ountry C Friday, April 2, 2021
cres A Focusing on Today’s Rural Environment
Volume 8, Edition 21
PHOTOS BY DIANE LEUKAM
Goats bring healing
Carol Ervasti cuddles one of her kids as she looks over her animals March 18 on the farm near Bertha.
to body, lift spirits
Ervasti finds comfort, brings joy to others through small herd BY SARAH COLBURN | STAFF WRITER
BERTHA – When Carol and Jason Ervasti moved to the middle of Amish country in 2014, they wanted their kids to be around animals. “We wanted them to see animals born and see animals die,” Carol Ervasti said. They wanted to process their own chickens, have eggs and milk their goats for milk, cheese and creamer. They wanted all that, but they also had to bring in some income so they raised Black Angus beef cows. On June 9, 2018 though, one of the cows, who had a history of calving problems, had just calved and Ervasti went to check on her. The cow leapt over her newborn calf and rammed Ervasti to the ground, sitting on her back and crush-
ing her vertebrae. It’s an injury she’ll never fully recover from, and Ervasti found out how one animal can change a life forever. Now, she relies on a different kind of animal to keep up the family’s spirits. Ervasti raises goats. Lots of them. The hum of the herd as they communicate with one another soothes her soul as does the classical music playing softly on an old radio in the barn, something Ervasti learned from her father. “It’s comforting to walk into the barn and hear the goats having their conversations with their babies,” she said. “They’re such inquisitive, tactile animals, they’re so excited to know what you have.”
ST R COUNTRY: Publications bli ti This month in the
The newspaper of today is the history of tomorrow.
(Watch for the next edition of Country Acres on April 16)
Ervasti page 2
4 8
Tapping into the “Wildwood” St. Joseph
15 Mushrooms: a new crop for you ? Diane Leukam column
A walk in the pasture Villard
18 What’s this?
11 Dairy Princess profiles
21 All cattle, all the time Little Falls
This adorable kid takes a few steps inside Carol Ervasti’s barn. Ervasti expects to have a good number of baby goats this year. 24 Country Cooking 25 Four decades of fiber fun St. Cloud 30 When the grain goes against you Sauk Centre
