Goats

This is Rosie at left, one of our wonderful Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats. She isn't interested in having her photo taken unless the camera is edible, so this is the best I could do today. Goats figured out how to get into their treat bag last night and then, having gorged, couldn't be coaxed to the milking stand this morning. In my pajamas and flip flops with a flashlight at 6:00 a.m., I discovered I had been outsmarted. Although those pajamas look like I lost in a mud tug of war, I did indeed win the battle. However, hairy foot ended up in the milking bucket, so maybe we'll call it a "draw." I'll be making soap (critical not to misspell as "soup," here) of today's milk. Basically, the goats and I have an understanding. They get treated like princesses and are bribed with treats, that no doubt preclude any hope of ever being a profitable dairy. I get to milk in peace. There's also a subsidiary rule that although they know how to open my front door, enter at will and say, eat my September billing; they agree not to. That's my understanding, anyway.

A few people have asked if I sell goat milk, cheese or soap. I don't sell anything goat-related. They were acquired for the pleasure of their company; although that end game has not always been achieved on a regular basis. In the beginning, they expressed complete disdain at my fumbling attempts to get goat milk in the goat milk bucket, which in all fairness was my stated official purpose for having goats. There was a low point where family members would peer out a nearby window, popcorn at hand, to view the daily match because watching me get my ass handed to me by a miniature goat was better than Southpark. The goats ARE fun to watch; although the foolishness of thinking that I could provide delicious goat food in exchange for them not chomping my landscaping into stumps was stellar in its complete absence of goat-ownership common sense.

They ate the delicious goat food treats AND the landscape. Immediately. And any thought that a goat can be bribed and then stay "bought," even through a milking session, is nonsense. Payment in the form of goat treats in exchange for the opportunity to milk in peace is a notion that is renegotiated daily; occasionally minute by minute. Sometimes I walk away satisfied with the exchange. Sometimes I don't. So if you want to add the cost of landscape replacement, let's see. Goat soap: $127 a bar. Yet another nutty hobby I've understaken that my friends are left incredulous over.