(cozy music)
- [Voiceover] Drive by this quintessential Door County farm
and you'll discover goats under the willow tree.
Look a little closer and you'll see Lynne Grasse
in the middle of her treasured Nigerian Dwarf Goats.
- [Lynne] I think when people stop along the road
and you see them peacefully grazing.
I think they just kind of look like a walking flower garden.
- [Voiceover] This garden is also known as Grasse Acres
near Ellison Bay.
- [Lynne] Okay, these are my little buds.
(goats bleating)
They'll follow me everywhere I go.
- [Voiceover] Lynne traded in her work
with kids in the classroom
for a different kind of kids in the barnyard.
- [Lynne] I did teach kindergarten for 19 years
but instead of continuing on in that field
I decided to just do this.
- [Voiceover] This has become her passion.
- [Lynne] I started with this in about 1997 actually
with my three sons.
So we got a couple of goats and I thought,
"Well, that's a good idea."
It will help them to learn to be responsible
and respect living things.
But as time went on, it was very clear
that I was the one that had the passion for them.
People will say, "Why goats?
"Why do you want goats?"
They hear old stories
and they think of them as being dirty and stinky.
But the bucks are what give goats a bad name
because they are stinky.
But they are just as sweet and loving as the girls are.
Usually at the end of the day
my hair is all chewed up and gnarled
and I got little hoof prints all over my clothes.
(laughs)
Don, my husband, is wonderful
at making sure that they're fed.
And he grows most of their feed that they eat
and the hay.
With him enjoying the growing aspects
and with me enjoying the animal aspect of the farm,
I think we make a pretty good team.
- [Voiceover] And as a team they care for
and nurture their dairy herd.
- [Lynne] Now we're good.
Alright.
Let the milk flow.
They have a high butter fat content,
so their milk is very sweet and rich.
- [Voiceover] The goats' milk is used to sustain
a more natural, healthy way of life on the farm.
- [Lynne] There it is.
Time to eat!
(goats bleating)
- [Voiceover] It's all good and the baby goats
get to enjoy it at feeding time.
- [Lynne] And a few too many.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Another one too many.
Come here, everybody's hungry.
Everybody's starving.
So this is a ten kid feeding bucket
so I can feed ten of the babies at once.
When I first started with the kids
I had to do individual bottles.
It was hours of work.
And now I'm done in minutes.
That's the way it works.
And the babies are happier too
because they get to eat faster.
It is a feeding frenzy.
(laughs)
Oh, look at the milk moustache.
- [Voiceover] And the Nigerian Dwarf Goats
are getting Lynne noticed.
She's now breeding the goats
and sending them coast to coast.
- [Lynne] Kidding season can happen at any time,
day or night.
One of the things I have installed was a barn camera.
There she is.
No babies yet.
As soon as they're ready, I'm out there catching babies.
- [Voiceover] Her biggest batch of babies found a new home
just south of the Wisconsin border
at the Brookfield Zoo outside Chicago.
- [Male] First of all we're looking for
a really high quality herd
that we found up in Wisconsin.
And this is the name that kept coming up
was Lynne Grasse up in Door County.
- Here we are with (laughs) 30 kids.
And most of them were born in March and April.
This was definitely a spring with a purpose.
- [Voiceover] It's their gentle nature and curiosity
that make these dwarf goats
a good addition to the petting zoo.
- [Male] She does an outstanding job.
She's a very ethical goat herder.
- You're such a pretty girl, aren't you?
Are you such a pretty girl?
Yes, you are.
They are such a wonderful, peaceful,
calming part of my life.
They really fulfill something in me.
A need to nurture.
And when I look out over the pasture
and I see them out grazing,
it just makes you feel like,
"Ya, this is where I want to be."
Come on babies.
(goats bleating, hands clapping) Come on.