49th and 50th bound!!

O BOY...it's been over a week and I've been a terrible blogger. So apologies to everyone who actually reads this pretty regularly. The good news is I have lots more pictures. Last I blogged I had watched Kisses give birth and we only had 3 babies. A little over a week later we now have over 40!! The day after Kisses gave birth I was excited to be working outside and ready to deliver some babies. And guess what...the whole day went by with nada. Erin and I got to evening milking and we were missing a goat. I went to look for it figuring it was a goat that got left behind and there were the babies I was hoping for...two little cute nuggets with mom (Jacqui) in Little Italy. I'm now extra careful when counting goats when I let them into the goat walk for milking haha. So Eva came out to help me and we slowly brought mom to the barn by carrying the baby and setting it down so mom could see her (goats don't recognize their babies when your holding them) and lick her and then pick her up again and walk 20 more feet or so etc. So I missed my chance of seeing the birth AND a mama had her kids in the pasture allowing them to suck from her on my watch...fail.

That next Wednesday I helped deliver my first kids by myself. I wasn't working but I was sticking around the farm and Ice Bear had been in a stall for days with what we think may have been pregnancy toxemia. She was so uncomfortable so it was a relief for her to finally have her babies. I happened to be ichatting Kevin and Eva delivered one baby but she had two more. Eva left for a few minutes and I was there (after blowing Kevin off to watch haha sorry Kev!) and nature doesn't wait as Ice Bear had one which I helped take the sack off her face and then helped mama with her third (we help pull the babies out when mom's pushing once you see the two hooves and head). The third was SO tiny!! I was afraid she hadn't made it. Once I got the sack off her face she sneezed a few times (which they all do trying to breathe) and she was an adorable healthy girl. I got to name her and decided on Little Bit (very fitting for her size). Naturally since it was the first goat I helped deliver I feel pretty attached to her and I may be spoiling her more than the others ; ) 15 babies total were born that day.

The following day I went on deliveries and when I got back Alicia and Elijah had helped deliver 18 babies in one day! The next day 19. Needless to say we've been doing a lot of kidding over here. Bottle feeding, bowl training, delivering...it's been a tiring week for all. Especially Eva who starts the day super early and ends at night...I don't know how she does it! We've been covered in colostrum, amniotic fluid, and grabbing placentas by hand...welcome to kidding season! And I have to say even though it can be tiring and stressful I'm absolutely loving it. Now that we're into this week the big groups of babies have graduated to drinking milk from the pipe and going to Hansi and we have successfully gotten over the kidding peak. Watching them in Hansi has been so adorable as the tiny kids run back and forth and jump on surf boards. It's definitely the best time of year to visit...some tourists witnessing the first hours of a kid's life.

Not only has the kidding season kicked off and hit the peak in a matter of days but the holidays are coming up meaning FED EX FED EX FED EX! Christi, Nalani, Eva, and I have been packing many boxes of cheese, truffles, and more to send for gifts around the country. We also had our surfing goat christmas party on Sunday. We all went to dinner at the hideaway and then went to the maui arts and cultural center for a willy k christmas concert...he was wonderful!! Nalani even made us all christmas leis out of tea leaves I think. Before I leave I'm going to learn to make leis : ) It was a fun and relaxing evening that I think we all needed.

Well its my day off and I'm off to the beach with Alicia and Jasmine. Erin comes to visit tomorrow!!

O MY LORD!!! THE BLOG ABOVE IS FROM WEEKS AGO AND I JUST DIDN'T UPLOAD IT!! haha it's official...I'm the worst blogger. BUT one of my new year goals (yes I said goals, not resolution ...why set myself up for failure right??) is to be better about blogging.

So it's January...HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I hope you all have had a good year thus far. I have a good feeling about this one. Last year was pretty great between my senior year at MSU, living with my sorority sisters, graduating, going to Alaska, and then here but this is just the start. I've come to realize this is the most exciting time in my life. A wise person once told me your twenties are the time to be selfish. At first I wasn't sure because hey, who ever wants to admittedly be selfish...but it's true! This is the time to do what you want for you, make mistakes, learn what you like and what you don't like and grow. It's so thrilling and scary at the same time to have the option to go wherever and try new things. I also feel really blessed. Anyways, enough about that....here's to a good year!!

First morning of the year!! I got to milk the herd : ) I love milking the goaties <3

Unfortunately I didn't have the most exciting new years eve but I did watch the ball drop live on my computer after work. It was actually pretty lonely. I got christmas off so I had to work 6-6:30 new years day. All the girls went out and had plans so I just cleaned my room, wrote some new year goals, and watched glee. I know...nerdy evening. The exciting thing about working was I worked in the dairy alone the whole day for the first time! I was nervous and couldn't sleep the night before worried about messing something major up but I did it and everything went well. I've never felt fully confident in the dairy since Cody and Monique (my security blankets) are always there haha so it's nice to know I can handle it.

SOOOO much has happened I don't even know how to blog the whole month of december. Well....we now have 84 babies! That's a lot of babies! Luckily they're all on pipe feeding now. Little bit is getting so big! But she still has her teeny little waddles. Sadly all the kiddies have upgraded to kennel or hansi so we don't have any cuties to play in the barn with. But we did have a sick kid (the one I named Dennis) and he got better and is super playful and adorable and we've been hanging out with him a lot and spoiling him since he's in the barn. Today he upgraded to a pasture though : (

My sweetheart little bit!

Snuggling Dennis after a long day of work

My new year's kiss!!

So not only did we have kidding season happenin but Erin (the head intern from Alaska) came to visit and then the boys (Kevin, Alex, and Dave). It was SO weird having people I know here visiting but comforting. I've had some homesick days so it was just what I needed...especially for the holidays. Erin stayed in this awesome hostel in Wailuku and I actually got to spend quite a bit of time with her going to the beach and some dinners. We tried our first coconut. I have to say I'm not the biggest fan of coconut water but it was fun to try. Having people here to visit made me realize how much I haven't done here. The boys stayed in Paia and were here for a little over a week. I felt like I was on vacation too getting an extra day off for christmas and staying overnight at their place. Kevin's brother Colin and his girlfriend, Danielle, were on vacation here as well so we all got to spend some time together. It made me soooo homesick to see the O'Connor boys! Kevin and I spent a day exploring the marine life here : ) we went on a snorkeling trip (my christmas present to him!) and it was great. We went to Molokini (a crescent shaped little island) and it was fun because Kevins never snorkeled before. On the way out to Molokini we saw a whale breech, my first one! and some spout. The unfortunate part was that we both obviously weren't pirates in our past life. He was feeling sick the way there and I thought I was fine till we slowed down and were close to the island and I got an overwhelming wave of nausea and lost it. Yup...I barfed in my very own beach bag. How embarrassing!!! But I didn't let that stop me from snorkeling. It was so cold but we saw a lot of fish, urchins, and a fat sea cucumber. On the way back we were more smart and sat on the bottom deck and saw some sea turtles. We also saw a mama whale and her baby. After snorkeling we went to the aquarium. The tunnel was so cool! And we saw Kevin's favorite...sharks haha. After some good beach time and many a mai tai (Dave's fav!) it was really sad to see the boys go : ( Can't wait for dad to make it out here in february!

Below are some pics from the past month. I'll try my hardest to get better at blogging more...so many funny things occur throughout the day! And it's hard to remember it all when it's been so long. Till next time...