Goat "Husbandry?"

Husbands are often very useful creatures - they fix things, build things, move things and perform routine vehicle maintenance. My husband is even more useful than most. There is almost nothing mechanical that he can't figure out, nothing broken he can't repair, no  roof or ladder too high to climb, nothing too heavy to carry or relocate. (He once moved a full-size storage shed by himself by devising an elaborate system of levers, explaining to me later that "it's all about physics.") And years of watching This Old House have given him expertise in all aspects of construction, plumbing, electric and home repair. Last Christmas I admired an elegant glass-enclosed bookcase in a pricey furniture store, lamenting that I didn't have a thousand dollars to spend for it, and Mike went home and built one in the garage from scrap wood and old windows - nearly identical to the one in the store.

Unfortunately, my husband's skills keep him in constant demand from friends and family seeking his help, and nearly every weekend he is called away to fix someone's car, move something, or help with a home project. This is fine from an altruistic standpoint, but it also means that he is rarely home to work on projects here. After weeks of reminding him about our leaking kitchen sink and broken light fixture in the basement, I decided to make an "appointment" and asked him to stay home just for one weekend to help me with a few items.  As it turned out, he still agreed to help other people Friday night and Saturday morning, but I kept my list ready for Saturday afternoon.

The girls and I had been busy while he was away, starting some spring housecleaning and sweeping out the goat shed (did you wonder when I would get to the goats?) Since wet weather was in the forecast, I had the girls strategically layer the discarded hay and straw from the shed on all the bare patches around the goat yard, places where the grass got trampled down and water collects. It gave the yard a "barnyard" sort of look, but I figured that was better than tracking mud everywhere. I thought it was a pretty good plan. Emerson and Elliot disdain eating any hay that has touched the ground, and it seems so wasteful not to use it somewhere...

My husband had  a very productive afternoon. He fixed the sink, replaced the ceiling fixture, changed some light bulbs in the garage, planted two blueberry bushes and brought up a load of rocks from the creek for a stone wall he is building. He even burned some trash and grilled steaks for dinner. As we were getting ready to eat, he carefully crossed off all the tasks on my list, then turned to me and added, "Oh, and all that loose hay around the goat yard? I raked it up for you and burned it."

Well, at least the steaks were delicious...

Reflections on a Year of Goating...

It was one year ago today that we brought home two baby goats in the back of our minivan - our second set of twins, I joked, unaware how these tiny Nigerian dwarfs would turn our lives upside down. It was the beginning of a year suddenly governed by hay bales and hoof trimming, of fencing and housing and scooping, scooping and more scooping...of bitterly-cold early mornings and windy late nights in the goat pen, the advent of terms like "goat shoes" and "pee-trays" and "licky bricks" (their rectangular mineral blocks). It was the start of our life with goats and the end of things like free time, sleeping in, and any hope of a balanced monthly budget.

They were supposed to be Emily's goats. She chose them, she bought them, she named them. And yet...in a lesson parents everywhere learn, then forget, then learn again - when your child gets a pet (or two), and your child goes to school, it is always the mother who mostly ends up feeding them, cleaning up after them, buying their food, treating their medical ills...and falling in love with them.

Last night my husband was trolling on craigslist and for some inexplicable reason he clicked on an ad for a tiny Nigerian Dwarf buckling - right in our town - and most amazing of all, this sweet creature looked just like a baby Elliot. Same colors, same markings, they could have been twins. Uncanny. Right away everyone wanted to jump in the car - "Let's just go see him! We don't have to actually buy him...but look how cute he is...he looks so lonely..."

NO! NO! NO! NO!!!!!

We will pull up the photo again tonight, just to adore him. I believe I am still sane enough to resist anything further. Looking at the ad is bittersweet, though, as Ellie's limp, which our vet last month hoped was simply a sprain that would improve on its own, has worsened and we are forced to consider the possibility of more ominous, progressive diagnoses. I have been hoping that warm weather will help, and if we ever see any warm weather I'll have a clearer idea - but some mornings he can barely stumble out of the shed. Fortunately the stiffness abates after he is up walking for a few minutes, and he still dances and trots in the field, so perhaps this is just something we will live with and treat with aspirin. He loved our afternoon walk today, strolling in the tall grass and munching up all sorts of weeds, but afterwards he just lay down on a mat, exhausted.  I sat and stroked his neck, and whispered a promise - "Wherever this road takes us, Ellie, we're in it together. I'll be right by your side the whole time." Then Emerson ambled over to join in the snuggle, and I tiptoed away...

It's a crazy life, raising goats. Even crazier, loving them. Twelve months feels like a lifetime. And so begins another year...  .

Dance of the Goats...

The end of winter is truly a wonderful thing - here's how the goat boys joyously celebrated the first day of spring - a 2-minute dancing video ...

The Case of the Disappearing Goat

One thing I know - a human can never outrun a goat. If your goat is on the loose and you think you can catch him, you are so, so wrong. The only way that goat is going back in the pen is if he wants to...which is why I never go outside without stuffing my pockets full of animal crackers. Of course, you can only bribe a goat if you actually know where he is...

