I think I can honestly say that I have tried everything to get my internet up and running as it should. But despite my stubborn efforts, said internet refuses to be steady! So much to my dismay, I need to announce that the blog will be on hold for just a couple weeks. I may still manage to get a post in, here and there, as the internet allows; but the daily posts and the newsletters may be few and far between for a bit.
But I promise that it's only a couple weeks! The Man and I are moving back out to the farm on the second week of January, and then I'll *finally* have steady internet to continue writing! Woohoo!
This also means the e-course will be rescheduled, which is a disappointment to me... But it's a necessary decision. Although, I guess this gives you more time to save up for it, so maybe it's a win for you?
Take care, okay guys? I'll be back as soon as I can!
If you haven't figured it out by now, yes, that's his name. Although I admit to calling him "Small Mailman" more often than "Travis"... (nickname gets a nod towards Pixar's movie 'UP' in reference)
My apologies for the silence! Our internet server had problems that took a week for the company to fix! Oy vey. I *think* it's good to go now, but only time will tell...
Early bird registration for the 'You Can Succeed' e-course has been postponed for just a couple days, due to lack of internet here, and a newborn baby!!
Yep, the little man himself *finally* decided to make an appearance! I will post pictures shortly; once I have enough time and internet to do so... His arrival was December 10th, at 8:30pm. T'was a long... Long... LONG labor. Ugh. Fourteen hours all total, and he came out at 9 lbs. even, and measuring 21" long. All I could think of during the labor was that 1) He was NEVER going to come; 2) That I was surely going to perish from the pain; and 3) If I survived, then I wanted a really greasy cheeseburger ASAP. Yes, I was having cravings even while in labor. Don't judge.
48 hours later, I'm slowly starting to figure this whole "mama-thing" out. It's taking time, and I'm pretty exhausted from it all, but he's a cute (and pudgy!) little fellow. Hubby and I think we'll keep him... ;)
Look at what's about to be launched!! I am beyond excited to be able to share this opportunity with you, and think it will be an absolute blast! So if you're ready to have a successful and profitable small farm, then this is for you! If you're ready to take your existing farm enterprises to the next level, then this is for you! If you're just starting out, and still not sure what you should sell in your area, then this is for you! If you want to increase your business skills, while being able to interact with a group of like-minded folks, then THIS IS FOR YOU!
Web link to the e-course will be going live in the next day or two, and we will be celebrating the Early Bird Registration with a giveaway! So don't get too far off!
When people hear my blog name, their first reaction is always, "Well that's an interesting name. Where'd that come from??" I always struggle to explain it a little bit, since it's rather a complex reason. Or more correctly, there are multiple complex reasons. But this is today's post; a history lesson, and why I chose the online alias of "Goat Song"!
It started out pretty innocently. I had Nubian goats. Those of you who have also owned this breed will most likely smile and nod in understanding. Those of you who haven't... Well, allow me to let you in on a not-so-secret fact: Nubians are LOUD! Very loud. They're talkative drama queens who never miss an opportunity to vocalize their opinion on a matter, no matter how big or small. This trait can either be endearing, or a nightmare, depending on your level of tolerance. For the most part, I found it endearing; my family however, considered it the latter choice and made many a complaint over the years about the noise. I couldn't do anything to make the goats be quieter, so I would usually end up simply winking and saying that the goats weren't being noisy; they were singing! I had myself a whole herd of talented, singing goats! Granted, this quirky explanation never soothed the family members' annoyance, but it started the path of a herd name...
Along with being loud, Nubians are also dramatic. I had a first freshening, two year old named 'Ivy' who absolutely refused to settle down on the milking stand. She screamed, bucked, rolled her eyes like a wild mustang, held her milk back, kicked, and whatever else she could think of to let me know that she was most unhappy with the situation! At my wits end, I tried singing to her one day. Ivy had no idea what to do about this strange happening, and froze. Five minutes later, I finished milking her; she hadn't moved a muscle in that time, and I was hooked. Singing in the dairy parlor would now be mandatory! Ivy never did misbehave ever again after that day, as long as I sang the exact same song every time it was her turn.
As time went on, each goat got her own song; they picked it, not me; I'd just go through the list of ones I knew until eventually I figured out which one made them let their milk down the fastest. Ivy's favorite was "Skellig", Capri liked "The Ballad of the Highwayman", Heidi refused to be sung to and had to be quoted Dr. Seuss' "Green Eggs and Ham" (she always was strange..). On and on it went. Every goat had a different song. After awhile, I referred to them as my "goat songs".
