Lemon Squeezy Farms

The Sale List, the Loading, and the Letting Go

Written by

Marcie Simpson's avatar

Marcie Simpson

in

Friday evening, after a full workday, Marc and I stepped into a different kind of shift. The kind that involves mud on your boots, a good pair of gloves if you’re lucky, and a whole lot of determination.

We had help from a really great friend and thank goodness for that, because what followed was part rodeo, part relay race, part comedy of errors.

Six goats.
Three sheep.
Countless steps, quick turns, near misses, and the occasional “you’ve got to be kidding me.”

We herded, chased, caught (and yes, sometimes missed), tagged, and finally loaded them into the trailer. By the end, relief settled in like a deep exhale. They were safe, settled, and ready for the night.

After we sent our friend home, thoroughly worn out (and probably questioning his life choices just a little), Marc and I turned to phase two.

Sixteen cages, prepped throughout the week.
Thirty-one chickens, tucked in after roosting.

That part? Almost peaceful. Quiet. Methodical. Choosing who would go where felt calm in a way the goat wrangling never could.

By 11:00 PM, everything outside was done.

And just like that, we were staring down a 3:30 AM departure.

The Loudest Place on the Farm Isn’t the Barn

It’s your own head.

Because somewhere between loading trailers and making coffee before dawn, the internal dialogue starts up… and it doesn’t whisper.

It argues.

“I love this life.”
“I hate this life.”
“I’d give anything to sleep in.”
“But look at that sunrise.”
“You can do this.”
“What are you even doing?”

It’s a full cast of characters in there, and not all of them are kind.

This winter pushed me in ways I wasn’t prepared for. There were moments I felt completely leveled. Brought right down to my knees.

But here’s the quiet truth that showed up alongside that struggle:

Every time I got back up… I stood up a little steadier. A little wiser.

But no amount of wisdom would ease the weight of the hardest list I ever had to make. Making the sale list with Marc might have been the hardest part of all.

Because if I try hard enough, I can make a case to keep every single animal.

Especially the goats.

Chickens are wonderful, but goats… they have a way of looking at you like they know you. Like they’ve been part of your story longer than they have.

But reality has its own voice too.

We only have so much space.
So much time.
So much energy.

And at the heart of it, this isn’t just a hobby. We’re building something. Raising animals well… and letting them go well.

That’s the deal.

Understanding that didn’t make the decision easy.
It just made it possible.

The Sale Day I Couldn’t Face

When morning came, I stayed home.

Marc and our friend went to the sale together, and I knew that was the right call. Some days you can carry it. Some days you can’t.

This was a “faucets would not turn off” kind of day. I was weepy.

When Marc got home, he told me everything went smoothly. The animals did well. Things felt right.

And then he told me a story I’ll keep tucked away for a long time.

Our little Button stepped into the ring.

People noticed her blue eyes right away, commenting on how beautiful she was.

And then, from somewhere in the bleachers, a woman said:

“Well, look at her… she’s cute as a button.”

No one there knew her name.

And somehow… they still got it exactly right.

Some things don’t need explaining. They just are. 💛

The Quiet After

The past few days have felt… different.

Quieter.
Calmer.
Like the whole farm took a deep breath.

Maybe we all needed it… humans and animals alike.

To the Ones Who Moved On

Gandolph.
Tulip.
Nubbie.
Bandit.
Jack.
Ma.
John.
Cheryl.
Button.

You left hoofprints on more than just the ground.

Because of you, there were tears.
And laughter.
And lessons I couldn’t have learned any other way.

Thank you for being part of this wild, beautiful chapter.

Moving Forward (Even When It’s Hard)

I keep coming back to a quote from Walt Disney:

“Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.“

And so we keep going… a little lighter, a little wiser, and still willing to follow this beautifully messy road wherever it leads next. 🍋

Comments

One response to “The Sale List, the Loading, and the Letting Go”

  1. Kimberly Avatar
    Kimberly

    This was so tender and beautifully told. I smiled at the “part rodeo, part relay race, part comedy of errors,” because anyone who has ever tried to convince an animal to go where it does not wish to go knows there is usually a whole lot of comedy mixed in with the exhaustion.

    But beneath the humor, this really touched me. Letting go is such a strange kind of love. It doesn’t mean something mattered less. Sometimes it proves just how much it mattered. Those little hoofprints clearly went deeper than the ground, and I think that is why this piece feels so honest.

    Button’s story especially got me. The fact that someone unknowingly called her “cute as a button” feels like one of those small mercies God sometimes tucks into hard days, just enough to remind the heart that He sees the details too.

    I love the thought of the farm taking a deep breath. Sometimes moving forward does make us a little lighter and a little wiser, even when it costs us a few tears along the way. This was a beautiful tribute to a wild, meaningful chapter.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment

More posts

  • Goat Life Chronicles: Tales of Love and Loss

    This past weekend my husband drove to an animal sale about two hours from our farm. Unfortunately I couldn’t go along but it sure made my memories start flooding! Last year at that exact sale, we purchased (among other things) our first goats. Frank, Lady, Billy, and Fiona. I never imagined we would own and care for goats much less enjoy it. When we brought them home we didn’t even have a place to put them; we didn’t plan on bringing anything but chickens home. We had three dog kennels in the back of my Subaru Outback. Frank and Lady each had their own kennel and Billy and Fiona shared one. I remember how hard my husband and I were laughing when we stopped off to get a Blizzard at Dairy Queen. The goats were bleating while he ordered in the drive-thru. It still makes me laugh. We got home late, after dark, and didn’t have much time to put our newly made plans into action. We had cattle panels and fastened them together. We were so proud of ourselves for settling up their makeshift pen while using the car’s headlights for a light source. Our son came home after work and commented on the goats. We didn’t realized right away he meant that the goats were in the yard. A couple of them had escaped! After catching a couple goats and getting them back in the enclosure, we wrapped the cattle panels with snow fencing so the goats wouldn’t be able to escape again. From humble beginnings…..

