I was dead to the world when Ralph walked into the bedroom. "Didn't you hear me on the baby monitor?" he asked standing there in what appeared to be full arctic gear. The receiver crackled next to my head with only static.Knowing there was a new baby, I shook off what few hours of sleep I had gotten and headed out to the barn.
Nestle had a stout little buck on the ground over which her tongue was moving at lightning speed to get him cleaned off and dry in the bitter cold night. Within minutes of birth, he had found the teat, latched on and his tiny tail wiggled with satisfaction.
Back at the house, I added the birth to the doe's record sheet. "Easy births, good mother, good 'auntie'," I had noted in the margin of her sheet. An 'untie' is the term I use for does who will let any kid nurse off of her.
Another middle-of-the-night check yielded no additions, but with the latest snow storm of the season underway, I'm sure someone will bless us today.
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