We timed it and we have the whole process down to 40 minutes from when we get to the barn to when everyone is dressed and geared up and out the gate. Impressive. We are getting better at goat wrangling. Melissa and her son Elvis, and Sophie and I packed our pockets with treats and headed up into the hills. The cars were mostly polite, except for the one asshole who we apparently inconvenienced by Read more…
Too skinny, too skinny, too skinny, Not Too Skinny. She said. The last of course, was a finger pointed at Oatcake. We’d already taken them out for a five point five mile hike earlier without any real incident before the vet’s visit to the house. The goats were good around cars and good around dogs and good in general. The only thing that gave us a real start was when we found a guy wandering Read more…
So, it dawned on us at some point that we actually speak human better than we speak goat. So instead of just trying to convince the goats to get out of the road whenever a car was coming, we got right out there in the road and stopped the traffic. Then we’d let the cars go by slowly, and it was a miracle how well it worked, standing out there in the middle of the Read more…
Jennie had a dream. I said. She had a dream that we had a sweet goat named Oatcake. Wyatt’s brown and white. Sophie said. Maybe his name is Oatcake! We laughed and laughed and loved it and decided to try it out. We were both dressed in our hiking dresses with leggings. Me in pink and pink, and Sophie in teal and grey. My brown hair in a ponytail and a blue buff, Sophie’s green Read more…
He screamed his face off and just about pulled the fence post out of the ground. Wyatt, you’re okay buddy, I told him while I saddled up Jon Snow. Wyatt leaped around and broke his collar trying to get back into the paddock with Bosco and Sharkey. I fixed his collar and untied him from the post and we were off. He hollered a lot. A lot-a-lot. Really freakin’ loud. Sticking his tongue out and Read more…
So I picked up Melissa and we talked goats and caught up while we drove to Mom’s house. I’d only seen her a few times since high school but she and Renee were going to join us to hike the Tahoe Rim Trail with the goat-eo gang. We saddled up Bosco. I put Jon Snow and Sharkey on leads and Melissa took those two and they tangled her up over and over trying to walk Read more…
They bounced and giggled and wriggled around us. These two new sweeties. We knew we’d bring them home. We made small talk with the owner, a teenager with clear eyes and an honest face who clearly loved them but was ready to re-home them and move on to new projects. Sophie and I set up the motorcycle ramp and wondered how long it would take to get these guys into the truck. Less than three Read more…
Sophie visited, and I visited, and Bosco was so excited to go on walks, he’d run to the gate and baaa before we even got his outfit on. Wyatt would hide behind Carlie the horse and look around her butt at us when he thought we weren’t paying attention. We tried what we could think of. Carrots cut up into tiny pieces. Grain. Other little yummies. Wyatt didn’t care about any of them. He just Read more…
“Here. You be the horse.” She said. So I was the horse and she was the person, and she tied me to the barn door. “Now you try.” So I did and I got the knot right and I learned a new skill. I’d posted on Facebook looking for a wether. 2-3 years old. A friendly goat who wanted a Career-Change to join our intrepid gang. “He really needs a job, so I want him Read more…
He cried a lot and got out of the dog run about half a dozen times and hung out at the fence and cried for the other goats until mom strapped the dog run gates together and that kept him in for sure. We were supposed to introduce Bosco gradually so he didn’t fight with anyone, but he would just cry his sweet little cry at the gate and it broke our hearts, so we Read more…