Wrangling crazy goats all day leaves little time for such frivolities as watching television, but I will confess that this spring my family has become addicted to the TV series "Prison Break," the saga of brilliant engineer Michael Scofield and his quest to rescue his wrongly-imprisoned brother Lincoln from Illinois' Fox River Penitentiary. Planning the escape, Michael has Fox River blueprints and other secret codes tattooed over most of his body. With only two episodes left to watch in season 4 ("The Final Season"), we are desperate to discover the conclusion to this rather fantastic tale. I have learned so much about the correctional system...
Emerson and Ellie are a bit like the Fox River brothers. Em is definitely the Michael-personality, wily and sneaky, always alert to any possible escape route. Sweet Ellie has Lincoln's larger size; he is the braun to Michael's brain, often just wandering around the yard looking lost. "Why am I standing here, brother?" No question they'll butt heads over that last mouthful of hay, but any stressful event (thunderstorm, scary bumblebee) sends them huddling together to comfort each other. Fortunately, they don't coordinate their escape attempts as well as the TV brothers...
Last week I was pulling weeds when I noticed a small black and white calf grazing in our lower field. How odd! We do see our share of feral cats, and once a stray emu, but never before has a calf strayed this far. In the goat pen Emerson was going crazy, throwing himself against the fence and crying to...oh no - is that Elliot down there? How did he ever get out of the pen? When? I quickly scanned the gates - all securely closed - and only after I got a leash and hauled him back into the yard was the mystery solved. He gave himself away by running right for the narrow gap where he had apparently wedged apart two sections of fencing. Lucky for me he hadn't shared his escape route with his brother - they'd be halfway to Mexico by now.
Just like you can break out of places, you can also break in. This morning the goats were having breakfast on the back deck while I put away some laundry. When I came back into the kitchen, I was shocked to see Emerson standing in the dining room, calmly looking around, no doubt deciding what to chew on first. Apparently he had rubbed open the screen door (a fact I surmised by the clumps of black goat hair caught in the screen) and let himself in. Oblivious to the open door, Elliot was still munching away at his bin of hay on the deck.
Imagine the disaster if they started working together! I did check them very carefully for any evidence of tattoos...maybe I'll have my husband investigate for tunnels uunder the goat shed. On the other hand, maybe I'll "accidently" leave a shovel lying around...Dig, goats, dig to freedom! Here's a treasure map for a million pounds of sunflower seeds... Some days it's tempting!
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Condensation, Sublimation and Melting: Chemical Properties of Caprine Digestion
With final exams looming in front of them next week, my daughters are again trying to cram a semester's worth of knowledge back into their memories. Algebraic scatter plots, linear equations and slope-intercept form are all jumbled together with Chemistry's periodic table and Planck's constant...Scanning the piles of papers strewn all over the table and grabbing a bottle of ibuprofen for her headache, Emily grimaced.
"What's the use of all this stuff anyway?"she asked. "I'll never need it in real life!"
While I too am more content with a Jane Austin novel than a graphing calculator, I could not let this go. Mathematical skills are crucial for raising goats, I assured her. For example, when each goat consumes one ounce of grain per day, how long will a bag of grain last for a two-goat family, allowing for the fact that goat grain is sold in only 50-pound sacks? (Sounds like a dimensional analysis problem, right?) Or, if each goat "excretion event" produces approximately twenty individual pellets, and goats "excrete" about every half hour, how many total pellets will her mother clean up per day when Emily is "too busy studying for finals" to perform this task?
Chemistry has proven even more practical for us recently. Regular readers may recall that Elliot has needed to wear a T-shirt to protect some sore areas on his chest. However, we quickly noticed a strange side-effect to his new wardrobe - a phenomenom explained only by thermodynamic chemical principles. On days that Ellie wears a shirt, the matter which normally exits his body as a solid (individual formed pellets) instead leaves him as a liquid (you don't want any more description than that!) Confounded (and revolted!) by the indescribable mess this produced, we quickly ruled out illness or dietary changes as the culprit - it had to be the shirt. Could Elliot be so embarrassed by having to wear clothes that he lost control of his bowels? However, the answer was no further than my daughter's Chemistry book. Helping her study, I read of the changing states of matter as ice (the solid) is converted to water (the liquid) when the temperature rises...
That's it! Ellie's T-shirt, though comfy 100% cotton, must raise his body temperature just enough to liquefy his waste...
