Goats

I was raised in Tennessee surrounded on three sides by cattle. I never grew to love the smell of them but my brothers and I have many happy memories sneaking under the electric barbed wire fence, running through the fields, and playing in cow pies. 

Another memory...My Dad would take us to livestock shows where we would listen to the auctioneer talk a mile a minute and watch farm hands muscle cattle into the show ring. It was set up auditorium style and we would climb to the top of the dim, stuffy room listening, watching, and smelling cattle, sweat (man and beast) and smoke. 

There were good things and bad things about my childhood but being raised around livestock was a very good thing. I have always wanted to raise my children with livestock but that was not an option in our town until I connected with a homeschool mom who told me that her kids raise goats but keep them on someone else’s property. And just like that the barriers came down to my livestock dream. 

Full disclosure: Steve does not share my livestock dream. He is a city boy through and through. His memories include walking to school, playing with friends every day, playing in the street, and being minutes from everything. So there were definitely some “discussions“. He had two concerns with getting goats. 1- they will consume our days and we will not be able to go on vacation. Newsflash… We don’t go on vacation hardly ever. Concern number 2- they are goats. My response – how do you know you don’t like goats? You’ve never had them. I think we all know how this conversation ended...we committed to raise goats for the summer.

After many months of discussion it was time to pick up the goats. I arranged the pick up time and suddenly Steve was very interested in being part of the project. He has a soft spot for animals. The guy we got them from was extremely apologetic and ashamed at how small they were. He kept telling us he felt bad for selling them to us but we were just glad he had some at a great price. We purchased his last three. 

We show up to his farm and it is a mecca for goats and sheep. It was a good thing Steve came with us since the guy we purchased them from had a different definition of “small “. These things were much, much, much larger than I anticipated. I do not know how we would have gotten them out of the minivan without Steve. That’s right. We transported them home in a large dog crate in the back of our minivan. I have no idea how we would have wrestled them into the pen once we arrived at the farm without Steve. As it was his arms were shaking and he was straining as the goats kicked and writhed against him. 

And just as I knew he would, Steve fell in love with the goats at first sight. Truthfully we are all enamored with them. Did I mention these are meat goats? I think we are going to have a hard time saying goodbye when this adventure is done.