Last night, under the clear crisp Winter sky, I stood among my goats, doling out scratches and attention to their very pregnant bodies. Kidding Season is just around the corner, but, for now, all the anxiety inducing stress that comes with baby goats still feels far enough away that daydreaming comes fairly easily.

As I stood there, scratching one of our oldest goats, Genevieve, I let myself sink into the realization that this goat and I have been sharing an orbit for over seven years. One of the first girls to come onto this farm as a true working girl, Genevieve has watched this little plot of land transform from a barren field of rocks and weeds to a lush pasture of assorted goat grazing favorites. Her work ethic has remained one of the best…always eager to come into the milk parlor and never reluctant to leave. Her health, like this farm, has thrived over the seasons—She maintains good milk production throughout the entire year, even through Breeding Season, and she always kids without assistance.

Speaking of kids. Genevieve’s daughters are all over this farm. In fact, it’s an unwritten rule that if Genevieve has girls, we keep them. They are some of our friendliest goats, even when raised by her and not a bottle, and, throughout the years, they have proved that they possess their mother’s innate ability to give birth without drama and, even better, raise their young without human intervention.

Genevieve is hands down, one of our favorite goats.

But I suppose what’s really special about all this, is that seven years after she first set foot on this farm, she’s still here. I feel fairly confident saying that having a nine year old girl on our milk line is special.

It’s a testament really, to what micro dairy farming can look like. Deep, meaningful relationships with a small subset of animals—forged through year after year of commitment to each other. While most commercial lactating animals work for just two years before heading to a meat processor, that has not been the case here. In fact, of the 50ish goats we expect on our milk line this year, over half have been with us from the beginning. And not just that, our herd is filled with their grandmothers, mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts…it’s a true matriarchal society and it is a beautiful thing.

Of course, there are some males running around. Our herd lives quite happily with two bucks for the majority of the year (yes, even through milking season). As farmers who are driven by a love of the wilderness more than a desire for farmland, our focus has always been to create a herd that felt more like a wild family unit than a bunch of intensively managed individuals. It’s why we keep moms on babies for as long as possible, why we allow the bucks to live with their girls, and why we made a promise to every unborn male on this farm that testicles did not constitute an immediate one way ticket to a slaughterhouse.

This farm, this stupid little farm that had the gumption to think it could feed a community without compromising its morals, is doing just that. We are dairying in a way that feels right, that honors the relationship between man and goat, and, most importantly, does so without sacrificing the land.

And we couldn’t do it without you.

So as we head into our sixth season, and as all of you follow along as you’ve always done, many of you who have been part of our journey just as long as Genevieve, please know—we are proud and honored to feed your bellies and your soul.

Thank you for helping make this impossibly romantic dream of dairying a reality.

Kidding Season is upon us but you can relive all the stress and drama of last year by watching our YouTube Episode on the 2021 Kidding Season.

Six Years Later: Holding on to the Romance of Dairying