Ellie was very happy to donate all his new shirts to the local thrift store.
"What's the use of all this stuff anyway?"she asked. "I'll never need it in real life!"
While I too am more content with a Jane Austin novel than a graphing calculator, I could not let this go. Mathematical skills are crucial for raising goats, I assured her. For example, when each goat consumes one ounce of grain per day, how long will a bag of grain last for a two-goat family, allowing for the fact that goat grain is sold in only 50-pound sacks? (Sounds like a dimensional analysis problem, right?) Or, if each goat "excretion event" produces approximately twenty individual pellets, and goats "excrete" about every half hour, how many total pellets will her mother clean up per day when Emily is "too busy studying for finals" to perform this task?
Chemistry has proven even more practical for us recently. Regular readers may recall that Elliot has needed to wear a T-shirt to protect some sore areas on his chest. However, we quickly noticed a strange side-effect to his new wardrobe - a phenomenom explained only by thermodynamic chemical principles. On days that Ellie wears a shirt, the matter which normally exits his body as a solid (individual formed pellets) instead leaves him as a liquid (you don't want any more description than that!) Confounded (and revolted!) by the indescribable mess this produced, we quickly ruled out illness or dietary changes as the culprit - it had to be the shirt. Could Elliot be so embarrassed by having to wear clothes that he lost control of his bowels? However, the answer was no further than my daughter's Chemistry book. Helping her study, I read of the changing states of matter as ice (the solid) is converted to water (the liquid) when the temperature rises...
That's it! Ellie's T-shirt, though comfy 100% cotton, must raise his body temperature just enough to liquefy his waste...
Ellie was very happy to donate all his new shirts to the local thrift store.
Friday, May 17, 2013
A Decent Proposal?
Sometimes I do things I'm later ashamed of...this is one of those days. I'm not even sure how it happened, but I sort of, well, propositioned the air-conditioning technician who came to our house today.
We all know the sordid stories about lonely housewives and repair men - but truly this behavior is not typical for me! Those who know me will attest to my high moral character, my utmost care for the integrity of my family. Just try to understand, though - my kids are always busy, my husband works late, I'm stuck here alone with these wretched goats day in and day out, my only diversion scooping up their droppings from the roof instead of the driveway, chasing them around with blue antibiotic spray to coat their ragged behinds - can you blame me for craving something more? It was a proverbial moment of weakness...Even now I cringe as I recall his pointed stare, his hesitation as he considered my proposal, his cryptic reply - "Be careful what you wish for. The answer might be yes."
Usually I dread this annual maintenance visit, as the outdoor AC unit lives in a "fence within a fence" in the goat yard, meaning that I need to relocate the goats and take down a section of wire fencing so that the technician can access the unit. When he arrived, I grabbed my boots and asked him to start with the attic ductwork while I moved the goats elsewhere. I was unprepared for his response.
"Oh, no need for that," he said cheerfully. "We have goats too, so they won't bother me at all." (Actually I hadn't been worried about them bothering him, I was more concerned that they'd put their hooves through the grates and nibble the electric wires, but now I wondered excitedly - How many years has this man been visiting our home, and I never knew this?) The queries flooded out of me. How many? What breed? And as he told me of his farm, his horses, chickens and miniature goats, I was overwhelmed with an urge to...well, understand, here in front of me was a man in uniform who not only could fix things but also loved goats...I tried to contain my excitement but I simply could not stop. My voice was almost a whisper: "Do you...do you want to...do you want to have two more goats?"
I'm guessing from his reaction that no one has ever offered him goats on a service call.
End of story - the goats are still here, but the technician did not give me a definite "no." We both have a few months to think about it, at least until the fall when the oil furnace is due for service. If Em and Ellie want to stay, they'd better start behaving!
We all know the sordid stories about lonely housewives and repair men - but truly this behavior is not typical for me! Those who know me will attest to my high moral character, my utmost care for the integrity of my family. Just try to understand, though - my kids are always busy, my husband works late, I'm stuck here alone with these wretched goats day in and day out, my only diversion scooping up their droppings from the roof instead of the driveway, chasing them around with blue antibiotic spray to coat their ragged behinds - can you blame me for craving something more? It was a proverbial moment of weakness...Even now I cringe as I recall his pointed stare, his hesitation as he considered my proposal, his cryptic reply - "Be careful what you wish for. The answer might be yes."
