somewhere in late august

our first slow saturday morning in a while, a crisp almost autumn breeze came through. as i was pouring my morning cup of coffee, we sent the children to bring scraps from our meal to the chicken coop. they came back running, yelling something aj + i could not discern. as they came bounding through the front door they exclaimed “there are cows on our driveway!!!”

aj + i jumped up from our coffees, burnt my milk, but went running to see. sure enough there were three young cows standing under a stand of maples. they’d happily ventured out of our neighbors pastures.

so we walked them back, well really chased them through the wood, across the field, to our amish neighbor’s. elderberries hang ripe on the branches, leaves begin to turn. the cows knew which way was home. after returning them to their paddock, we sat + watched our neighbors flock of sheep grazing. it got us all thinking, dreaming about what comes next for our little farmstead.

i’ve been secretly hoping i could smuggle a little goat home from the county fair this september. last year, there was the sweetest nigerian pygmy goat for sale but now i might have my heart set on sheep or maybe a cow or two. i even think i’ve got aj to come around to the idea of adding a new animal next year. as griffin whispered to me while watching the sheep graze “momma, this is my dream”

what animal or animals do you think we should add first to our homestead?