Smokey Mountain Breakdown

Goats-911...Please clearly state your goat emergency and stay on the line....

So, I come back from a trip down the mountain to fill up my brand new tire that is already leaking air to find a message from a nice woman from down the 15th. There's a goat on a ledge midway between here and old Tillman's store. She assumes it's mine. It's not.

So, we get in touch and I drive down there. Sure enough, there's a Boer/New Zealand cross doe across the creek. Not sure how she got there. I get out and make sympathetic goat calls to her. Yes, I'm standing in the middle of a country road calling "Blaaaah. Blaaah." Me, being something of a junior goat whisperer, though nothing compared to the Goat Yoda--said goat looks across the rushing creek and answers me. She's saying something like, "Hey! I'm stuck over here and I can't get back! Hows about cluing me into how I got here in the first place."

Goats are like that. Every day's a new day to a goat. Actually, every five minutes is a new five minutes to a goat. Sort of like that thing about goldfish having a 2 and a half second span of short term memory. She's fifty feet up a laurel covered stretch of rotten rock, wet and hating it.

The nice woman and I meet on the stretch of road--we try to figure out who she might belong to. Chief suspect is the old Raines place--now rehabilitated with nice new sheds and a horse. But no one is home. There's six strand barbwire fencing--but if you know goats--well, that's just a dandy way to get your ass scratched. We agree she'll come down when she's good and ready and there's really nothing we can do.

I turn around and head back--and while we were talking, the doe has found her way back onto the main road. I stop and make more sympathetic goat noises. She's real friendly and lets me get quite close--just not close enough to grab her horns. I get the feeling she's new around here--not sure where home is. But she sure does like the goat noises I'm lobbing in her direction. Shows me her rear end like I'd be interested. I drive slowly and she follows the jeep, but gives up when a friendly horse in the pasture makes goo-goo eyes at her. Fickle damn goats. One moment they are your best buddy and the next they are running after the first pretty horse that comes along.

I haven’t been talking much about Rose Goat’s pregnancy. We are indeed expecting, but I’m not entirely sure it is going to be a happy event. She’s the only one who got bred out of the girls and is the one who least needed to be. She was the runt of last year’s kiddings. She’s still very small for a goat. Short and squat like her mother, Blinkin’, she may be okay—maybe not.

The only reason she is still here is because she disappeared when the goat rapture happened. Since no one else got bred, I sort of assumed Rose Goat wouldn’t be as well. As I've watched her udder fill out, I've continued to think maybe she wasn't bred.

Anyway, it’s getting near time. I’ve got her tied up to the porch. She made a nest in a weird place up on the hill and was “talking” to her babies. They make this funny little whickering noise at their stomachs. I also saw her have a contraction. Of course, her mother led us on like that for six weeks.

But I can feel them. I think there are two—probably an enormous buckling and a small doeling. I pushed against the right side of her belly and somebody pushed back. That’s such a weird feeling.

Anyway, she’s settled herself on the porch for now. Let’s hope she lives through it. That’s a big head or something I’m feeling in there.

I will say that her goat lady parts are enormously large and out of scale for a goat her size. So, maybe she won’t have a bad time of it.

I couldn't resist doing this forever, I guess. This will be going up on The Friday Ark at the Modulator. Lolcat translations courtesy of Speak Lolcat. Nod to I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER? If for some odd reason you want to use any of these on your own blog, go ahead, but give me a linkback. The new Technorati is murdering my blog.

I give you--The Baby Lolgoats--courtesy of Betsy at Glastonbury Farm where I spent this afternoon getting my baby goat fix.

I get up this morning, let the dogs out and who should be standing there, looking confused, but the presumed dead Rose. She's confused because the rest of the goats were "raptured" to Fayetteville, NC to Peggy's. She most definitely had a place on that trip, but Pearlie came back without her and Rose has been gone a long, long time. Goats are not solitary animals. They have strong herd instincts and do not wander around by themselves. She came back just to be with the sheep--who she despises--from where she was being detained.