Usually I dread this annual maintenance visit, as the outdoor AC unit lives in a "fence within a fence" in the goat yard, meaning that I need to relocate the goats and take down a section of wire fencing so that the technician can access the unit. When he arrived, I grabbed my boots and asked him to start with the attic ductwork while I moved the goats elsewhere. I was unprepared for his response.
"Oh, no need for that," he said cheerfully. "We have goats too, so they won't bother me at all." (Actually I hadn't been worried about them bothering him, I was more concerned that they'd put their hooves through the grates and nibble the electric wires, but now I wondered excitedly - How many years has this man been visiting our home, and I never knew this?) The queries flooded out of me. How many? What breed? And as he told me of his farm, his horses, chickens and miniature goats, I was overwhelmed with an urge to...well, understand, here in front of me was a man in uniform who not only could fix things but also loved goats...I tried to contain my excitement but I simply could not stop. My voice was almost a whisper: "Do you...do you want to...do you want to have two more goats?"
I'm guessing from his reaction that no one has ever offered him goats on a service call.
End of story - the goats are still here, but the technician did not give me a definite "no." We both have a few months to think about it, at least until the fall when the oil furnace is due for service. If Em and Ellie want to stay, they'd better start behaving!
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Duct Tape, Goats and College Scholarships? (Or, Why to Take Your Goat to the Prom)
Having goats is somewhat like a treasure hunt. I am always seeking that perfect bale of hay they won't reject, the ideal weeds to supplement their diet, water of just the right temperature to entice them to drink without burning their mouths, or the best antibiotic spray to treat the sores they keep biting in their skin. At yard sales I scour other people's castoffs for hoof trimmers, dog collars, water bowls, plastic feeding tubs, portable fencing. Anything to keep them healthy, content and contained - that's what I seek.
Lately I have found myself on another type of hunt - no less challenging and perhaps equally frustrating. With two daughters graduating from high school next year, we are on a serious quest for the ultimate gem - college scholarship money. How on earth do people actually afford higher education? At our local library I found a mammoth volume which claims to list every scholarship available in the entire country - over 3000 entries. Many, as I expected, are for class valedictorians, children of military personnel, and survivors of devastating diseases, but some are more obscure. Surely there must be something for us!! Here's a sampling of what I found...
If you are of Scottish heritage, Swiss descent, or have a parent skilled in Asian cuisine, there is a scholarship for you. Vegetarians, skateboarders, trampoline artists, members of the Iowa Pork Producers or the National Wild Turkey Federation - apply here. Interested in studying Operational Meteorology (whatever that is) or becoming a Nebraskan land surveyor, are you willing to relocate to Texas and register an automobile there, or can you submit a working design for a helicopter? Are you a female over 5 feet 10 inches tall? (Yeah, not even in heels - we tried!) Are you a Hawaiian student organist or extremely knowledgeable about fire sprinklers? A customer of Rent-a-Center? An Oregon salmon fisherman with a passion for physics? A middle child from Vermont who enjoys baseball but is not skilled enough to compete on a team? (I am not making this up!!) I even found a grant for a student whose high school grades are in the "C" range - this one is renewable for four years as long as your grades do not exceed a 3.0 on the 4.0 scale!
Armed with a pen and a stack of notecards (still mostly blank), I have waded through about half the book. I am trying to be optimistic - it must be in there somewhere. Pen poised, eyes squinting at the tiny print, I persist on my quest...maybe it will be on the next page...
Generous funding available for a student who adopted a pair of malcontent goats but has since deferred most of their care to her mother; goats must be too mangy to show yet too personable to eat. Renewable for four years as long as goats exhibit vexing skin issues and constant whining.
Lately I have found myself on another type of hunt - no less challenging and perhaps equally frustrating. With two daughters graduating from high school next year, we are on a serious quest for the ultimate gem - college scholarship money. How on earth do people actually afford higher education? At our local library I found a mammoth volume which claims to list every scholarship available in the entire country - over 3000 entries. Many, as I expected, are for class valedictorians, children of military personnel, and survivors of devastating diseases, but some are more obscure. Surely there must be something for us!! Here's a sampling of what I found...
