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<\/a><\/p>\nThe livestock guardian dog that needed to be rehomed and sits on that table, whether snow or rain or heat or gloom of night.<\/p>\n
The chain link fence surrounding the garden that came from a contractor who used it once on a construction site and then needed it hauled away.<\/p>\n The greenhouse that we use to fill that garden that a friend begged us to take when they were moving and the new owners of their home didn’t want it.<\/p>\n The farm fridge that we use to store the food from the garden and was given to us when a co-worker upgraded his kitchen.<\/p>\n Our first chickens from a man with a full coop whose wife was making him cut back.\u00a0 (Marital discord is a common way to acquire free livestock.)<\/p>\n The ducks that started this farm and came off of freecycle.<\/p>\n A turkey house that a husband’s friend gave us when they were done raising turkeys and that made an excellent piglet house.<\/p>\n Free pallets from the local nursery that made the ugliest coop in the world, which is still standing and still used as a coop, a breeding pen for goats, or a shelter for hen, guineas, or ducks with young broods.\u00a0 Whatever the occasion demands.<\/p>\n All of the sheep that have ever lived here.<\/p>\n The couch, the wall art, and the dog in this photo.<\/p>\n And despite the fact that our efforts sometimes failed, we tried to give every critter that arrived here, one more chance to make it.<\/p>\n Even if you hatched after the mother duck left the nest with the rest of the ducklings and you needed a few extra days to dry off and warm up.<\/p>\n When you couldn’t get out of the egg on your own.<\/p>\n If your mother was so stupid she kept walking you out into the rain and leaving you there.<\/p>\n If your owner left town without you.<\/p>\n When you didn’t make the breed standard.<\/p>\n When you’re injured…<\/p>\n or deformed.<\/p>\n If your mom dies….<\/p>\n or when she rejects you.<\/p>\n If you’re blind….<\/p>\n or simply somebody’s extra.<\/p>\n And, obviously, if you’re lucky enough to cross Pretty’s path, then we can probably give you a Do Over.\u00a0 But before you start thinking we’re a bunch of desperate hoarders turning other peoples’ trash into kind-of-treasure-if-you-tilt-your-head-and-squint-your-eyes-a-bit, you should know that mistakes, cast-offs, and hand-me-downs often pay off in wonderful, unexpected, and lasting ways.<\/p>\n This year as I enter the barnyard every morning I ponder our latest Do Over.\u00a0 And it makes me smile.<\/p>\n Two years ago when I took in Vanilla, I only knew that she was a Toggenburg doe that had been inbred and given birth to a deformed kid.\u00a0 My friend told me that Vanilla had very sweet milk but she also had “weeping teats,” a condition in which the goat has some milk-secreting tissue in the wall of the teat.\u00a0 Under the pressure during milking, this can cause milk to be secreted from the pores in the skin of the teat.\u00a0 This could allow bacteria in the milk or increase the likelihood of mastitis and it made your hands wet during milking. \u00a0 Other than deformed kid and bad teats, though, she was a great goat.\u00a0 And she was free.<\/p>\n I stood with my friend and thought about it for a minute.<\/p>\n “OK,” I said.\u00a0 “Sounds good.”\u00a0 Because she hadn’t given birth to a deformed kid at my place.\u00a0 And she hadn’t had leaky teats at my place.\u00a0 And for me, if it hadn’t happened here, it wasn’t necessarily going to happen again.\u00a0 She just needed a Do Over.<\/p>\n Perfectly reasonable reasoning.<\/p>\n Probably.<\/p>\n Maybe.<\/p>\n Eh.<\/p>\n Vanilla came over the very next day.<\/p>\n Vanilla was a quiet goat and a bit distant for her first year here.\u00a0 She never sought out ear scratches but tolerated them if you approached her calmly.\u00a0 Or with food.\u00a0 And if some people would have given pause over her history and her nature, it was her name that bothered me.<\/p>\n What kind of name was “Vanilla” for a goat?\u00a0 She was a grey goat, not a white one.<\/p>\n Sure, she had those little white stripes on her face, but so did every other Toggenburg in the world.<\/p>\n I figured she could be called Vanilla for the sweetness of her milk, but since she was named before she was milk-producing, I knew that wasn’t it.<\/p>\n She was a large sturdy doe, placid and tolerant.\u00a0 Except for the fact that she\u00a0 towered over the Nigerians (vanilla orchid vines can grow to 300 feet long), she didn’t at all evoke the dainty qualities or particular nature of the orchid that produces vanilla pods.<\/p>\n I later learned that the farm she came from favored spice names for the does.\u00a0 There was a Nutmeg and Clove in her herd.\u00a0 Probably a Rosemary and, certainly, a Cinnamon.