I love caffeine. Any goat farmer that’s into kidding season finds caffeine a life saver in staying awake that extra minute or being able to take that extra step in keeping up with all the kidding demands. But, not only in kidding season, but also in hay season, worming season, building another barn season, anything, that good ol’ caffeine can kick in and give you a little extra boost to keep going.

Now, you can find caffeine in your coffee, your tea, your soda pops. Gee, you can even buy caffeine pills. I remember reading an old old book once and someone was advising a missionary, who had spent most her life in the hot tropics and who was making a trip up north to much colder climates, to take plenty of caffeine pills to stay warm. I'm thinking that the northern people probably met one really bug eyed, spastic missionary if she wasn't use to taking caffeine or knew how to gauge it correctly to get the advantages out of it and not the disadvantages.

Lee and I have a rule in our household, no caffeine after 5 p.m., unless you are into kidding season and a doe is actually kidding and you need to stay awake. We can drink caffeine throughout the day, but when evening comes, it’s cut out in order for the drinker of caffeine and their spouse can get some sleep.

Take for example at the start of our kidding season. For some unknown reason, Lee drank a bottle of diet Pepsi at 8 p.m. The girls were due to kid any time, but at that moment there was no reason to drink the Pepsi until the event started. But, he swigged it down and after the evening check at the barn and we had all the baby monitors turned on so we could hear what was going on at the barn, we went to bed. Er, I mean to say, I went to bed. Lee was in bed for a minute and jumped up and said, “What’s zat? I thought I heard something down at the barn. I'd better check.”

Down he literally flew to the barn. I could hear him over the baby monitors talking to each of the girls in their kidding stalls, checking them over, and a little later he was back and went to bed. Fifteen minutes later I hear, “What’s zat?” and down to the barn he flew to check things out. And, this went on all night until 4 a.m. when exhaustion conked him out and the caffeine had wore off. Not only did that caffeine wear him out, but it wore me out hearing him charge down to the barn every few minutes.

Don't waste that caffeine. Use it wisely. You have to know your personality to know how much caffeine you can get away with. If you are an easy going, don't care if it snows oats, kind of person, you can drink a lot of caffeine without going through a personality change. Or, let’s say, bringing out your true personality. That caffeine will zip a good natured person along and he continues being good natured, just moving and talking faster.

If you tend to be a cranky person, not that I personally know anything about this, an overload of caffeine will indeed make you much crankier, and you will be cranky at speed and ready to take offense of anything much faster then you normally would. So you have to gauge how much caffeine you are drinking during the day so you will not be a hyper, overbearing tyrant with the jitters.

Let me stress, the good natured person can drink too much caffeine and get the jitters, but he does it in a good natured jittery way. The cranky person who does too much caffeine is just one big growl ready to happen in their jittery way. So, figure out your personality type to decide on how much caffeine you should really have.

Now some people tell me that caffeine doesn't affect them at all. That you couldn't tell the difference when they drink it and when they don't. And, usually they are saying this at super speed, eyes blinking, feet moving in place, and hands flying every which way, as they explain how calm they are. In fact, some look so bug eyed, with a little tic to their eyes, and their heads thrown back to see everything at once while they talk, that they remind me of a goat going into goat polio, acting spastic, eyes bugging, that I have this almost uncontrollable urge to get them into a head lock and treat then with a big dose of thiamine. Fortunately for them, I have controlled my amount of caffeine that day and do not put them in a head lock and treat them for goat polio, but one of these days, when even I have over done the caffeine, who knows what might happen. So far I have been able to defeat the urge to carry thiamine around with me all the time, so people on too much caffeine should be safe for now, maybe.

Another thing to take into account, even if you have been very careful to drink the allotted caffeine you have allowed yourself that day, if you are very very tired from lack of sleep during kidding, even caffeine can't revive you. It might give you a two minute wake time, but when the body is done, the body is done. It’s needs a little cat nap to have some reserves for the caffeine to work with. So make sure there is something there for the caffeine to use.

So, I love my caffeine and until I hear a rumor that some goat lady living up Meathouse Fork is unusually spastic with bugged out eyes, I'll keep drinking it. Excuse me now. I have to go and run up and down the hill a few times to the barn. I think I hear something.