In all the chaos, strife and uncertainty of current times, two little kids remind us of the joy of new life. Kids as in baby goats. For what seems forever, our pint-sized doe Honeysuckle has been on the verge of giving birth. Her udder began filling with milk weeks ago, her tail stood up, she was biting at her sides (all signs of possible imminent labor.) Night after night I would drag myself out of bed, slip my crocs on, and pick my way through the dark yard to check on her in the barnyard. Last Monday I ran a Ph strip on her, which came out 6.5 or 7, depending on which color you decided matched the best. Unfortunately, the information didn’t help much. I remembered a Facebook blog that said “7” was when “to get excited” so that night I thought sure might be the time for babies. But no. Although Honeysuckle was not a first-time mama, she is SO little (truly a mini miniature, sired by the tiniest buck we ever had) and she looked so big with babies, I was concerned she might have trouble. We had kept a buckling with the does for awhile, so we didn’t have an exact due date. I started to postpone an upcoming overnight trip, but DJ counseled, “It could be days, and I can take care of them.” So I left Tuesday, returning Wednesday night. Still no babies, but Honeysuckle stood by the barnyard gate. “Do you want to go in the stall?” I asked, and sure enough when I opened the gate, she made her way into the birthing stall and seemed content. I checked back off and on—no babies. Morning came, no babies. Honeysuckle continued to be placid. Days before, I had assembled birthing supplies—disinfectant, scissors, string, clean towels, a foldout chair. Thursday afternoon, I took a nap. Around 4:30, I got up and went back out to the barn. Still placid, Honeysuckle looked up at me. This time, beside her rested two little bundles, twin bucklings. The first, brown, looks like his mom. The other, a glossy black with blue eyes, takes after his daddy. When I sat down to imprint them (30 firm strokes all over, forming a foundation of familiarity with people that fosters lifelong trust) the tan buckling was already completely dry. The black one, though, was still damp around his feet. While I was still rubbing the black one’s rather slimy forefeet, then his still-wrinkly ears, our daughter brought little Sara to see the new babies. A couple of days later when seeing the little boys, Sarah grabbed the black one and started rotating his front feet, then began rubbing his ear. I started to admonish her, then realized she was only showing she knew what to do with baby goats, faithfully imitating my imprinting techniques! Each year, we name our baby goats starting with the next letter of the alphabet, which makes it easy later to remember how old each one is. Last year’s babies were Jeremy, Jasper and Jillian. Isabel was born two years ago, and Honeysuckle is now three years old. Our son chose the names Kinney and Koda for the twins. Remembering the old Kinney shoe company renowned for their tan Hush Puppy loafers, I deemed the brown one to be Kinney and the glossy black as the dramatic coda (but spelled with a K.) So far so good, and the two little two-pounders have already developed fans. Yesterday, wanting to get them out on fresh ground away from any build-up of bacteria or contamination, I put together a nursery pen for them and their mama, using some of the tight-woven grazing panels. Last night, I walked by their pen during the course of evening chores, enjoying seeing them with their mama. A few minutes later, as I passed by again I did a double-take. The two little boys had slipped through the 4” square openings of the fence and were just getting ready to go exploring. Wonderful guards though our farm dogs are, I don’t trust them with such nearly squirrel-sized little ones, and DJ was also bush hogging nearby in the twilight. I scooped up the babies, and bundled mama and boys back into the birthing stall. Today, I took back the toddler play-fence panels set up for possible baby chicks in our poultry pen, instead using them to form a sub-fence within the grazing panel pen. Overall, as trouble-free a kidding as possible. Now for Isabel, our next mama-in-waiting. She will be a first-timer