\u00a0 I sighed over this.\u00a0 Oh, I had no problem with naming themes.\u00a0 On our farm, we also had a theme.\u00a0 I preferred the does to have female names like the Brianna and Carmen that were our first arrivals.\u00a0 We’ve had Josie and Charlotte, Molly and Cassie, Rita and Lucille.\u00a0 Along with Carmen, we still have Julia and the latest newcomer, Allie.<\/p>\n It just seems more dignified.\u00a0 A sisterhood of milk providers.\u00a0 A sorority of sorts.\u00a0 We also have one blue eyed doe in our herd named Vixen.\u00a0 I didn’t give her that name, she came with it, but I never changed it.\u00a0 Because let’s face it, ladies.\u00a0 There’s always one of those in the group, isn’t there?<\/p>\n So I didn’t change Vanilla’s name either.\u00a0 Because I didn’t really know who she was or what other name might suit her.\u00a0 It wasn’t until her first kids were born here in February that she even seemed a part of the herd.\u00a0 It was only after that long freezing night we spent waiting for her kids to arrive that she seemed like my goat at all.\u00a0 And her twins were healthy, vigorous, and not a bit deformed.<\/p>\n Although it might be said that all Toggenburg kids look a little bit like aliens from a certain standpoint.<\/p>\n From the minute she left the kidding barn with her twins in tow, Vanilla was a force to be reckoned with.\u00a0 She was first on the milkstand and she filled the bucket to the brim.\u00a0 After leaving a pail overflowing with milk she still rushed off to find her kids and let them nurse.<\/p>\n This was something I had never seen before.\u00a0 Usually after the morning milking, the does would tolerate just the tiniest of sips from their kids before kicking them off.\u00a0 The does were milked out anyway so the kids wouldn’t get much sustenance until their milk supply recovered.\u00a0 But Vanessa had enough for the bucket ad still leftovers for her kids.<\/p>\n Oh, it was true.\u00a0 She lad leaky pores on her teats.\u00a0 The bumps were slightly visible when her udder was full.<\/p>\n And much more obvious when she was milked out.<\/p>\n They did sometimes make my hands moist when I milked, but it tapered off over the season and she never got an infection or had trouble with bacteria.\u00a0 And her milk was just as sweet as my friend had promised.\u00a0 The truth is she was a powerhouse in the barnyard and on the milkstand.\u00a0 Plus, morning after morning, milking after milking, she became my friend.\u00a0 She didn’t just stand for ear scratches, she sought them out.\u00a0 She didn’t hover on the edge of my presence, but strolled up to see what I was up to.\u00a0 She wasn’t just part of the herd.\u00a0 She was in the center of it all.<\/p>\n Some time this summer she even taught all the ladies a new trick.\u00a0 She started putting her head through the fence into the buck pen to drink from the bucks’ water pails.<\/p>\n She does this despite the fact that the bucks only have three 5 gallon buckets of water for the day and the does have a large trough that automatically refills itself with fresh water as they drink it in their barn.<\/p>\n Her influence is so great that now all the does go for a drink from the buck pen each morning after their breakfast.\u00a0 She’s so powerful that guess who else does it now, too?<\/p>\n It wasn’t long after that development, that I was in the barn and I looked at her, waiting for a chin rub by the milking gate.<\/p>\n “Oh, ” I said.\u00a0 “I know who you are.”\u00a0 I took in her sturdy body and her gentle face.\u00a0 I thought of her generous milk supply.\u00a0 I smiled, gave her a chin rub, and thought her original owner hadn’t been so far off from the right name.\u00a0 She just needed a Do Over to bring it out.<\/p>\n “Hello, Vanessa,”\u00a0 I said.\u00a0 “Good to finally meet you.”<\/p>\n And for the past few months she has been Vanessa.\u00a0 She still milks first.\u00a0 She still fills the milking bowl to the brim, milking just once a day, 8 months after she freshened.<\/p>\n But she’s more than just a good milker.\u00a0 She’s an example of the Do Over done just right.\u00a0 There’s no better start to the day than a sign that this is a new beginning for each of us.\u00a0 That today’s the perfect opportunity for a second chance.\u00a0 That no matter how many setbacks we face on this farm, no matter how times we fail, no matter what baggage we carry with us, we can still have a Do Over.<\/p>\n So I canned the tomato sauce yesterday without adding the lemon juice.\u00a0 When I realized my mistake, I checked the recipe to see how much lemon juice I needed, and discovered I left out the tomato paste, too.\u00a0 So I poured all the sauce out, fixed it up, and sealed it back.\u00a0 Do Over.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n