Meet Clara
I understand why many customers think that my name is Clara.
I usually will quickly explain that Clara was actually my first goat. My special goat. My favorite goat. Clara was the first goat to give birth at our home, my first goat to milk. Out of my love for Clara and in honor of her, I have named my goat milk soap business Clara’s Creamery!
Clara was a Nubian goat. Most of my goats have been Nubians. I purchased her from friends when she was just a doeling, in May of 2012. Clara was darling. My children were 8, 10 and 11 years old at the time and it was so much fun to add goats to our homestead!
I typically recommend that new goat owners first read up on goat husbandry, perhaps Storey’s Guide to Raising Dairy Goats by Jerry Belanger. I know it was helpful to me! When Clara came to live with us I was homeschooling my children. We checked many goat books out of the library and read all about caring for goats! Experts have mixed opinions about goats and dogs, but at our home, Clara and our dog, Piper, became very good friends!
Clara visited a school so that children could pet her and learn about goats. Clara visited the library on pet day! Clara traveled up to Grandpa and Grammie’s house in Hodgdon many times! She was in a Live Nativity at Christmas-time. Clara was very much part of our daily lives! For the first couple of years she pretty much had free reign of the yard! If we were at the fire pit, so was she! If I was hanging out laundry, she was with me. When I picked blackberries, she and Piper would both come with me and eat blackberries too! She was even known to jump in the UPS truck a time or two!
Watching Clara give birth was one of the best experiences I have ever had! My husband and two children were also able to be present for this miracle and it is something we will never forget!
I have had enough goats to know that they each have their own personality. There is also usually a dominant goat who leads the group. For as long as Clara was with us, she was the “herd queen.” Typically the dominant goat is the most aggressive one but I would not say that was true of Clara. She was here first and I suspect that had a lot to do with the pecking order. I have often allowed my goats to roam the yard and have a chance to browse. Clara knew our property well and would typically lead the others to the wild roses or brush trees or sometimes my garden peas! However she never led them off the property! I wasn’t fully aware of how this worked until after Clara had died, when I allowed Esme and Katahdin to roam about and before I knew it, they had gone down the road and into the neighbor’s garage! That would never have happened with Clara!!
Clara was also special because when she was very young she got quite sick and almost died. I will save that story for a future post, but needless to say it endeared her even more to us. It was really through this experience that I learned to love animals in a new way, and I became attached to Clara specifically. Clara had a sweet, loving personality and we certainly miss her presence. Little did I know when I desired a dairy animal and purchased a little goat, how much more she would come to mean to us above and beyond “milk” and how she would be the beginning of a journey for our family. A journey of goats and daily chores and milkings and soap. We are so thankful.