I gave her some sweet feed and told her things could be worse. At least she didn't find the other goat's collars sitting on their airplane seats. So now--there is a goat again.

Today I have a leaner, meaner rewrite of an old favorite...

Well, it's been a big day for the goaties. But a very sad one for me.

I said goodbye to my entire herd today. I was able to keep it together pretty much until they were all loaded up--and I've been weeping ever since. The goats have been my little family here, and it's been painful to see the herd broken apart, stolen and not being able to be with my kids. This entire year has been one non-stop ordeal of slander, copyright infringement and harassment. And all of it, completely unwarranted.

But as of today, there is no longer anything keeping me here. My babies are gone. I came here to raise goats. Before I even had goats, I was known as "the goat lady" from the moment I moved here. Goats were what I've always wanted to do.

But what can I say? Life's not fair, the universe is a random bunch of atoms, karma is a fairy tale and God is capricious. When one door closes, you better be wearing boots, because you're going to have to kick your way out of there. But there is one really wonderful silver lining in all of this. The goats found a really soft spot to land.

It's the best possible outcome for the girls and my big snuffly boy. And it's pretty good for you guys too...because the entire herd is at Hidden Haven Homestead. So you can check up on them on Peggy's blog. You'll need to go there for your goat fix. 'Cause all I got is two twisted sheep and a goose.

They were all really happy to be reunited on the day before the move. Peggy's husband William and their hired hand, Larry, came in on Friday night and crashed at my place so they could get an early start. We loaded them up and they were really comfy for the six hour ride. BossyToe was really excited and looked out the window of the camper. I think she would have hung her head out if she had been allowed to. She and Bridey really don't think of themselves as goats, you know. And I'm not entirely sure they are. They are little people running around in goat clothing.

They are with really super people now and completely safe. So--I'm happy.

Anyway, here are a bunch of them....looks like Blanche, Bridey, Sonya and Leonard--piggishly snarfing up cookies and obviously missing me desperately--not.

Ummm...Isn't she a bit young?!!!....And...like...well...ANOTHER SPECIES?





Now that we have all had a good giggle at the sheep's expense...Let me direct you to Northview Diary where there is a wonderful story about Toots, The Miracle Christmas Calf. It's a much better Sunday read than looking at my depraved sheep.

Happy Sunday

I stayed in bed a long time this morning. I don't think I felt well enough to rise until almost noon, and when I did, I could barely walk. Such is life with the Red Wolf. When emotion overflows to the point of overwhelming, as this past week has done, the Red Wolf comes out to play and gnaws on the bones of the living. He is particularly fond of my bones.

First I took a shower and stood under the hot water as long as I could bear it. I put on my crippled pants and shirt...the things I wear when my range of movement is so restricted that I can't handle buttons and zippers. I knew I was going to probably collapse onto the couch and lay there for the rest of the day. But life wasn't quite done chewing on me.

I hobbled out onto the front porch and looked toward the pasture.

The Babies were there. They were back. They had either escaped from where they were being restrained or whoever had taken them had gotten spooked and brought them back. They looked at me with sad eyes and said nothing.

"Ickle Goats!!!" I cried joyously at them and limped out to them.

They were back, but they were thinner, dying of thirst and stank of ketosis. They were also very leery and looked at my two legged form with suspicion. Wherever they were being held, they were not fed or watered properly and were treated roughly. That much was clear. Goats returning from the wild wood would have been fat and would have smelled of leaf mold and pine needles. Not stale urine and starvation. And besides, my Babies would not have been able to stay away that long had they not been locked up somewhere.

Two things happened that probably facilitated their return. Betsy, The Goat Yoda, went to the stock yard yesterday for me and talked with some of the employees about the theft. And this morning, the local paper had a report titled, "Nubian Goats on the Lam", about the theft.

I forced myself to load them up in the Jeep and took them to Betsy's for safe keeping. It's just nuts. I have over 20 acres and I'm having to board my livestock thanks to the whackadoodles harassing me. It was really heartbreaking to listen to BossyToe screaming like a toddler as I walked away. But at least they will be safe there.

