Grass is Greener

So everybody knows how hard it is to fence in goats. At least anyone who has raised goats for very long.

I remember as a girl coming home from somewhere, every once in awhile, and all of my mom's rose bushes would have been consumed by our little herd of escapee goats. Once, if I remember correctly, one of the goats climbed up on my uncle's soft top convertible. Oops. Those soft tops are not great for climbing and little hoofs.

For the last few weeks we have been having serious goat fencing issues. I was wondering why we are having so many troubles this spring. I guess as the troubles would come up last spring, the kids were here at home and we could work on fixing fence as need would arise. This year, the kids are in school. We work on trying to patch one spot and then two days later the goats find another one. They are master magicians. For some reason, they prefer the neighbor's building site, next to the open road much more than the 35 legal acres they have available to them.

Sometimes we will put them in a new field, they will seem perfectly content, and then as soon as we drive away from the property, I guess they whisper to each other,"Come on, girls, they're gone. Let's go eat that really green grass up on the neighbor's hill and the kids can play on the big pile of dirt next to their foundation hole!"

The goats are for sale, but not all of them have gone yet. It is hard to sell them, as they are not just milk goats, but they are Maggie's pets. She loves each one and hopes to sell them to sweet homes instead of to the butcher market. Especially as they are useful and valuable dairy animals.

For anybody out there who has been wanting to get goats, I should say that they are a wonderful animal. We have loved them dearly. They are valuable producers of milk and meat and out of all of our animals, they are probably the fastest to return a profit. If you don't count the chasing and the fixing and the hole searching.

A few days ago I was in tears, leading them back to the barn, thinking about how sad I was and how different everything was since Philip died. I thought about how grief clouded over a lot of our motivation, and that made me sad, too. But then I looked over the hills and as I paused to let the mamas chomp on the absolutely beyond amazingly wonderful greener grass right on our property line, I was appreciative of the fresh air, the exercise and wondered how in the world was I going to keep in shape if we move off the farm!

(Guess I might go back to hiking???)

This afternoon the kids fixed one of the fences in a little field and the goats seem to be happy and contained for the moment. At least until I have to go somewhere tomorrow, and then you can guess the conversation they will be having...