There's a new darling doeling in town....

Back in the winter when I named Aurora before she hatched, I asked Mark if he thought our hypothetical doeling would be as sweet as her mother. "Sweeter," he said promptly. "Impossible!" I replied.

But motherhood is tough on everyone, and I'm forced to admit the transition to a new life stage has taken a tiny bit of shine off Artemesia's halo. She's still the world's greatest milk goat. She lets me milk her without locking her head in the stanchion, goes wherever I ask without a leash, and generally acts like the perfect herd animal.

On the other hand, making 6 cups of milk per day takes a lot of calories. So Artemesia doesn't have as much time to caper as she used to. Instead, she generally needs to hunker down and eat.

Enter doeling 2.0....

At three months old, Aurora is just a little younger than Artemesia was when we brought her home. And the sweetness of a teenibopper goat is very much in evidence. Sunday, our darling doeling snuggled up to me as I read in the woods and let me stroke her soft fur for quite a long time. And I realized --- even though this sounds like heresy --- that Mark might be right. Aurora might be even sweeter than her mother.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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