Goat life has been rough lately. Even the addition of pricey minerals and aloe vera juice has not cleared up the boys' skin problems, the latest parasite medication had no effect, and now Elliot has begun limping so badly that it is sometimes hard to get him up in the morning. Rain and snow keep them in the shed, where every day I clean up the equivalent of a 10-megaton "poop bomb" - spring cannot come soon enough! So when the sun peeked out this afternoon and melted yesterday's snow, I decided to let the goats out of their yard for their favorite activity - free time in the lower field, a virtual smorgasbord of delectable weeds and brush. Excellent for caprine digestion, and I can count on them downing an entire teapot of warm water afterwards as they are always so thirsty after browsing in the field - must be all the spicy onion grass they consume.

Emily and I were chatting as the goats browsed lazily, when suddenly Emerson looked up  towards the driveway, then took off at full speed - up, over the bank and that quickly he was gone from view. I yelled for Emily to watch Elliot while I clambered up the bank as fast as my arthritic knees would take me (realizing too late I should have sent Emily, the president of her school's Running Club) - where on earth had that crazy goat gone? Checking the front yard and the road, I had visions of disaster. He could be nearly to the next town by now, or munching poisonous shrubbery at a neighboring farm...

Out of breath and having no idea where Emerson was, I stumbled to the front door to call for Megan. And there, through the window, I saw that little goat - standing at the water bowl on the back deck - he had gulped down the entire amount and was licking the bowl dry. Apparently in the field he was thirsty, so he dashed up to where he knew he could find a drink (cold water, even!). I'm sure it seemed like a sensible idea to him, but it did make me think about getting him a collar with a little GPS locator device - wonder if they sell them for goats?

All About Goats and Taxes...

Tonight I feel as though a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders - if I were a more musical person, I might break out in song. No longer will I wake every morning dreading hours of thankless drudgery, no longer will I bear the frustration of trying to get it right and knowing they'll be a mess anyway. No more days spent desperately researching obscure fixes, no more hiding in the basement and wishing they'd just go away.

They're gone. Finally. Someone else's problem now. Good riddance. I just couldn't face them anymore, so tonight I packed them up in a big box and dropped them off at a nearby retirement community -

What's that? You thought I was talking about the goats? My sweet Em and Ellie? Good heavens, the headache I'm referring to is my federal tax return, due one month from tomorrow. My goatbabies?? How could you think such a thing!!

For as long as I've held a job (which is a very long time, starting with washing dishes at the now-defunct Teapot Restaurant - ironic, isn't it?), I've always filed my own tax returns, by myself, on paper. Even in the era of e-file, I stuck by my paper and pencil, looking up each deduction in that voluminous manual, painstakingly adding columns and praying that I got it right. One year I completely forgot the child tax credit (a $2000.00 error) but the IRS was kind enough to both fix my mistake and send me the difference. Each spring I meticulously researched the new tax laws, keeping files and notes and hating every minute of it. This year I started, but I need new glasses and the numbers weren't matching up, so tonight I had an appointment with a tax accountant and it is no longer my problem! Life is good! (Maybe I shouldn't celebrate until I see our refund amount - or lack of, especially since this year we do lose the child tax credit, now that my daughters are seventeen...)

If only there were a person like my tax guy for goats...I'd hand over all the problems for him to fix - yes, here's my file on feeding issues, take a deduction for the new mineral supplements, and here's all the skin problem data, and the receipts for olive oil and the aloe vera juice they're now drinking to help with the dandruff, and be sure to write off the improved fencing and make sure you look up how to deal with rainy days and frozen water bowls...

And maybe in a week or so he'd call me back and say, "Here it is, ma'am, I've resolved all your issues and answered your questions, and have a good year." Perhaps I'll suggest that to the IRS...

A Little Game of "I Spy..."

Have you ever had the feeling that you're being watched? That creepy sensation that you're not alone - even though nobody is around? When the hair on the back of your neck prickles (does it really do that??) You get the idea...

That was Megan, last night, in the downstairs shower. The small window in the basement bathroom has frosted glass, providing privacy from anyone lurking in the yard, but still...when she told me she felt like someone was in the concrete window well watching her, I was disturbed. My husband was away and I certainly didn't want to venture outside in the dark to investigate - perhaps the safest option was simply to call the police and report a "peeping tom." I grabbed the cordless phone. Having initiated numerous calls to 9-1-1 to report traffic accidents on our hazardous curve, I knew they would want a description, so cautiously I crept down the steps - toward the bathroom - and yes - there was someone crouching there!! I could make out a vague outline through the frosted glass - legs, maybe black pants - and a white shirt, perhaps. Strange that a nocturnal prowler would wear white - and that he would venture into the goat yard...

Oh. Goats. Right. I set the phone down, realizing that what Megan saw was not a "peeping tom," but simply a "peeping Elliot." This goat has gotten inexplicably stranger and stranger in the past few months. Wanting to be close to us, he can often be found on the windowsills to the kitchen or garage, wherever he can keep an eye on his "peoples." He must have noticed the light on in the bathroom and climbed down into the concrete window well to get a better look. Actually I wasn't sure how we'd ever get him out of there, but when I went to get the girls to help me lift him out, suddenly he materialized right behind me in the driveway.