My goat singing went up a notch upon finding an old, barely-read book at my local library. It was called, 'Sing The Cows Home; the remarkable herdswomen of Sweden'. Boom. Total game changer right there. The entire book was a historical account of the amazing Swedish women called "Valkulla" (plural form is "Valkullor"), who, every summer would take their goats and cows high up into the mountains to graze. No men were allowed to come up (except young men on Saturdays, to court the single ladies), and the women and animals stayed up there until the frost drove them back down to the villages. It was the sole job of the women to care for the dairy animals, collect enough summer grass, fall leaves, and pine boughs to sustain the animals over the winter, plus make enough cheese and butter to keep her family from starving during the cold months.
These women were the bees knees, let me tell ya'. Every morning, after milking, they would simply let their animals loose to roam the vast hundreds and hundreds of acres of pasture and black forest. No shepherd or milk maid accompanied the animals, as the women had work to do. Come night fall, every woman would stand at the edge of her cottage and call her animals home via a high pitched song called "Kulning". A difficult talent to acquire, girls would begin training their vocal chords for this once they turned thirteen years old. By the time they were eighteen (old enough to begin caring for animals of their own), they could sing at a pitch that was 3 octaves above Middle C, and could be heard up to 6 miles away! Each woman had a different song, so that the right animals would go back to the right home. Tales are told by the men of the haunting sound of so many different songs ringing down from the mountains... Alas, the story isn't always romantic; at the time of the Valkulla, the black forest was still a dangerous threat and filled with wolves and other terrors. If a goat or cow didn't return at the sound of the valkulla's song, then she had to go into the dark forest, at night, by herself, and find her animal/s. Many a woman was either killed and eaten by wolves, or died from accidentally stepping into a quicksand swamp.
The story of these brave women intrigued me, and I began learning to kuln. I never got very good at it, but could eventually get my voice to carry a good 1/4 to 1/2 mile, and my goats learned to come running when they heard the song. My goat song.
If you've never heard what kulning sounds like, then here's a great starter clip! (this gal also has three other amazing sound clips on Youtube). There are never any words; just the rising and falling of the voice. Some think it strange, but I find it quite beautiful.
The singing with my goats continued over the years. They sang to me from the pasture, I sang them home for morning and evening chores, and then sang to them again during milking. In the online world, I became known as "the girl who sings with goats", or "that goat song girl", and the names stuck. I was Goat Song. And I named my blog 'To Sing With Goats' in honor of the ancient tradition of mixing melody with milking.
When I sold off the goat herd and moved to Missouri, I often thought about changing the blog name. Maybe instead calling it something that didn't seem so exclusively "goat"... I considered many an idea for two solid years, but finally came to a decision: This place will always remain 'To Sing With Goats'. Not just because of a single girl who fanatically sang to her herd of caprines. But because of the broader scope of what it stood for. The blog name is in honor of the Valkullor; some of history's most determined women who farmed. And that is a key interest for me today: Women who farm.
If they can do it, we can do it.
We sing our cows home. We sing our goats home.
We carry on the legacy. May the songs never die...
I've gone back and forth about posting on Sunday, but in the end decided to not post (wait a minute! I'm posting on a Sunday right now! Good heavens, I make no sense...). Primarily because I want/need a day off to keep me from burning out, but also because I'm already writing content on Sunday via 'The Newsletter'... Bum, bum, bum BUUUUM!! <----- Dramatic music
The newsletters come on Sunday mornings, and always have content that isn't found on the blog. It's the "exclusive club" of this place, if you will. In the newsletters I generally write about what's going on, on the farm right now (or is in the works), I give a practical tip that you can implement on your own farm (this week's tip was preventing/treating frostbite on dairy animals!), some super-cool thing that I've found online and is farm-related (like today's homestead planner pages!), and then a random note of some sort that can be just about anything. Newsletter subscribers also get sneak peeks at upcoming blog projects (could it be possible that I'm about to release an interactive e-course!? Only subscribers would know or not! *Gasp!*), discounts on products, first dibs on offerings... I should stop here, before y'all get jealous. Wouldn't want that, now, would we?
You might have seen the popup offer on your screen come up once, with the offer of receiving a free weekly newsletter. That offer is only supposed to come up once so as not to be an annoyance (and because I'm not clever enough to figure out how to make it appear more times than that), so if you saw the offer, missed it, and now you're thinking you might want to try it after all... Then today's your lucky day!! Here's a chance to sign up!
This week's link-up is a fun collection of some natural livestock care tips! In the past, I've always stuck to using dried herbs, infusions, and tinctures on my stock, but I plan on using essential oils on a much more frequent basis this spring...
