“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet..”

William Shakespeare, from Romeo and Juliet

Hello?

Heeeellloooooo?

Ah, there you are! Still here? Wow, I’m impressed.

I know, it’s been a while between posts. Let’s just say there’s been a lot going on this year, and Bec C and I have come to realise that unless you actually make cold hard cash from your blog, it tends to take a back seat when the rubber hits the road.

So where to start? Well, for now, I just wanted to tell you about the new addition to our family.

We’ve had our first go at breeding animals.

We’ve had our first home-birth.

We have a baby goat! A kid to be accurate. And we’re all in love. She is a delight!

Let me introduce you to BB, aka Beery.

(Beery putting on a pout, photo cred: Emma Keen)

Beery’s full name is Beery Bathtub, so named by The Kid. Don’t ask, because I don’t know. We just went with it. At Bec C’s suggestion we tried to adopt BB as a shortened version but The Kid wasn’t keen, so Beery has kind of stuck. I still use BB every now and then, as I prefer it. Poor thing, will she be confused?

(Minutes after birth, Izzi and Beery)

To be fair, she doesn’t seem to mind the name thing. She’s just happy to be cuddled, to have her ears scratched, to rub up against you, and to have a regular feed. If Beery awakes in the paddock, and Izzi is off grazing out of sight, Beery calls for her.

“Marm! Marm!” The hungrier she gets, the louder she gets, and the more it sounds like an indignant “Muuuuuuumm!”. When they find one another, Beery skips up to Izzi, ducks under her belly, punches Izzi’s udders hard with her nose (I must say, it makes me wince) and tucks in to a good feed.

(A well-deserved feed for Izzi delivered to her in the birthing suite)

She really is the sweetest thing.

(A few hours old; for the first week, we moved Beery and Izzi into the stable each night)

This is all so new for us. We only recently acquired our first two does (for the uninitiated, that’s a female goat). Up until then we’d only had wethers (castrated males), and then we were given Monty, a buck, or billy goat (an intact male). So we figured we’d better get a doe. Friends of ours breed goats and Stacey hand-picked two beautiful does for us, from her own flock.

One arrived already named, Izzi, and it was Izzi who gave birth to Beery. The other doe came without a moniker and after much discussion, we went firm on Padme Amidala.

If you need to ask it means you’re not a Star Wars fan and nor are you the co-habitor of a six-year-old Star Wars fanatic. Padme was (SPOILER ALERT) Anakin Sywalker’s wife. And for the record, Anakin (SPOILER ALERT) morphed into Darth Vader.

(3 weeks old, Beery loves to nibble on our clothes)

I’m fairly sure Padme is now in kid. Padme the doe that it is. Not Padme the Star Wars character. If she has a boy, I suspect it will be Luke. If it it’s a girl, Leia perhaps?

Before The Kid was old enough to have a say, our goats had names like Atticus (a rescue goat who admittedly, turned out to be poorly named as he was a bully), Scout, Boo Radley (from my all-time favourite book), Potsie, Ralph Malph, Richie and Fonzie (from Hubs’ favourite TV show).

Through the process of naming Beery, I’ve realised I have less and less say in these matters. But it’s OK, I mean, what’s in a name anyway?

(Within the first hour, Beery had stood on wobbly legs, suckled from her Mum and slept – a perfect start to life)

P.S. I’ve posted a couple of videos of Beery over on Instagram if you’re a user and if you’re interested. @rcharper is my username.