So, the Babies are back!

And that is indeed occasion for a Happy Sunday.

I must go lay down now.

'Cause...everyone needs a little goat on their wood pile.

Sorry...I got nothin'. Don't have a food post...I'm in the week where I eat ramen and rice so I don't have anything for you.

BossyToe, however, came to the front door to have it es'plained...one more time...why she can't come in the house anymore. She quite enjoyed her childhood as a house goat and was feeling a bit nostalgic.

Get on The Ark....at The Modulator.

Everyone's lined up to stuff their faces.

And Yes, Mutton and Chops (the sheep)....That outfit DOES make your butts look fat.

Well, it's not like I didn't see it coming.

A few days I was on the porch chatting on the phone and looked up to see Chops, one of my Shetland sheep wethers, chasing Bridey-goat.

"Wow," I said, "that's not something you see every day." The sheep are normally enveloped with an almost Gallic air of ennui regarding the goats. Unless there is food in the offing...then the sheep are pretty entitled. Entitled to anything the goats are offered, evidently.

I'm very fond of my buck, Leonard. He's just such the big snuggle-puss for 9 months out of the year. He likes to come up and get his head scratched and rubs against my legs like a big kitty. He has such a good temperament and I've never felt a bit threatened by him. But I knew our quiet 9 months was coming to an end soon a few weeks ago when he sidled up to me while I was watering. I felt the warm wetness on my foot. He gazed up at me nonchalantly as I realized he'd just peed on my foot. And his "boy parts" were much bigger.

And then there is the smell. Most of the year Leonard smells pretty much as unoffensive as the does do. Granted, if you are more accustomed to the whiff of petrochemicals and city life...any goat has that certain eau de chevre. Sort of like the cheese but not nearly as delicious smelling. It's goat smell. But when a buck rutts...boy howdy...what a pong!

So I go out to feed this morning and both Leonard and Mutton are standing at Phoebe's rear end with their lips curled in the air. My two wethered sheep are clearly bent. Phoebe is all aglow with the joy of her emerging doe-hood and is not discouraging them at all.

A quick butt check of the kid herd reveals that they are all experiencing the first flush of girly goathood. Their little hoo-haa's are all puffy and Vi-Vi just can't seem to keep her tail down.

So...Leonard is busy and stinky.

I'm fairly certain it is too late. Leonard works fast. But the girls are awfully big now. Bigger than the sheep that keep following them with perverted sheep lust in their eyes.

So...I must lay myself prostrate at the feet of the wise and all-knowing Goat Yoda. My Sensei of Goatdom. Should I go get the bottle of goat-morning-after injectable? I wasn't sure before...but there can be little doubt my little darlings are bred. I still seem unable to snatch that damn pebble out of her hand.

And do I really want to go through this again in January???

Anne asked about the goats...and it's true, I haven't posted about them in a while. So...Here are some photos of the "babies", who are now a strapping six months old.

Still full of beans and mischief as always.

Everyone is weaned with the exception of Bridey...who still is finding it hard to get off the udder.

Well, we are approaching the second kidding storm.

Betty Goat, who delivered a preemie after gorging herself and making herself sick, is up first. It will be really good for her to have a live birth and a kid to take care of . She was really very sad after the little golden preemie didn't make it. This was the baby that died the same day that Aegis died. She is buried with Aegis.

So, we are keeping snacks away from Betty Goat, and hopefully she will deliver a healthy kid this time. I've been calling her the "Uni-Udder". Only half of her udder has developed. If it doesn't fill out after she delivers she will have to leave the farm. It's a shame since she's a stunning goat otherwise.

The babies are huge now. They are quite capable of knocking me over in their rush to get attention and snacks. But they are starting to be more goaty. Which is a good thing. I'm not sure how they are going to handle this new crop of brothers and sisters.

With the heat, everyone has been hanging out in the shade or in the shelters. I still haven't sheared the sheep and I need to get to that. They look hot under all that fleece.

