Someone pounded on my bedroom door and announced, “Hummingbird’s kidding!”

For the second time that morning, I rolled out of bed and pulled some clothes on, shoved my feet in my shoes, and ran.

When I reached the barn, I almost ran into Mom, who was standing around a corner watching Hummingbird, who was in kidding pen A. “Good morning,” she said, sounding entirely too cheerful for my grumpy, sleep deprived self.

“Morning,” I mumbled, pulling my jacket on. “Did you hear about Siren’s babies?”

“Yeah, Dad saw what you posted on Facebook,” she said. “It was a good surprise.”

“Okay, we’ve got a bubble,” Emery announced from the stall. Grabbing a couple of towels I settled into my normal spot – behind the goat, ready to catch a baby – and waited.

It wasn’t long before we had our first baby – a buckling – that Fletcher desperately wanted to name Hades. Since reading the Percy Jackson series*, my brothers have been into Greek mythology. We’ve had all sorts of greek god names – Hera, Hestia, Gaia, Geb, and Hermes, and Fletcher wanted to see a buckling named Hades. Since we weren’t planning on keeping him anyway, Mom agreed.

A few minutes later, a baby girl was born, and after several vetoed names, Dad suggested Hellion.

“I hope this one won’t live up to her name,” Emery said jokingly as we agreed to Hellion.

“I think she’s done,” Dad said. “I don’t feel any more babies. She could always have more, because she’s so deep, but I don’t think so.”

“I suggest we call Hummer’s stomach Tartarus,” Greyden said, laughing. “It’s the never ending pit.” (That’s another greek mythology reference – I told you the boys love it.)

Someone brought the molasses water, and Mom and I watched suspiciously when she wouldn’t touch it.

“She’s not done,” Mom said, and I echoed that.

While we were waiting for Hummer to kick back into gear, Fletcher went next door to the baby pen, and let the babies climb all over him.

We called Dad back out and when she started pushing again, he went back in. “You’re right, there’s a third,” he said, and a few minutes later, we had our second buckling on the ground.

“Lets call him Hidden,” someone suggested, and everyone agreed.

“Okay, go get some more warm molasses water,” Mom said, and they did, and Hummer still wouldn’t touch it.

Dad went in to check one more time, and everyone cheered when we found out that, for the second time ever, we were having quads. The question was whether the baby was alive or not.

“It’s definitely alive,” Dad said after a little while. “It’s fighting me to get out of here.”

I caught the baby and cleared off its nose and mouth and checked – a girl! And she was definitely alive.

We decided to call her Honey, and we brought her into the milk room to join her siblings.

For the first time ever, we had four live babies.

The next hour was a blur as we dried, fed, and took care of them. We’d never had so many babies to take care of before!

2015 kid count: 16 doelings, 9 bucklings
2015 doe status (33 total): 9 doe kidded, 24 left to go
2 sets of quads, 4 sets of triplets, 2 sets of twins, 1 singles