Dúagwyn Farm

05/29/2026

Gilly has been
a full-time member
of the doe herd
for two days now.
She doesn’t love it, but she’s making friends.

05/26/2026

NIKOLA TESLA LIVES.

My founding goats were all get of the same sire: Dragonfly HLU Nikola Tesla. He was a lovely black and white buck with a white streak in his black beard, right under the chin. His daughters Portia and Penelope had the “milk dribble”, too.

What I noticed over the years is that white streak is a particularly resilient trait. You couldn’t see it on silver or light gold goats, but every black, chocolate, buckskin, and chamoise kid born had that dribble, even if only a few white hairs.

Gilly is far removed from Nikola in years, but not so genetically (he is her dam’s dam’s sire). It’s been some years since Nikola was alive among us, yet, here he is. Right on her chin.

05/25/2026

BEING IN THE MOMENT.

Having Gilly in the house is not like any other time I’ve had bottle babies. In all previous seasons, there have been multiple babies in a restricted goats-only area. Gilly has full run of the house and sleeps in my room. She follows me wherever I go.

And she’s right on schedule. I’ve learned that baby goats in the house are cute and fun until precisely the fourteenth day, at which point, they become intolerable. To me. Gilly is twelve days old today.

For the last four days, she has spent a few hours in the doe barn at goat school, a little longer each day. She gets her bottles on schedule and hangs out in the milking stall. There’s a gap under the stall door which makes it the perfect retreat for kids small enough to duck under. Her brothers have begun to acknowledge her.

None of this is easy. I have promised myself that I would leave her there until 4pm bottle the last two days and have caved early both days. I’m determined to make it today.

So, enjoy the moment I caught here. Because I gotta get this goat out ma house.

05/22/2026

MAYBE.

I’ve just remembered something formative I heard when I’d first moved here, something that struck me with a profundity that it literally kept me in the game. I’m remembering it today as I come out of a tunnel, and the metaphorical sun shows signs of coming out. I’m sharing it in hopes others might find it helpful. It is this:

It is not as important to make the right decision as it is to make the decision right.

From which I extrapolated: we cannot know the pleasures and pain that lay down the road we did not take. It is folly to regret a choice when we can’t know what the alternative would have held. Put your energy instead to cultivating the choice you did make. Make it the right choice.

I’m posting the Maybe Story as a companion philosophy. I find it useful, too.

Anyway. Happy Memorial Day weekend, yall.

05/20/2026

MAYBE.

I’ve been collecting and contemplating be- words the last few days. It needs to be an at least somewhat arcane word not in common usage, and also lend itself to a tolerable barn name.

I have considered and rejected:
Bemused
Becalmed
Befuddled
Begrudge
Besotted
Bestow
Betwixt
Bewitch

I have (I think!) settled upon Beguiled (“Gilly”). It will take a few days to see if it sticks.

05/20/2026

Well, this was inevitable.

05/19/2026

05/18/2026

STANDING DOWN RED ALERT.

I’m calling it: we are out of the woods. Little Girl is eating consistently, doing all the peeing pooping jumpy things, sleeping right through the night in her own little cardboard box bed. She has literally doubled in size, and follows me around the house crying like an imprinted duckling.

Now what do I do?!

Because, here’s the thing. She was taken young enough that she is detached from her mother, and Boo has her hoofs full, believe me. She’s all: what daughter? I have three hungry boys, my hoohaw is leaking, and my t**s hurt.

Which would be fine, if Little Girl had a buddy. But because Dragon declined to put a girl in Lyra when he had FOUR FU***NG TRIES, she does not. Reintroduction to the herd may well be fraught, with bullying and loneliness. Sigh.

But I will try.

In the meantime, she needs a name. This is normally my strong suit, but I’m unsure now of the name I had tentatively picked for a Boo daughter. As this is Boo’s first kidding she doesn’t have an established naming convention, but I did have one waiting.

Boo’s name isn’t Boo. I call her that because she was so tiny next to her ginormous brothers at birth. Sound familiar? As the last Penelope daughter, I chose for her one of my favourite words in the English language: Bespoke. What a great word. Duagwyn SI Bespoke. She was tailor made.

Even as I named her (four years ago!), I projected that her naming convention would be words in the English language beginning with the prefix be-, the more rarified, the better.

I could go bewitched, or beholden, or betrothed, but I find those a bit mundane. I’m thinking more betwixt, besotted, beclowned. But there needs to be a regular, everyday name in there, too.

I have one in mind, but I want to hear if you have anything brilliant to throw in the ring. I’ll give you mine first:

Besmirch.

05/17/2026

Night night.

05/16/2026

LITTLE GIRL MAY 16 UPDATE.

We’re doing well. Slow, steady improvement. She slept nine hours last night and I had to wake her at 6am. She’s showing real appetite behaviour: bumping and nibbling on me. So far today, she’s had 160ml of Boo’s Day 2 colostrum. Not a lot, or even really enough, but the most yet (and more than Chewie ever had).

Attempts at jumps have begun, and she’s been investigating a bit. It may be an illusion, but she seems to have nigh doubled in size.

I’m not ready to discuss names just yet, but I am now incautiously optimistic.