Tag Archives: Goats Milk

When the Barn was Full

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I was six when we moved into our new home in the Hunter area of West Valley City, Utah. My dad was a general contractor for homes in Holiday, Utah. The Parade of Homes highlighted houses people could walk through and get ideas for their own homes. My parents even put money down on the Holiday house my dad was the general contractor for.

At the last minute, my parents decided not to buy that house. Instead, they chose to build a home in Hunter with three-quarters of an acre so our family could have a big yard and a little farm. That house was wonderful for me. It felt open and full of possibility, like a place meant for growing and learning.

Not long after, my dad built a barn and got goats, ducks, geese, and chickens. For a kid, this was an amazing way to grow up. I learned about animals, hard work, growing a garden, and working together as a family. It was a hands-on education that shaped my days and my values.

Life lessons came often, especially lessons about life and death. You learn real fast how fragile life is. The goats had to be milked morning and night. You always knew when you were late because you could hear them crying, as if they were saying, come milk me and feed me.

I grew up drinking goat’s milk, and it was normal to us. We didn’t notice anything different until the goats got into the weeds, and then the milk had a strong taste. We learned to keep them out of the weeds as much as possible. Even with twelve people drinking and cooking with the milk, we often had extra.

My mom hated wasting food, especially milk. She would call the neighbors and say, “We are having apricot pineapple ice cream tomorrow night if you want to come over.” I was amazed how often we made homemade ice cream with an old hand-crank ice cream maker. We all took turns cranking, laughing, and waiting.

I spent hours in the barnyard, singing, talking, and playing with the goats, living in my own little world. Years later, while I was on a church mission, I learned my dad would no longer keep animals. When I came home, the barn was gone. I felt sad, yet I could look back and see how simple those days were. I feel blessed I had that childhood, with no regrets.

Growing up on a Small Farm.

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    I loved my life at home, I feel like I had a very wonderful childhood including gumdrops, lollipops, and unicorns. All kidding aside, I feel blessed to be a part of a great family. My parents taught us how to work hard. There was always time to play games, sing songs, and we loved God. I grew up on a small farm in Hunter, Utah. Now it is called West Valley City where we raised goats, ducks, geese, chickens, pigs, rabbits, quail, pheasants and peacocks. We had a few dogs in the middle of the family chaos, as well.
    Every spring we started planting crops for our large family. I grew up on 3/4 of an acre. I would say half of this was our huge garden. We started planting peas the end of February and usually finished up with tomatoes and squash the middle of May. My dad was a little bit of a perfectionist when it came to planting, or any job for that matter. He made sure the rows were even and straight. His motto was “Any job worth doing was worth doing right”. I feel like planting was made to be fun, and I looked forward to Spring with excitement. Anything that could grow in our climate we tried at least once, including popcorn, parsnips, and Jerusalem artichokes. I was not a fan of the latter two mentioned. My mom even tried putting parsnips in the pancake batter, and calling them parsnip fritters, yuck!
    I just loved our corner of the world. I mostly stayed home. When you have 9 siblings there is always someone to play with. We also had a barn for all of the animals that included a hayloft. Once a year in late spring my dad would fill the loft with hay, stacking the bales in such a way that it would make a private little hideout for us kids. This place had a small tunnel that we would cover up with a piece of hay that blended in with the rest of the bales. It was top secret. The tunnel opened up into a small room made from the hay complete with rope going out a window. The rope made it possible for you to climb out of the loft to the ground. Everyone thought our house was pretty fun.
    Thinking back on my childhood, Spring was magical. Living on a farm you get to see life and death up close. It was so fun seeing all the baby chicks, ducklings and all the other feathered critters hatch. My dad had a 600 egg incubator and would hatch all kinds of birds for people. He would keep part of the hatched birds as trade for hatching them. Seeing goats give birth to their kids was very educational. I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. We would sell most of the goats putting an ad in the newspaper. We children loved feeding the baby goats. We would fill up pop bottles with warm goats milk then put a rubber nipple on the pop bottle, and those goats could drink a bottle in less then a minute. I remember seeing a few still born births. That was always hard to see. This experience helped me appreciate life.