Goats in the Garage

With a forecast for bone-chilling temps that make last weeks frosty weather seem balmy, I knew we needed a better way to keep the goats warm at night, especially given Elliot's fragile health. (What's that? Just because I haven't mentioned his crusty scabs, festering open wounds, hair loss, chronic itching and neurological abnormalities for a while, you thought they had gone away? Guess again. After a year of treatment with no success, I'm simply ignoring his bizarre ailments.)

I investigated a heat lamp for the shed, but decided against that because I couldn't reconcile the idea of locking them in a closed building with an edible fire hazard. Anything lower than eight feet is at risk for being chewed, and I doubt any heat benefit would reach that far. The other alternative is to house them overnight in the garage. This requires fencing. At local feed stores, the only portable fencing I found was just thirty inches high - about as effective as drawing chalk lines on the floor and politely asking the goats to respect these boundaries. After an internet search, a few phone calls and an afternoon road trip, I found the perfect solution - an eight-panel "exercise yard" for large dogs. No assembly required, folds flat, ideal for the garage. It wasn't cheap, but that's no problem - I just purloined a wad of cash from my "new vacuum cleaner" envelope on the kitchen counter.  Housework, after all, is way over-rated, and my old vacuum still works fine; it only starts smoking after five minutes of use, a convenient reminder that it's time to move on to something else, like a good book or a bowl of ice cream. Only after rearranging the entire garage and assembling the goats' new bedroom did I realize that I had inadvertently blocked access to the outside door of the garage, meaning that in order to get them hay we now have to carry it up the basement stairs and through the kitchen and dining room to their outside hay rack. Unfortunately, hauling all this hay through the house has increased my need for a dependable vacuum cleaner...

As I keep reminding myself, I sure do love these goats!