Signs of the Times?

Imagine my surprise to see this when I went out to feed the goats yesterday - Really, boys?? Am I rattling the hay tub too much and disturbing your naps? (Yes, I did slam the gate shut extra loudly just to spite them, ungrateful animals...)

As it turns out, I didn't realize my husband was doing some free-lance sign repair for a local church, and this had been dropped off earlier for him to paint. Still...

Why Goats Don't Wear Flip Flops

If there were a scale to measure quantitative danger levels of various pets, goats would fall somewhere in the middle, midway between kittens and venomous snakes. Are you looking for a companion more adventurous than a goldfish, but are not yet ready to adopt a poison dart frog? A goat is the ideal pet for you! Most goat-related injuries are easily treated with a standard first-aid kit, minor in comparison to a frightening peril highlighted this week by a segment on my favorite morning show.

What now?, you may be wondering. Carbon monoxide? Speeding trains? Exploding airbags? No - this is a more insidious hazard, an everyday object present in nearly every American home and a far greater risk than goats - the common flip flop.

I know, you are thinking - how can this be? I wear them every day! And yet, the numbers do not lie - fully 25,000 people each year visit emergency rooms for flip flop-related injuries! Unfortunately I could not locate similar statistics for goats, but surely it is much lower...

I know, I know...it makes no sense. Flip flops, while certainly lacking in arch support, cannot butt you, bite you, or gore you with their horns. Foam footwear is unlikely to hurtle down the hill and knock you flat, and the care of flip flops does not require straining to lift heavy hay bales, wielding razor-sharp hoof trimmers or handling toxic parasectisides. Additionally, flip flops can hardly send their owners into financial ruin or mental breakdown - and yet...

Don't take chances - trade in your flip flops for goats. You can never be too careful when it comes to the safety of your family.

Front Yard Bliss

Elliot is sweet, gentle, and simple. He lacks his brother's sleek coat and devious cunning, but for all his flaws you cannot help but love him. As life goes, Elliot has fair reason to complain. A chronic skin ailment causes him intense, flesh-biting itching; he endures painful treatments and the humiliation of shorn fur. His brother, the only other goat in his world, is a nasty bully determined to deny Elliot access to hay, weeds and even human affection. Plus, sometimes it rains...

Even a few raindrops send Ellie into his Oz-like "Wicked Witch of the West" impersonation - I'm melting! I'm melting!! - and he runs for shelter with his head tucked all the way to his chest. (If I can't see the rain, it can't get me?) 

When dark clouds threatened yesterday, I rushed outside to bring the goats from their remote fenced field back to their shed. Emerson ran directly in and was under roof before the storm began, but Elliot became confused by the first raindrops and took off in the opposite direction in his peculiar "rain gait" with his head bent and eyes closed. Apparently mistaking my husband's large storage shed for his own safe haven, he flung himself repeatedly against the closed door - Why am I still getting wet? Oh, help me, help me! Let me in!

Now soaked myself as the storm intensified, I chased after him and attempted to shove him back toward the house, but an eighty-pound soggy goat is not easy to move and all I accomplished was to send him off in again the wrong direction, toward the road. Completely disoriented, he suddenly skidded, stopped, and whipped his head around - Oh, look where I am! I'm in the front yard!! (Understand, the front yard, due to traffic proximity and ornamental shrubbery, is one place the goats are never, ever allowed. They know this well.) With no concern for the pelting rain, he flung himself up in the air with a frisky sideways kick, jumping in great circles and apparently celebrating with a jubilant dance...I'm in the front yard and I even got here first and this makes me so happy!!

Fortunately the front yard has a never-used gate into the goat pen, so when I caught up to my sopping-wet, crazy-dancing Ellie, I coaxed him over - Oh look, Emerson! I'm even going through that gate we're not allowed to use! Life is so good! - and then everyone was where they needed to be and I went to find some dry clothes. It may not have improved Ellie's overall situation, but I hope the memory of that brief joyful experience got him through the rest of the torrential storm.

I know several people facing difficult situations right now - financial strain, insurmountable illness, broken relationships, heart-rending loss. Along with the strength and healing I pray them every day, let me add this - may there also be an occasional moment of "front-yard bliss," even one small happy thing, just to brighten each difficult day and help ride out life's storms.

Happy Birthday Wishes

Sometimes the goats cooperate. Other times it takes a pound of orange chips dumped on the deck to distract them from the fact that they're wearing party hats. Either way,  if you're our goat-friendly favorite aunt in Alabama, this one's for you!

(Shortly after this photo was taken, Emerson ate the sign.)

Happy birthday, Aunt Robin! We miss you!

Ten Random Things Everyone Should Know About Goats

Nothing is more adorable and personable than a baby goat. (Years later, when you are sprawled on the driveway after being kicked in the head while scrubbing parasitic fungus off your goat's rump, you will remember why you ever got goats in the first place...)

If you bottle-feed a goat until he is nearly two years old, you will create a bond so intense that this goat will suffer everlasting separation anxiety whenever you leave him. He will even stand outside your open bedroom window on hot summer nights, crying for you whenever he hears you roll over.

Goats produce four times their body weight in poop every day. This is a fact. Also, excreted goat pellets are of the exact shape and size to wedge themselves tightly between the boards of your deck and the grooves of your sneakers...