    Baptism by fire is probably the best way I can explain our goat care education. We both did lots of research and still do. One of my favorite things is how we keep learning and improving. I’ve built a couple of our goat structures, built and fashioned various ‘play equipment’ for them, and learned how to trim their hooves. We’ve also learned how and when to vaccinate. What is the most difficult, for me, to learn is dealing with the low, sad times. We’ve learned twice how quickly a goat’s health can go downhill. Billy and Frank are buried on our land, their loss was horrible but not in vain. We learned so much from each one. Frank lives on in his boy, Jack, and girl, Jill, he had with Lady and his daughter he had with Fiona. I’ve written about those sweet bundles.

    The renewal of life is the part that makes me love all the hardest days on our little farm. Heading out to check on Lady in the bitterly cold, wee hours of the morning will always be vivid in my memories.

    One of our goats did not come from a sale. Mabel was given to us. She was born one of three kids and sadly, the momma goat died. When I was asked if I was interested in a 5 week old bottle baby I didn’t even think about it. Mabel was dropped off with us and our lamancha goat education began. More importantly we learned how to feed a kid a bottle. It was so difficult to wean Mabel! She would look right at me and bleat, “MA!” I was such a sucker. Strange fact: goat formula smells just like baby formula. In my opinion; it stinks!

    I digress…. my main point was wondering how one year could feel so long and go by so quickly. This is the same stuff I wonder about when I think of how quickly my own children grew up and left us empty nesters. Time waits for no one.

    I’m proud of my husband because when he went to this past animal sale, he went to buy one thing and that is the only thing he came home with! Just a little over a year ago we began tending goats. We now have three separate structures and enclosures to house our goats. I never would have thought I’d love them the way I do. Our goats all know I keep animal crackers in my pockets for them, it’s how I make sure I remain their favorite human. Here’s to our continued journey and my continued goat chronicles!

    Our goat herd: Lady, Jill & Jack, Fiona & Button, Mabel, Gandalf, Snow White, Angelina, Bandit, Nubby, Ward, June, Ruby Junior, Thorn, Thistle, Tulip, Chub, Moondance, and Ruby.

    Mabel (she will always be my bottle baby)

  • Cute as a …

    My husband and I planned a spring break getaway long before we knew we’d have an expecting goat! But winters here are long and cold, we needed to get away. We headed south and found warmer temps during our week of vacation. Fiona was close to kidding but we were not sure when the excitement would come. We were on our way home, about one hour away from the farm, when my daughter Face Timed me. She was holding our newest addition. By the time we got home, Fiona and her baby girl were in our ‘recovery unit’ in the garage. Fiona had birthed without anyone knowing and everything went great. I worry needlessly over events like this, I need to work on that. As I write this, I realize it has been two months since that baby was born! Fiona and Lady are both amazing moms. It has been fun watching one mother two and one mother her one and only. I’m glad that Fiona had a single birth, she is such a small girl herself. It will be interesting to see in the future if she continues with single births. Our weather has warmed, we really had a beautiful spring. Fiona and her kid did not stay in the garage as long. Due to the bitter cold, I kept Lady, Jack, and Jill in the garage longer. Fiona’s little girl is quite the jumping bean and boy does she love to play! She is tiny. She is precious. She is cute as a button and that is how she got her name; Button.

    Just hours old, Button is ready for her close-up.

    Button at two months old.

  • Awaiting another Magical Goat Birth on Lemon Squeezy Farms

    Awaiting another Magical Goat Birth on Lemon Squeezy Farms

    This is Jack. Isn’t he precious? His mom, Lady, gave birth to him and his sister (Jill) on an extremely cold night on February 18th. Thanks to them arriving like they did I took a sick day from work….. thanks goats! I will never forget that magical night. On that night, two little lives were added to our farm in Northeastern North Dakota. Lady and her kids are Nigerian dwarf goats. Except for the chickens we’ve hatched, Jack and Jill are the first animals born on Lemon Squeezy Farms.

    Right now we are preparing again for an upcoming birth. This is just as exciting as the first! I don’t feel like an expert and probably never will. I read as much as I can to help with preparations. As a three-time human mom myself, I know that each pregnancy and birth are different.

    Our expecting mama is Fiona. She is a fainting pygmy goat. She is sweet but compared to the other goats, not overly friendly. Our low tonight is supposed to be 12 degrees and the high tomorrow 45. The night feels chilly but nothing compared to the negative temps we had when Jack and Jill were born. Marc built a really nice enclosure in our garage, I call it the recovery pen. It’s a great place for the mama and babies to recover and regain their strength. It’s been cleaned out and staged for our next big event. The next magical event, when will it be? I will only say, “soon.”

  • Lemon Squeezy Farms: A Courageous New Venture

    It has been a little over one year since my husband and I started our farm. Lemon Squeezy Farms developed out of a couple empty-nesters wondering, “what now?” My husband grew up in southwestern Georgia. He has some experience with raising animals and crops, I do not. I grew up in a city. We have been navigating learning curves. We are doing our best researching. Most importantly, we are open to learning from our many mistakes. There are days I love it and there have been days I haven’t, some days I’ve cried while doing chores. I’ve quickly learned that I enjoy providing for our animals. I find satisfaction in feeding, watering, and interacting with them.