Baby News

Overnight Friday, Peppie finally had her kids - 3 of them - a tan boy and two smaller black girls, each with a white blaze on their foreheads. Mother Nature decided that the first little one wasn't strong enough to hold on and she died early Saturday morning. The two remaining kids are funny and, of course, very cute.

However, in the last 36 hours there has been a disastrous turn of events. As I sit and write, Pepper is up in the compound, wrapped in a blanket and barely clinging to life. It appears she developed a combination of toxaemia and milk fever while we were away and she's not in very good shape. We've treated her as much as we can; the rest is up to the God of Goats. We can only hope that she pulls through; Meg is absolutely devastated that her beloved Pepper is in such a bad way.

The two little ones have moved down to the garage and are sleeping pretty on a sheepskin rug and drinking from a bottle. They may well be orphans by sunrise.