The following post is an archive of our GoFundMe campaign which began in 2020.
Hello everyone,
Let me start this update by saying that I hope you all had a peaceful, restful and joyful Holiday season and that we like to wish everyone a good start into 2025 and all the best to carry you through this coming year.
Long time no news from us, the work with the animals and around the farm keeps us busy and there is always a next task to get to. Now it’s been almost a year since I shared any news about the farm and I’m left trying to decide what could be the key points of 2024. There is always so much going on, many little things that keep us on our toes and add a kind of sparkle to each workday. And then there are also some big events every year – good and bad.
It is difficult to paint a complete picture for you, though overall we had a good season with its ups and downs. I’ve picked out a few topics to tell you more about, as always it’s my view of the happenings here and someone else might come to an entirely different selection.
First I would like to introduce a new farm resident: our cat “Elsie” who already snuck into our life in the fall of 2023. For a while we were fostering her at the farm, but it soon became clear that this shy but obnoxious little kitty had already wiggled her way into everyone’s heart (at least in all the human hearts; it took a little longer with our senior cat Leo to be ok with the competition of this “youngling”) and that she has found her forever home with us. Early in 2024 she went for all her medical check ups and vaccinations, microchipping and spaying. Since then she has been on duty as our “cute rodent control”. She is very good at her job, the only issue is that she likes to leave “proof” of her night shifts in very inconvenient but prominent places – like the front entrance desk or the staff office.
January 2024 challenged us with “arctic” temperatures which is tough on the animals and makes taking care of them a lot more work-intense. At this point I like to give a huge THANK YOU to the staff team as it took a lot of hard work and energy to get through those workdays. Working under conditions with freezing winds, dealing with frozen water buckets several times a day, having only access to one source of running water and a limit of just 2 heated rooms on the farm (one of which was pretty much full time used to defrost water buckets) makes for difficult work conditions, but everyone was all in to provide the animals with all the care they needed during these very cold weeks. Great job Team!
On the last day of the freezing temperatures (where I thought -wrongly- that things were about to get better), I was awoken by a call from the park staff who informed me that there was a “small water leak” from the farm. I headed out right away and when I cut through the park I was up for a surprise. Each person might define a small water leak differently, but on reaching the farm half the road was frozen from the entrance all the way down to the goat petting area due to water that I saw emanating from the pig yard. I’m very grateful to the park workers who were there to help me. But shutting off the water only solved the immediate problem. Now we needed that broken pipe fixed ASAP to be able to keep on providing for the animals – and of course we were not the only ones in Victoria with a plumbing emergency. We reached out to our plumber and explained our predicament, and I can’t really put into words how much it meant to us that they said: “We’ll be there within the hour”. That seemed like a miracle. They came promptly, replaced the broken part and we could turn the water back on. I’m so grateful for their action and for understanding how essential that was for the animals. THANK YOU!
Then the weather turned milder, we had busy weeks to prepare the farm for our opening date in March. It felt great to welcome visitors, to be able to share with them our stories from the winter and our hopes and expectations for this new season. Spring break was crazy busy as always – every year it is a test for the team to get back into our work routines – and all went well. Our momma goats Papaya, Snowdrop and Snowdrift were showing off their babies as well as showing them this new big world with human visitors. Some of these babies are the first offspring we have of our new billy Beau and they are beautiful, strong and adventurous. We had several more mums expecting and in the summer Lemon Sorbet and Cookies ‘N Cream were able to welcome their little babies as well, followed in June by our mum Tinkerbell who surprised us with the last baby of the year “Pixie”. We had thought Tinkerbell had missed her chance to get pregnant and was just a little chubby looking – but had overlooked the fact that she had been for a short spontaneous date with Beau in mid February and the result of this was the joyous arrival of little Pixie.
Sadly, not all the times in 2024 were filled with happiness and for many of us working at the farm this year is also deeply engraved with loss and sorrow. I understand that we are a farm and while all our animals are pets, just due to the simple fact that we have so many animals of all ages and with different health conditions, the reality is that we have to say goodbye to some of them. Each time this happens, it’s difficult and heartbreaking for us. We do all we can for our animals during the time they are with us- including daily care, preventative treatments and medical interventions. But sometimes we are helpless and every loss hurts: with every goodbye something breaks and every absence leaves a hole in our middle and our heart. This year we had to say several goodbyes and four of them were members of our dear goat herd. We lost these precious goats to different medical issues, some chronic and worsening over time to the point that it diminished their quality of life and others due to very acute emergencies involving late night trips to the vet and emergency surgery. We tried but we lost.
While we’ll forever miss them:
- BANANAS with her big outgoing personality and her love (and demanding nature) for scratches
- AURORA with her independent soul and a mind that would allow her to always pick a path for just herself
- JUPITER with his sweet youthful and so boyish nature (always happily engaging with the ladies)
- PAPAYA with her gentle, kind and wise soul, this little lady who resembled her famous mother so much
We will also keep on remembering them – through the cherished times we were allowed to spend with and learn from them, the memories we share with everyone who met them and through their herd friends, mothers, siblings and kids they leave behind.
There is so much more that has happened in 2024, but there is simply never enough time or words to write it all down. Just be ensured that life and work with the animals is never boring, it keeps us going, provides us with lots of work and challenges, gives plenty of smiles and tears, costs us sleep and lots of energy, but makes us rich in memories and goat kisses and the trust in their eyes is making it all worthwhile.
I would like to close with our best wishes for the New Year.
We wish for all you to:
- Dance like Mango
- Eat like Petunia
- Greet each morning like Benjamin
- Shine like Sunshine
- Kiss like Osmond
- Run like you are in the goat stampede
- Play like Elsie
- Chat like Maud
- Give like our momma goats
- Relax like Leo
- Speak up like Opal and Taffy
- Love like Rosie
Thank you for being part of this journey.
Take care and always keep a smile in your heart,
Claudia