The youngsters are still at the age where they like to jump up on things. Bridey is on top of one of the shelters. There is a bit of shade there. I don't know why they don't go hang out under the trees. There is some nice shade in the pasture for those who want to avail themselves of it.

In other animal news, I just dropped a wedge of dough on old Babe this morning. He had a really bad ear infection. The vet listened to his heart murmur. There is nothing but murmur there now. It goes off of the scale. If you feel under his left elbow, you can feel the murmur ripple along his chest. We aren't sure what is keeping him alive. He really shouldn't be. He's also walking on a leg that the vet says shouldn't be functional. But he's absurdly happy and bouncy. I'd say, "it won't be long now," but we've been saying that for two years now.

For Friday Ark...at The Modulator

My buddy POH, was shocked to learn that not only were goats used for food, but their meat finds its way into our mysterious American food chain in a number of sneaky ways like in pepperoni and other hard sausages.

Indeed, chevon is the most commonly consumed meat in the world. Beef, is actually the weird food. More people in the world are munching down on some goat more than anything else.

I just wanted to make it perfectly clear that my goats are milk goats. There seemed to be some misunderstanding about this. I don't raise meat goats. All of my goats have names and are very tame. You don't generally name meat goats.

Breeds of both cattle and goats are usually geared toward meat or milk. For instance, a Black Angus is a breed of cow that is specifically bred to produce meat. They carry all of their weight in their muscle mass. A Holstein (the black and white cow) is a breed of dairy cow. They carry most of their weight internally and have rather bony frames with large wide bellies.


Same with goats. Maggie has scrawny little legs and a big belly with a low center of gravity to carry around all that milk. She's a Saanen. All of my goats are dairy with the exception of Blinkin' who has a bit of meat in the woodshed.

Being a dairy goat isn't too bad of a life for a goat. I can think of worse things than sticking your head in a bucket of food and having your breasts massaged at the same time. I mean, just think about that for a second.


Just so we are clear on that.

Since I gave you such a crappy unsatisfying rant today...

If you want to relive the horror that was my kidding season...just kidding...it was a joyous occasion....really it was.

My latest recruit to The Cabal of Goats(and Sheep, too!), Hidden Haven Homestead, is experiencing a blessed event any moment now. Do check on Peggy's blog for updates of her doe, Diva's kidding. I've seen the pictures...looks like multiples to me!

She's also taking suggestions for names for the little buggers!

The power's been off most of today so I didn't get much writing or visiting done through the internet tubes. Tomorrow is market day...so much the same for tomorrow. Market day is every third Wednesday. It makes me cranky.

So here's another piccy of Bridey. They are getting so big that I can barely pick them up. I need to go get the weaning pen and shelter ready. It's almost that time.

I think Bridey's mom had a miscarriage. Which is okay...it's a bit soon for her to turn around and have another.

I got nothin'. Lots planned but nothin'. Maybe try to make it to snakehandling church this Saturday on a recce'.

And now, for another installment of the popular "Goats in Chairs" series. Same goat, different chair. We will resume the "Friend Scott" story cycle on Monday.

This is for The Friday Ark Carnival...a couple of days late...since...well...you all know what I'm doing on Fridays.

That is Violette (Vi-vi) in the foreground and her sire, Beacon, in the background. She looks more and more like him each day. Her spots are gray "moonspots" while his are white. Both seem very shy when the camera comes out, unlike BossyToe who loves to have her picture taken. Actually, I think BossyToe thinks the camera might be tasty.

During Vi-vi's entropion confinement, she developed a taste for udders other than Blinkin's. It's my fault really. Vi-vi refused to suck from the bottle and each feeding session became a wrestling match with most of the milk ending up on me. The solution was to put her to Pearlie and Maggie when they came up for their twice daily milkings. Vi-vi heartily approved of this plan. Pearlie and Maggie...eh...not so much so.

As long as Pearlie and Maggie are being securely held or in the milk stanchion, they will put up with this outrage. Vi-vi doesn't understand this yet and this results with her being head-butted quite a bit for being a brat out in the pasture. But Vi-vi is now very gentled and not afraid of me at all. She follows me in the hopes of me holding down one of the other does for her to have her illicit drink of milk.

