." The initial check-up was successful, and a significant discovery was made. "All right, so now we're going to check in on our other baby here on the farm. Here you go. That's for mama. How are you doing, little one? Oh, you're looking so good and healthy. Oh, she's she's got her calf energy now. She's looking really really good. Like this is exactly what you want to see when they're at this stage of the game. She's I don't know. I think just a week old today. She's looking great. You let me pet you? You don't want me to pet her? What if I give you another treat? Would that let me pet her? Is that like the toll for letting me pet her?"
The important task of naming the new calf was addressed. "So, I'm pleased to tell you guys that we have landed on a name for her and we've decided to go with Buttercup. Princess Buttercup or little Princess Buttercup. So yeah, that is Buttercup. She is the daughter of Anna Green Gables. I know there were a lot of people suggesting like Ble type names, but it just felt like too much of a stretch and there wasn't like a good perfectly natural fit. And so yeah, we've got our little Buttercup here and she's doing good. Isn't that right, Buttercup?" The day concluded with a sense of joy and anticipation. "So yes, another happy update from the farm here today. Now, two calves so far for the season, both girls. And uh we need a seed aim for our newest edition. So let me know down in the comments and we'll pick one in a few videos. And then hopefully maybe one of our charet will have some calves pretty soon too."