A month ago I received a trial magazine titled Three Day-cations, or something like that. Basically, it was to give ideas on how to take a three day vacation, where to go, how much it would cost, etc. It was trying to help folks afford mini vacations, with the way our economy has been going lately.

I instantly threw it way because how could a goat farmer take a vacation that long? Inconceivable. Now, if it was a day vacation or hour vacation, that would be more like it. But, really, what goat farmer could be away for three days? Inconceivable. I know, I know, I keep borrowing that word from The Princess Bride movie, but it fits.

In our area and in this day and age, farmers are few and far between that you could impose on to feed your livestock and keep an eye on the farm so you could be gone three days. And, a farmer who actually knows goats to care for your goats while you are gone, why, he’d be worth his weight in gold, plus being scarcer than hen’s teeth.

So, goat farmers like me and Lee get to take Day-cations or Hour-cations. Lee would just once like to watch a football game or bastetball game all the way through. That would be a vacation to him. If the game is during the day and it’s not raining, we are outside trying to catch up on farm projects, be it worming, building a run-in shed, building a fence, whatever. If the game is at night, we are usually finishing up with outside chores or kidding, or worse, he actually gets to sit down in his easy chair to watch the night game and, you guessed it, he’s so tired he falls asleep and misses his chance at a Game-cation. But, you can’t discount that extra bit of sleep. That is a priceless thing to get at times, being a goat farmer. So, maybe we can call that a Sleep-cation.

Now, me, give me a good movie and a bowl of popcorn and to actually be able to sit all the way through the movie, that’s a Movie-cation to me. Oh, boy, you can’t beat it. To sit through an hour and a half or two hour good movie, wow, a dream come true. If I try to watch it in the evening after the chores are done, any more now it becomes a Sleep-cation for me. If I have a little free time during the day, I can watch that movie in sections. Like fifteen minutes to a half hour here, another fifteen minutes to a half hour there, and so on until all the movie is eventually seen. I guess that is a Fifteen Minute-cation. It does exercise your brain trying to retain what you saw last on the movie to fit in with what you are seeing a couple of hours later for the next few minutes. But, still, watching an actual movie. Wonderful.

Now, don’t feel sorry for us. Goodness, those little bits of free time to use selfishly on ourselves are fantastic and we are thankful, but one thing we can take that few others, unless they are goat farmers, get a chance to experience are Goat-cations.

These can be taken in the middle of chores. Just a chance to sit down among the goats and watch them. Pretty much admire your work walking by, or take notes on the ones you want to catch and check later, but it’s still relaxing. Take a nice day and rest a moment. There always seems to be a friendly goat who notices this or waits for this and they come over to rub their head on your leg or beg a petting and enjoy your Goat-cation with you.

I’ve even stood in a white out in the middle of winter, snow coming down heavy, watching the goats move from covered feed area to covered feed area, unperturbed by the wildness of the heavy snow, content that they had hay, shelter, and I watch and admire them and feel at peace that all was still well with the herd. A very excellent Goat-cation, indeed.

Lee’s Goat-cations usually involve getting on the tractor and having around eighty does and three livestock guard dogs follow him up into the woods. He’ll cut a small tree down for them as he starts work on next year’s firewood. Or, he’s repairing the electric fence where turkeys, deer, whatever has tore it down. The goats all graze contentedly around him so that he has a whole lot of little biddy buddies keeping him company while he works.

If there’s a wild section, never been fenced, on our place, he’ll let the girls through the electric fence and let them open up that section for us, cleaning out brush so we can get to trees to cut for firewood, or clearing it out enough to put a fence up. They work and he works, both enjoying the Goat-cation, only the goats come back with full bellies, but Lee comes back from having fun.

So really, we take loads of vacations. Why on earth would we want to leave the goat farm for three days? Inconceivable.