I'm now working on little Rose. She's the runt of this year's doe kids now that Bridey has shot up in height. Rose takes the bottle very readily so I'm bringing her indoors and giving her a bottle. She will calm down very soon. I'm wondering if Rose is just going to be a small
stature goat. I'll wait and see if she starts to get some size on. If she doesn't, I may pet her out. I need her to at least get as big as Maggie.

The other spotty doe is Sonya. I've developed a bit of a soft spot for her and her sloe-eyed self. She lacks Freaky Didi's patrician roman nose and her eyes are wide spaced and oddly set. But she whinnies and nickers like a horse and it's a sweet sound with all of my bawling discordant Nubians and grades. The Saanens have sweet sounding voices, but Sonya is now the nicest singing voice of the lot.

She's very sweet and comes running when I call her name. Very affectionate little goat.

I went off-farm today to get fudge making supplies in town and to return my library books. It's been very hazy today and is now threatening rain. I love it when it rains after a hazy day. The shoots of steam rise up off the mountains like wisps of souls escaping the earth.

The forsythias and daffodils went into full bloom without me knowing. My own poor daffies are little munched upon bits of green just clearing the ground. Goats love landscaping. Nothing seems quite as tasty as something planted by Momma's hand and lovingly tended. My lemon balm is coming up. This is, at least, one plant that the goats won't touch, but I love very dearly. I love the smell it leaves on my hands when I touch it in passing.

I'm looking forward to my first cups of lemon balm tea. I ran out of all of my dried tea sometime in mid-winter. I'm a big tea drinker. I hope the tiny wild mint that came up so prolifically last summer comes back. It's odd, but each year we have different wild mints. One summer we has do much horsemint that I could barely keep up with drying it for teas and making mint sauce with it. That tiny mint was much better for teas than the big leafed horsemint. It hides, close to the ground, and sometimes the aroma will engulf you when you are working the ground, but if you try to find it, you can't. It's like a fairy mint.

Vi-vi's eye corrected itself. So I suppose it was just a spastic entropion brought on by some small injury. She's back in the field with everyone else now. Her time with me has gentled her and she is now following the kid pack up to the porch for snacks in the morning and evening. Since she would not take the bottle, I had to hold Maggie and Pearlie for her to nurse. Mother goats don't take too kindly to strange kids nursing them. But now, Vi-vi feels quite entitled to nurse on whosoever she pleases. She follows me at milking time because she knows I'll hold the other mothers so she can take a long drink. Because of this, she has shot up in growth.

I now am working on Blanche and Rose. They will need to come and spend some time on the porch as well. Then my entire little doe kid pack will be gentled. Blinkin's triplets do not have the instinctual love of tummy rubs that the purely dairy bred girls do. This is something they will need to be taught so that they will enjoy being milked when they are big girls.

With Vi-vi off of the porch, I spent all of yesterday cleaning and de-goatifying the back porch. It was a relief to not have a sick goat back there screaming at me for once. I spent the entire day cloroxing and scrubbing down all of the wood and cleaning the dog crates out.

Unfortunately, I came down this morning to find it once more splattered with goat vomit. It was Phoebe's turn to be sick. She and BossyToe like to sleep back there. Phoebe doesn't seem to have it too badly. I mixed some maalox in her bottle and gave it to her to settle her tummy. Then hosed off the porch this morning. Again. I am distressed to find that a google search of "goat vomit" brings my blog up as the fifth entry. At least Fias Co farms has me beat in that respect.

But, I'm grateful to welcome springtime to the mountains. As I drove down the mountain I saw many gardens had already been tilled and disced. A bunch of new comers were doing some early planting. They had plowed up their kudzu patch and were planting something there. I didn't have the heart to tell them that the kudzu would overtake their little garden in only another month or so. The plowing would only break the roots and make more kudzu. Goats can control it, but they would need pigs to eradicate it.

Ah, well. Let them dream of new potatoes.

It will soon be time for me to do much the same.