Life With Goats~Day 1

Hello mes amis.  I see that it’s been 10 days since I’ve posted and that is WAY too long!  The past two weeks have been very full of packing, painting, moving, unpacking, more painting, more moving, etc etc ad nauseum.  We haven’t had to do this moving thing for almost 16 years and it is time- and energy-consuming and we still aren’t done!  But, and here’s the good news, we sprung for really good internet here, so I can neglect blogging at lightning speeds!

Everybody knows that one of the main reasons we had for moving out here was to have space for goats.  I wrote some before about the girls and the interesting process by which we found them and made the deal.  Since that time, the old goat shed here on the property has been overhauled and made secure.  I went to the local feed store on Friday and talked to Manny (who was recommended by Brad, the goat guy) and bought alfalfa pellets and a a richer feed for the milking does (or just for general conditioning).  Also picked up a mineral block with selenium, which the ground around here is short of, and 2 bales of rice straw, a feed pan and a water bucket. Got Home (here, home, yes) that afternoon and set everything up in their shed.  Yesterday we picked the girls up!

Now, they’d all lived most of their lives about a 5 minute drive from here.  It’s nice, because the climate is the same, the air smells the same, the same plants grow on the hillsides.  I think that has made them more calm about the whole situation.

Brad is a smart goat owner and had trained the girls to the leash when they were little, so it wasn’t too difficult to get them from the barn to the truck.  First came Daisy (the mischievous one!) and Lilly (who’s had her name changed to “Libby” because I just can’t make my mouth call her the same name as my dog!) and we put them in the dog crates in back of the truck.  They did complain a bit, but not too much.  Drove them the 1/2 mile between the houses and unloaded them here.  We got them into their shed and gave them a little snack and they were curious, but not upset.

We drove back to the Ranch and then came the tricky part.  We needed to load up Abby and her twins, Rose and Thistle.  None of them wanted to be without the others and we had to carry the kids, so Abby kept trying to see where they were, and they kept trying to see where mom was and also where they were and also what the heck was going on here because where were Libby and Daisy and so forth.  I was surprised at how strong those little goats were!  They’re really only about 35 pounds or so, but big wigglers!

We put the twins in one carrier and Abby in the other and they let us know how they felt about that arrangement with loud “baa-baa”s of displeasure (but even the baby complainy “baa”s are so CUTE).  I was glad it was just a short trip.

Getting the herd back together was clearly a comfort to them all and they showed it by immediately reasserting the ‘butting order’.  How it works, apparently, is the Libby is the Queen, but she and Abby are pretty evenly matched.  When they butted each other, you could see them both making a sort of agreement about it, kinda like pro wrestlers (“sports entertainers”, thank you!)  They would both butt Daisy, and she in turn would butt the little ones because they are smaller than her and “nanny-berries roll downhill” as they say.  Abby doesn’t take kindly to her kids being hit, so she chases Daisy away, and so on… This might settle out a bit when they’re more used to the change of routine and scenery.

So far, I have no crazy goat stories to report.  They’ve mostly been wandering the hillside and eating grass.  Nobody’s slipped the fence and been found jumping on the cars.  Nobody’s gotten hurt.  They are just hella adorable and fascinating and beautiful and I LOVE THEM.

Mother and Father of all Creatures, hear me!  I see your beauty in all things, wild and tame.  The rhythm of your love beats in every heart.  You see with every eye, however strange; you taste the world with every tongue.  Awaken our senses that we might remember you in each moment and feel our place in the Worlds.  Bless us and blessed be!