Contrary to the belief of one high school student we know, goats are a distinct species. (Even living in the city is no excuse for asking, "What is a goat anyway? Is that just a male sheep?" ...though to be fair, I am hopelessly lost on any metropolitan subway system.)

If you are going to spend a small fortune in money and time fencing a field for your goats to graze, do not fence the one area on your property where there is absolutely no shade, not any at all. Not even if your husband insists on that spot because it will not disrupt his mowing pattern. Not unless you like baked goat.

Goats are frightened of many things - the dark, raindrops, small cats and soccer balls. Friends ask why we have soccer balls in every corner of the garden, unaware that this is a perfect goat barrier, especially when you find cheap sports equipment at yard sales. The mere threat of even a gentle toss keeps both my goats wary of the tomato plants.

Goats have no upper front teeth - just a hard gum area. Don't be deceived - it still hurts when they bite, and if you are foolish enough to contact the razor-sharp back teeth, you'll risk losing a finger.

Your goat may look stupid, but that is just to disguise the reality that he is smarter and trickier than you. Never turn your back.

Even despite the ruckus, the mess, the parasites, the financial drain, the upheaval of the life you once knew and your gradual descent into insanity, it is possible to love a goat. There is absolutely no logical reason for this, but it happens.

Oh, and nine is the new ten. (Just in case you were counting.)

A Day in the Life of...With Goats

First they knocked over the hay tub. Then, fighting over their breakfast (Emerson always wants both bowls), they spilled grain and seed mix all over the deck. This apparently set a pattern, because - Look, brother, here she comes with our water bowl - let's get her! - and as Emerson crashed through the screen door in excitement, Elliot leaped onto a bench and lunged for the bowl, knocking off my glasses as water flew everywhere.

Three years ago I would have never have thrown things and stomped and shrieked like this, but I am a different person now, and the words spit effortlessly: "I HATE YOU BOTH!! I HATE YOU SO MUCH!! I HATE YOU WITH...WITH...WITH A THOUSAND HATES!!"

That's when I heard a gasp. Now, goats emit many unusual sounds, but I have never actually heard a goat gasp, and why are they both suddenly doing their best sweet-and-innocent imitation? Warily I turned around - oh, hi Megan...

Staring at the ranting and disheveled apparition who only vaguely resembled her mother, she was clearly disapproving. "A bit harsh, don't you think, Mom? Really? A thousand hates?"

Soaking wet, scented in eau de vinegar and against the background of the wreckage of our deck, I squinted at her through my now-crooked bifocals. "What? You think I should have said nine-hundred ninety nine?"

Ha! I knew she'd have no response if I used a math problem.

Come on, goat boys. Ellie still needs a betadine bath and I haven't cleaned out the shed yet...maybe Mommy can find you some dandelions to munch while I sweep. Life with goats...

Strawberry Fields...for Emerson

This story has two parts - my goats, and my husband. Somehow they will merge into one explanation of why, for many goat-owners (as well as musical spellers), "Life is pandemonium." (It's fine if you don't get the reference. Go see "The Putnam County Spelling Bee" if you ever have a chance.)

First, the goats. Finicky to a fault, they do have favorites. Along with orange peels and sunflower seeds, they eagerly devour thorny wild roses, cabbage and kale leaves, poison ivy...and strawberry plants. Oddly, they disdain fresh strawberries, but find the leaves a succulent delicacy, a fact I discovered last summer when they once got loose in the garden.

Now, the husband. Master Gardener, Grower-of-Award-Winning-Produce, Weeder Extraordinaire. This is the man who measures out the green bean rows with a chalk line, who sees each weed as a personal affront, who as a small child apparently had to work in his family's garden ten hours each morning before he could swim in the neighbor's pond after lunch. (Yes, he is descended from those same great-grandparents who had to walk twenty miles barefoot to school in the winter, uphill each way.) His garden is flawlessly organized, immaculately maintained, and generously fertilized (this year with six truckloads of horse and cow manure, carefully measured and blended). Tended with meticulous care, the plants flourish - gorgeous tomatoes, squash, kohlrabi, beets - all but the strawberries, which inexplicably yield only a paltry few small berries. My husband, frustrated by their rambling nature, ferociously digs them up every year and replants them in straight rows, to no avail.

Now, the goats. Every morning I walk them from their shed by our house to a fenced weedy field to graze for the day. Creatures of habit, they always follow the same trail - past the wooden bench, avoid the scary tire swing, stop to pee. Jump on the low stone wall and walk to the end, run to the field, get a treat. Same routine, same path, every day. In the afternoon, reverse direction.

Now the husband. A few weeks ago, I saw him pushing a wheelbarrow from the garden up the hill toward the low stone wall (yes, where the goats walk every day, twice). He informed me that he was replanting all the strawberries along the stones, directly along the route I have worked so hard to train the goats to follow. His reply to my obvious question?

"Well, you'll just have to train them not to eat the plants, won't you?"

Yeah, and maybe I'll keep a bowl of dark chocolates on the coffee table and see how many times I can walk past them. Good luck with that...Elliot is actually rather distractable (kinder than calling him stupid), but wily Emerson discovered the plants right away and now makes a nasty game of trying to knock me over to leap into the berry patch whenever we go by. I'm not sure what's worse - the devastation to the plants or my bruises.

So if anyone has extra strawberries this year, I'll trade for fifty pounds of jalapeno peppers, or a twenty pound squash...or two very obedient goats  (hey, I always try!)