I did find forensic evidence that Ellie may be spending a significant amount of time down there (you can figure that one out...). Who knows how many showers he's observed unnoticed? I reassured Megan that he is only being sociable, and after all, we observe the goats in their bathing and elimination routines all the time - but she still won't use that bathroom anymore until I get a curtain for the window.

                                                               We love you too, Elliot!

Not the Cat Lady

We joke with my husband that if he hadn't gotten married, he'd be living above a garage somewhere with a dozen junk cars in the front yard. Conversely, if I didn't have the responsibility of a husband and kids, I'd likely have a dozen or more cats, taking in all the neighborhood strays and orphaned kittens. I'd be the harried woman buying cat food in fifty-pound bags and litter by the ton, lining up rows of food bowls along the kitchen floor and surrounded at night by all my feline friends. It wouldn't be a bad life, really...

Actually, I know this "cat lady." She lives in a nice middle-class suburb not far from here, a neighborhood with two-car garages and neatly manicured lawns. From the street it is not evident that some twenty-eight feral cats reside in the back yard, until you look out the kitchen window and spy them prowling by the fence and around the pool, or basking in the sunshine on the deck, where rows of blanketed chairs serve as improvised beds around a huge tray of food bowls (seven different brands of food - the cats are finicky!) None of the cats are tame enough to approach - they scatter at the sight of humans - but my friend provides them food and shelter and safety, the best home they've known. To me, she is an angel.

Recently I asked her how she came to have so many cats, as I know she traps most of them and takes them to be spayed or neutered - where did all these kitties come from? Some apparently are the offspring of those she couldn't catch, but most have just wandered in or been dropped off as unwanted pets by people who know she feeds strays. Any morning she might wake up to find a hungry newcomer on the porch, just the way people drop off cats or dogs at farms and assume they will find a home there.

Absently my mind wandered to goats...what if this started happening to us? Weary goat owners driving by might spot Em and Ellie frolicking on the roof and think, "Aha! That is a place where goats are pampered - let's sneak ours in tonight!" And in the morning Megan would tell me, "Mom, it looks like two more were dropped off during the night..." Or what if feral goats started wandering in, and by summer's end we had a whole colony - taking over the yard, the deck, and I would be exhausted from hauling huge tubs of hay and grain for them and shoveling mountains of waste..this is the stuff of nightmares.

But......the evil, desperate side of me had another idea - when I drive by a local farm and see dozens of goats happily grazing, perhaps nobody would notice if two small black and white, mangy-looking caprines with flaky skin and hairless eyes just sort of blended in...Come on, boys, let's take a little drive in the back of the minivan tonight...

Or if I stopped feeding them for a few days I could almost pass them off as large felines - I know a place where cats are never turned away!

Don't steal the goat!

I was once tempted to commit a heinous crime - in fact it was only my vehicular ineptitude that kept me from becoming a criminal, a thief so corrupt as to steal from a house of worship.

I confess - last Christmas, I almost stole a goat... from a church.

Collections are a national pastime, right? We collect stamps, coins, postcards. Among my relatives are collectors of snowmen, starfish, hedgehogs and pineapple items. My husband collects emblems from old cars, Emily has tea cups and Megan's assortment of camels is amazing. So it is only natural that recently I started looking for goats - plastic goats, stuffed animal goats, T-shirts, whatever.

Hint - when you choose something to collect, pick an easy category. Like cats. Feline trinkets are everywhere. You nearly trip over them at yard sales. Same for dogs, Disney items, tractors, or angel figurines. Even camels, which Megan has collected for nearly ten years, are not too difficult to find, especially around the holidays when they can be gleaned from most Nativity sets.

Goats, however, are a different story. Nearly impossible. Only occasionally found in a child's farm animal set, they have no status, no "cuteness factor," no desirability. Except apparently at the student store of the US Naval Academy (where a goat is the school mascot, but where ordinary citizens are not permitted), you can hardly find a goat trinket anywhere. I have three plastic goats and one Beanie Baby - that's it. So you can imagine my excitement in December when I drove past a nearby church and spotted in their life-size outdoor Nativity set - not only the customary camel, but also a giant wooden goat!!

How cool! How amazing! A goat, right there next to baby Jesus!

I wanted that goat.

And just for a fleeting moment I wondered, would anyone really miss that goat if I pulled up to the curb, grabbed it and tossed it into the back of my van? Think how awesome it would look in my living room. And right in front of the church was just one parking space - and that's what saved me from descending into a life of crime. Sometime between the age of sixteen and now, I have forgotten how to parallel park. I kept on driving, wistfully whispering, "Merry Christmas, goat!" He is probably now stowed away in the church basement, just waiting for next December. Hmmm...

Mike recently brought home a new pair of work gloves he bought at a local shop - and in horror I read on the tag "100% Goat Skin Leather." When I told him to look for goat items, this is NOT what I meant!! I would have returned them on principle, but Emerson had already eaten the receipt.

Maybe I don't need more plastic goats. After all, what's better than the real thing?