It was Good Friday. Dad and I had spent the larger part of the afternoon cleaning up a scrap pile of wood we had next to the goat barn, which is about as fun as it sounds. It was getting later into the evening, so I stepped into the goat barn to give them their feed and get the evening chores for the goats underway.

The girls all went to their usual stalls, except for Beauty. She stayed put. I shook her food a bit, and she looked at it longingly, but she would not budge.

“Are you kidding?” I asked her, exasperated that she would not cooperate with me. I put the food down in front of her so she could begin to eat it right where she was and stepped around to the back of her.

“Oh boy,” I said, as I saw a pencil thick stream of clear fluid coming out of her backside. I looked down at the ground where the fluid was landing. “Oh boy,” I said again as I saw a small lake of amniotic fluid. I stepped outside the barn, asking my father if he had heard my exclamations.

“Yeah,” he said, unfazed.

“Beauty is kidding,” I told him.

“I thought you were kidding,” he answered, obviously a little more excited as he hurried into the goat barn with me. I ran down to the house and got the goat birthing kit while Dad pushed Beauty into a stall. I stopped in and told Gramps that Beauty was going to give birth tonight.

“How many did she have?” he asked as he perked up at the news.

“None yet. She will have them tonight.”

“Are they boys or girls?” he asked. He doesn’t hear very well.

I got down in his ear and set him straight. “Well, make sure you tell me after she has them. I’m going to have to go up and see them tomorrow.”

Moments later I was back in the barn. Beauty, as a first time mother, had no idea what was happening to her. It didn’t take long. The bubble began to come out, then it popped. Then we began to see little hooves sticking through. It took a few pushes to get past the baby goat head, which Beauty finally pushed out with a mighty bellow, and then the little white slime ball slid right out. Dad cleared its nose and mouth and tried to get Beauty to start licking her clean…

…But Beauty wasn’t done. The second one didn’t take near as much effort. It slid right out like it was coming down a water slide. Dad cleaned off that one’s face as well. Meanwhile the first one was already working on standing up. Its legs were a bit wobbly, but what can you expect from a creature that is ten minutes old.

It took Beauty a little while to get accustomed to being a nanny. We questioned her intelligence a couple of times. But all said and done, they are all doing just fine now. We checked the kids later. One boy and one girl. I made sure to let Grandpa know. He was delighted.

After many poor name ideas, we finally settled on Calvary (Cali) for the girl. After all, she was born on Good Friday.

And we named the boy Calvin, after John Calvin, the 17th century Geneva reformer.

Our own rules for naming stipulated that all goats born this year had to have names that started with a “C.” Next year they will all have to start with the letter “D.” If you question our naming judgment, just be grateful that we didn’t name the goats Carport and Cigarette.