If you are of Scottish heritage, Swiss descent, or have a parent skilled in Asian cuisine, there is a scholarship for you. Vegetarians, skateboarders, trampoline artists, members of the Iowa Pork Producers or the National Wild Turkey Federation - apply here. Interested in studying Operational Meteorology (whatever that is) or becoming a Nebraskan land surveyor, are you willing to relocate to Texas and register an automobile there, or can you submit a working design for a helicopter? Are you a female over 5 feet 10 inches tall? (Yeah, not even in heels - we tried!) Are you a Hawaiian student organist or extremely knowledgeable about fire sprinklers? A customer of Rent-a-Center? An Oregon salmon fisherman with a passion for physics? A middle child from Vermont who enjoys baseball but is not skilled enough to compete on a team? (I am not making this up!!) I even found a grant for a student whose high school grades are in the "C" range - this one is renewable for four years as long as your grades do not exceed a 3.0 on the 4.0 scale!
Armed with a pen and a stack of notecards (still mostly blank), I have waded through about half the book. I am trying to be optimistic - it must be in there somewhere. Pen poised, eyes squinting at the tiny print, I persist on my quest...maybe it will be on the next page...
Generous funding available for a student who adopted a pair of malcontent goats but has since deferred most of their care to her mother; goats must be too mangy to show yet too personable to eat. Renewable for four years as long as goats exhibit vexing skin issues and constant whining.
Really, I'm not too worried. If the goat money doesn't work out, I have a fallback plan - a $5000 scholarship awarded to a student who submits photographic evidence that she (and her date) attended their high school prom dressed entirely in duct tape. Unfortunately I found this entry a week too late for this spring's prom (where both my girls looked lovely!), but there's always next year. I'll even let them choose the color...I wonder if the award would be greater if her date was a duct-tape-dressed goat?
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Happy Birthday to Me!
For the past sixteen years, my husband has basically ignored my birthday. As I marked the passage of each year he has played volleyball, gone out with his brothers for chicken wings, and worked late into the night. There have been no gifts. I take full responsibility for this.
In the year after our twin daughters were born, we went from a carefree young couple with an abundance of both time and money to a pair of sleep-deprived zombies attempting to meet the incessant demands of two fragile newborns on little uninterrupted rest and on half our previous income, as I took an extended leave of absence from work to care for my daughters' medical needs. I'm sure my husband meant well - after all, the helpful salesclerk assured him that this would be the perfect gift for a frazzled new mom - a delicate heart-shaped locket engraved with "Mother" next to a tiny rose etched in the 14 karat gold. It is truly lovely and all would have been well had my husband not mistakenly left the sales receipt in the box.
Perhaps it was my exhaustion talking, or the fact that I had spent most of the previous months in sweatpants and bedroom slippers, but when I saw the staggering amount which I knew would appear on the next credit card bill, I condemned myself to years of gift-less birthdays by blurting out what my mind screamed - "What on earth were you thinking?? For all this money I could have had something useful, like a new vaccuum cleaner!"
One reason I cherish that locket is because that was my last gift. Ever. Until this year...
I hardly had tiime to think about my birthday, with my girls (now busy teenagers) juggling a full weekend that included SATs, a Quiz tournament, a swim party and the high school prom. Of course my other twins, Em and Ellie, had their own needs - we had run out of the green hay they prefer and they were protesting the switch back to apparently-inedible yellow hay; Elliot was having digestive issues and Emerson had a nasty horn scur which had curved downward and was now growing into his head, a concern for which I would likely need to call the vet whenever I found a free moment. I was frantically attempting a last-minute alteration to Megan's prom dress when I heard Mike's voice through the back door as he told Emily, "Tell your mother I have her birthday gift out here." Really?? Now??
And there he was, holding in his hand a small indistinguishable grayish lump of something - and was that blood? Suddenly I knew exactly what he held - the most perfect birthday gift ever!
"Emerson's scur," he announced proudly. "I snuck up behind him and ripped it off."
A trick I have seen my vet perform but never been able to duplicate, manually detaching a goat's horn scur requires both strength and cunning as you must somehow restrain the writhing animal while twisting the bothersome horn bud (a common side effect of the disbudding done at birth - sorry, you'll have to read last year's blogs if you want the anatomy lesson) then snapping it off. It is a momentarily-painful but very necessary procedure and I can now relax for several months until it grows back and curves into his scalp yet again.
Sunshine for the prom photos, time with my family, and a goat horn on my kitchen counter. Best birthday ever.
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