Teat for Tat

In my last post I mentioned our recent acquisition of a couple of goats. I had committed to purchasing them in early June, and we were to get them the beginning of July. Then we had a nasty storm the first part of July, and pretty much everybody's lives were put on hold -- this included the goat trade business -- for awhile as we all had/have a lot of cleaning up to do.

About a week ago I decided we'd better gather these goats into our little farm operation before their previous owners got fed up with me, so I got in touch with them and we set the date and time. They said they would bring the goats over to our place on a Sunday evening, which was right nice of them.

I had the stupid ridiculous bright idea of running three electric fence wires to keep the little goat ladies in. This would give them a nice big pasture area to graze upon, shade, and an indoor area in the shed. And since we already run electric fencing for the horses anyway, it would all work out just wonderfully.

Or not.

The Sunday evening that the goats arrived, it was hot. It was humid. It was muggy. Sultry. Ardent. Sweltering. Torrid.

I can't use enough words to describe how not nice the weather was that evening.

I also can't use enough words to describe how tired we were that evening. It had been a crazy, hot week. I had convinced Mr. Blue Eyes to rearrange our bedroom, which was a good idea in theory, but the new bed placement was messing with my sleep cycle.

(I'm sleeping much better these days, thank you for asking.)

We were running on fumes, and voila... Here come the new goats!

Despite all of that, I was excited for the girls to arrive. I anticipated watching them frolick and play in their perfectly secure, three-electric wired pen.

I did not anticipate, however, that they would escape their pen within about 30 seconds of being turned loose within it. The combination of their ability to push under it with their horns, and our week electric fencer, made it easy as pie for them to escape.

We had a nice little visit with their former owners, they showed us a few things about the goats, and then they were off on their merry way, and there we stood with two goats on leashes, and absolutely nowhere to put them.

(Remember, our enclosed shed was blown to smithereens during the storm. And our other shed, the one that is still standing, is completely open to one side, and doesn't have any pens in it.)

And did I mention it was hot?

And we were tired?

And the bugs were biting?

And it was about 8pm on a Sunday evening?

I wanted to cry a little bit. I did. But I had gotten Mr. Blue Eyes and I into this mess, and I wasn't about to leave him to handle a blubbering, sobbing mess of a wife in addition to two goats (which are the 'MacGuyver' of the animal kingdom, by the way), so I bucked up and started using my noggin' to try to come up with some way to contain the wiley beasts.

Who knew two such cute little creatures could cause such great distress?

We had part of a roll of woven wire fence and a bunch of t-posts, so I suggested we make them a little temporary pen out of that, and so we did. A few bug bites and lots of sweat droplets later, they had a nice little spot in the shade. It wasn't much, but it was enough to get them through until we had time for something bigger and better.

At this point, we decided to release Burley and Henry, who had been penned up in the garage throughout this whole process. I'm not going to lie, I had quite a bit of anxiety about this, as Burley has a highly keyed up 'kill' drive, and I know that he can get through that woven wire if he wants to.

I know this because... he has... quite quickly... done this before. A few years ago when we acquired some chickens. That's a whole other story which I can't go into right now, or else I'll be here writing all day. Just know that I know that Burley knows that he can get through that wire anytime he wants, and if he happens to be in the 'killing frenzy' mode, it wouldn't take him but a split second. He's an animal.

So, with trepidation, we released the beast. He knew the goats were there. I'm sure he could smell them or sense them or whatever it is that lets dogs know these kinds of things from inside the garage. He immediately bolted toward their pen, which we had set up within the electric fence. (Which doesn't keep the goats in, or keep Burley out. It was a complete failure in terms of fencing. I'm so glad we spent hours putting it up.)

Mr. Blue Eyes and I ran after him, yelling and screaming, "No! No, no no no!"

Suddenly we were on a PBS episode of Nature.

I seriously thought the lives of those goats was going to end less than two hours after coming to live on our farm.

Somehow, by God's grace, Burley didn't get through the wire before we got to him, and those little goats (smaller than Burley, by the way) actually rammed the fence to defend themselves! I was quite impressed with their machismo.

Do female goats have machismo?

I think they must.

(Note to self: If I ever make goat cheese out of their milk, must come up with one flavor called 'goat macheesemo'.)

Anyhow, we got Burley on a leash, and gave him a good lesson on not being aggressive with the goats. Then we put the dogs in the garage for the night, took a good shower, and headed to bed. That night, and for about three nights after that, I could hardly get to sleep. I kept having visions of Burley getting into their pen and ending their little lives. I also couldn't figure out how in the sam-heck we were going to fence the little girls in for the long-term.

I reminded myself over and over that it was quite possibly the stupidest idea I'd ever had.

And I also thought that perhaps I had finally given Mr. Blue Eyes grounds for divorce.

However, the next day he pulled up our driveway in this little rig...

...which he had all but committed to buying.

He thought I was going to tell him he was crazy.

I thought he had every right to commit me to the loony bin after the goat fiasco.

So we called it even.

Comments

[Tauna]

I wasn't expecting that!
I thought he had bought some new fancy pen or something.
Well, I guess it could be a sweet ride for the goats!

Hope you get the living situation under control.

But really........goats? If you're bored I could come up with a thing or two.