A hard $45 lesson...

We got our first goat!!! George, our hispanic neighbor, sold me this baby goat (to use the correct term "kid" :) She is 2 months old and when he asked me what I wanted her for he said. "Para comer or para leche?" And I said no way! We aren't going to eat her! She is just for milk :)

So I took her home and she "cried" the whole way. She was looking out the window and kept moving so she could see George's farm until it was out of sight--he only lives about 10 acres over so it's not too far. But I think she was memorizing the way home...

Well here's the hard $45 lesson--sometimes I just get so excited and blunder into things without really thinking them through...like goats are REALLY good at getting out of pens and fences...and I knew this from all the reading I did. And yet still we put up a less than perfect fencing situation and it seemed to hold just fine--but on day 2--she escaped through a gap in the bottom and was gone. I was devastated.

She cost $45--which wasn't the worst of it--the worst was knowing she'd be coyote food tonight. I drove all over looking for her--but there was no way--with all the brush she could be laying anywhere.

She'd be coyote food and it was all my fault. Half-hazardly throwing together a pen and not making sure that she wouldn't be able to get out beyond a shadow of a doubt and who knows what happened.

On the morning of the next day (she'd been gone all night now) my husband said, "Go talk to George, I have a feeling she's there." I reluctantly went, I was so embarrassed to have to go tell him that my goat escaped.

As soon as I show up he smiles and says, "Hola! alkdjfsdlfk aldkd lasdjl chiwita?" (the mumbo jumbo in between I have no idea what he said but I DEFINITELY knew the last word--chiwita (sp) means little goat! "Si Si!" I say excitedly. Then he preceeds to tell me that the goat came over around 2 or 3 o clock yesterday afternoon and he even saw me driving around looking for the goat and tried to flag me down.

That is so crazy--even though the goat drove home with me in the car, she still found the way home--and she went immediately home because that was right after we all went inside to take a nap!

So we've got her caged up good this time....no more escaping!

We named her Ester. She is so sweet. George even offered that I could bring her back to him in 6 months and he'd get her pregnant with one of his bucks so I wouldn't have to buy a buck (bucks are like roosters--you really don't want them except for breeding. They have an extremely strong odor, and it can get into the milk--it will smell up the milk--if they are around the lactating does, and also they can be dangerous. So for George to offer his bucks was really nice--people pay other people to do use their bucks! I have found my country neighbors to be the nicest neighbors we've ever had).

So praise the Lord! We have a goat! And we promise to ourselves and to our livestock to be more responsible from now on!