So, I'm Not Back (hiatus extension, ft. baby goats)

Hello! Long time no...see. Or comment. Or respond to comments. I feel a tad guilty for not commenting on all of the lovely posts y'all have been putting up, even though I've read most of them. I feel even more guilty given that...ah...I'm not planning on coming back for a good bit.

Wait! Don't leave in a snit, please! Stay a moment, I will explain, I have good reasons!

Namely, I'm working a full-time internship on a goat dairy, along with a part-time job as basically a wedding coordinator at our parish. This is Exciting! I'm Enjoying Myself! (Mostly. The goat dairy had a steep learning curve, and I considered giving up a bajillion times in my first couple of days. I'm planning on sticking it out for the full 2.5 months, though. We'll see.) 

Given that this means I spend five days a week working 7-10 hours per day milking does in milk, bottle feeding kids, catching escaped goats of all descriptions, &c, on a farm with Very Little Wifi and no access to a computer, while spending the other two days per week in some combination of wedding planning/prep (for other people), running wedding rehearsals (for other people), running weddings (for other people), catching up on email and the million tiny things that pile up when one is out of the house 5 days per week, eating, sleeping, writing letters, spending time with my family, not to mention reading...this also means that I can't commit to consistent blogging until *gulp* August. 

That doesn't mean I won't sneak in a post here or there. After this weekend, I'll be done with 3/5 of the weddings I have this summer (thank God), so I'll have a little more free time on a regular basis. And I have a couple of posts in mind...perhaps a "day-in-the-life" as a goat dairy intern (would you be interested in that?) and I have some Thoughts after rereading Jane Eyre that I'd like to talk about. But I'm not going to commit to a regular posting schedule...nor to commenting on peoples' posts, though I'll probably read them! 

My apologies. I know that the blogosphere is quiet enough right now already without me being gone, but there is pretty much no physical way I can blog right now. Which is just about as sad for me as for you, believe me! But I'm hoping that I come back in August/the Fall rejuvenated, with new ideas about the organization of this blog (maybe a facelift for the blog itself??) and a bunch of new fun posts. :)

Now, I did say "baby goats" in the title of this post, so...have a photo dump of some pictures from my new job(s). :) (Apologies for the quality of these photos...all taken on my phone, in the darkly lit barn). 

Little Zelie, named after St. Zelie Martin. She has Floppy Kid Syndrome right now, but I'm hopeful she'll pull through.

Another of Zelie's dam-raised kid friends.

Several of the bottle babies...I believe that's Orvella, Arwen, Zulu, and Hanna. There's really no compensation for getting up at 5:45 AM like getting to bottle feed 10+ babies. 

 A fledgling barn owl fell out of its next into the hay loft one day! One of the other interns took it to an animal rescue, where apparently, they had eight other barn owl chicks. In this picture, its head is at the bottom, and its wings raised, like it's bowing forward. It was super weird looking!

I know this isn't a baby animal of any kind, buuuut it is job related, because as part of my wedding coordinator job, I sacristan the weddings (and I LOVE sacristaning, so it works out nicely) and was just recently taught a new beautiful way to lay out vestments that I find greatly satisfying. So, a picture of laid-out wedding vestments to end the post. :)

I will see you all in not too long, hopefully, and in the meantime, have a lovely summer!

Blessings,

Sam :)