No means no!

So Tuesday morning, all went well. Trudy seemed to sniff every inch of the back pasture and didn't come home with her fawn. Hooray!

Late Tuesday morning I began to feel incredibly ill. Christian had been sick/achy all day Monday, but mine was more of a stomach thing. A MAJOR, painful stomach thing. By afternoon, I was out for the count. The stomach part of the sickness caught Christian, too, and both of us whimpered our way through the rest of the day and bravely faced milking that night and the next morning, despite our crumminess.

So Wednesday morning I was looking out of the kitchen window while washing dishes and saw Trudy in a telltale posture. The - "OMG I can't believe I have this thing, this wonderful thing, and I hope Mom doesn't see it and take it away from me" pose. I clutched my tummy and strode out to the field to see what she had.

Between her paws, and covered in doggy saliva was her little buddy, who I had named Fawn Haul. (I'll blame that one on being delirious from sick). I took the wet fawn away and brought her back to the dairy barn. I put her down in front of Christian and set about locking Trudy up so I could bring her back to her field. We looked her over, decided she had been eating and was walking well and so I brought her back and put her in some tall grass and went inside to feel crummy. Hours later she was gone again.

Our best guess on what is happening here is that the mom was able to step over the hot wire and through the barbed wire at the back of our field, but the fawn was not. So the mom has been coming to feed her and move her and hide her daily and will eventually - when the fawn can get through the fence - take her away.

In any case, we did not see here again today. Thank god. Because really, we just can't have her here. For one, it is a huge distraction for the Trude. And beyond that, deer can carry parasites that are REALLY devastating to goats. If Trudy finds her again, we'll either have to put her on the other side of the fence or call a rescue agency. She's ridiculously cute, but enough is enough.

...besides, I'm pretty sure she's the one who gave us that awful deer-bola. I am just now feeling well enough to handle food/make cheese and we are WAY behind schedule because of it.

...stupid Fawn Haul.