The Great Escape Artists – Our attempt at raising goats.

Buying the farm and surveying the land, we quickly realized that we had way more property to maintain than what we had time for.  Both working full time jobs, I figured that goats were the answer. They’re absolutely adorable, friendly and they’ll eat anything.  As usual, Bill agrees with my bright idea.  We went to Asgaardfarm in the spring of 2017 to see their goats and make plans for getting two next spring.   When we got there, we learned that they had several up for adoption that were essentially unwanted.  Oh they were so sweet and we would be their savior!  So, having no fence up and no plan on where to put them, we, of course, immediately brought home three (that’s how many would fit in our pen).  

We borrowed my brother’s metal pen until our moveable fencing came in.  Daisy, Ella and Bambi were so cute and so easy.  From there, we put the real fence in with posts and metal fence, four feet high… they’d never get out. The next couple of years, the girls grew and we spent our evening filling in holes where the three would sneak under, tightening up fence where it was loose and they would get out and, ultimately, adding a strand of electric wire.  Well, that fixed them … until they realized they could stand on this huge rock and jump over the fence or rickashay their body off the side of the barn when they jumped in order to get over – parqkore?

Their pen was spacious and had loads of trees that we would continue to cut down so they could eat the leaves.  Grass was in abundance until they ate it all.  Hay was aplenty but never tasty enough.  For a while, we’d bring them down to the fields when we were working.  It was a great idea until they started to eat the baby trees.  Fields of grass and they would go for the baby trees – why????  

But, alas, it wasn’t really the food they were searching for, they loved people.

They’d jump out and go see the neighbors.  They’d see someone pull in the driveway and jump out to greet them.  They’d see us going to work down in the fields and want to come to help.  Too many times, a jogger would knock on our front door asking if the goats that were chasing them were ours.  Reluctantly, Bill would claim ownership.

Honestly, I wouldn’t really even mind them getting out of their fence if they would instead go down in the fields and stay away from the road.  Countless times, traffic would stop and people would pull in to put the goats away for us (only for them to jump out as soon as the person left).  It was getting too dangerous and we were afraid someone was going to get hurt.  

Our visitors to the farm loved to see the goats and the girls did a terrific job of clearing land for us, but we had a breaking point.  This spring, the girls saw a high schooler jogging by one sunny spring day.  Out they jumped and started trotting after him.  With his earbuds in, he was in his zone and had no idea what was happening behind him until a neighbor shouted, “turn around, somethings following you!”  The kid kept going, I don’t think he liked goats.  This sunny day was one of the first nice days of spring and every neighbor was outside soaking in the sun, happy to take a breath of fresh air.  And, they were bored in quarantine until the goat show happened.  First the young jogger goes by, followed by Ella, Daisy and Bambi.  The goats were followed by Bill in his pick up truck stomping on the gas and then by me running in my sock feet to round out the parade.  All we were missing was the candy to throw!

We dragged the goats back along the road doing the walk of shame for about half a mile and then I started making calls.  

In this story, I need to thank the countless people who stopped by over a three year period to put my goats back in their pen.  I need to thank Mr. Jeannette who gave us two big round bales for the goats when the hay accidentally rolled off his wagon into our driveway. I need to thank my in-laws who helped put up the electric fence and our friend Boone & Rachael who would help us clean out their pen.  And, I really need to thank Melissa at Country Dream Farms who agreed to give the girls a new home (not realizing how big they are!)