House-sitting on the Farm

To add to our list of completely random and crazy activities this year, we had the awesome opportunity to house-sit for some people that, although they lived right in the middle of the city, had a virtual farm in their backyard.

Here's how it happened:

• The goat-owners asked the person who had previously cared for their animals if he was free to help out over the Thanksgiving holiday while they traveled back east to visit family, but he said he couldn't help.
• They then told her sister that they wouldn't be able to go back east because they didn't have anyone to care for the animals.
• The sister, unbeknownst to them, sent an email to the local homeschooling group asking if someone would like to take care of the animals during Thanksgiving week.
• I initially hesitated since I wasn't sure if they would think we were qualified and also because I had never met these people before.
• When the sister sent out a second email saying they would train people to milk the goats, I went ahead and replied that we would be interested in coming up to help out since we're only 35 minutes away and could make trips easily. I hadn't told the girls about it yet because I knew they'd be really sad if it didn't work out.
• The sister emailed me back and said they wanted someone to stay overnight at the house because the dogs didn't do well if people weren't around, and asked me if I was still interested. At this point, I went ahead and told the girls and asked them if they'd like to do it. They all enthusiastically answered, "Yes!"
• I got back to the sister and told her we'd be willing to do it, but I'd seen another couple of emails come through, so when I didn't hear back from anyone for a few days, I figured it fell through. Actually, during this time, she was contacting her sister, the goat owners, and telling them she'd found someone to watch the animals behind their back because "they couldn't make her go visit mom and dad all alone".
• Eventually, I got an email from the actual goat owners asking us if we could make a trip to come up there and see what was required, do a meet and greet (since we still hadn't met any of them), and let them know for sure if we were interested. Unfortunately, this was right in the middle of Outrageous Outgrowns, but I knew the girls would be upset if we missed the opportunity, so I picked the least insane of the days and made the 2 1/2 hour trip up there and back to meet the family, meet the animals and see what we'd have to do. It was actually all pretty weird thinking about staying in this home belonging to people we didn't even know, but the girls were obviously very excited, and the goat owners actually seemed pretty happy with our enthusiasm and willingness to help out.
• We traveled up their two more times to actually learn how to milk the goats and practice that, and to find out where all the food and supplies were and what specifically we had to do. Each meeting got a little more comfortable, although I couldn't help but think how weird it was for them to entrust their home and animals to complete strangers for 5 days, although I was really thankful for the opportunity. I know they would have paid their house-sitter to watch the animals and I actually saw one person talk about being paid on the email list, but the way I see it, I usually pay for my kids to have this kind of experience, so doing it for free was kind of like a bonus for us.

So we headed up to the house on Tuesday afternoon prepared to spend the rest of the week there. We brought our sheets, blankets and pillows, and a single change of clothes (since we have to go back down to San Jose tomorrow anyway). I would have felt too awkward looking around the kitchen at pot and pans options and supplies during our previous visits, so we planned to eat out for dinner tonight and then bring more food up when we came back, after we figured out what they did and didn't have (like no microwave!)

While house-sitting, we would be responsible for 3 goats (2 of which needed to be milked twice a day), 4 dogs, 13 chickens, 4 ducks, and 2 fish. They also had a parrot which went to another house at the last minute, and 3 more goats that were there on our first visit, but went to be bred before we got there. I was actually really glad we only had 3 goats to take care of. Trying to milk 4 goats would have taken us all day!

All the animals had already been taken care of for the day, so after eating dinner we settled in for the night. I knew it would be an early morning for us, so we started it off by getting some sleep, even though the girls were really excited and took a little while to calm down. K and I slept on the big bed in one bedroom, and C and A slept on the pull-out sofa in the living room surrounded by dogs.

I hope this all works out!