autumnfarmsboers.com Lee & Connie Reynolds Autumn Farm Ravenswood, WV

The really neat thing about goats, or is it the really "cool" thing? I know I’ve been told that "groovy" is not the word to use anymore. Anyway, the great thing about goats is that they don’t need batteries. They are usually easy to find, hard to lose, and all you have to do is shake the grain bucket to locate them.

I was thinking of this the other day when I lost my portable phone. I could have sworn I had it right here with me but it was no where in sight. People must do this regularly because the base of these portable phones has a little pager button. When I first bought a portable phone I noticed this pager button and I thought it was pretty dumb. I mean, I don’t have an intercom system throughout the farm to page anyone on.

When I first lost the phone, that’s when I realized what the pager button is for. It’s to make that sneaky portable phone beep when it goes into hiding. Only thing is, some phones beep three times and you are suppose to be able to find them in that amount of time. All I can say is, people who built those phones must not range as far afield as I do, because that phone could be about anywhere on the farm. I was constantly having to run back to the base of the phone, punch the pager button, perk my ears up real sharp, and be ready to go at a dead run if I heard that phone beep one of it’s three times.

Finally I got smart and bought a portable phone that beeped constantly when you punched the pager button. Now I can find that phone anywhere, because it’s not going to shut-up until you do find it.

Now if only the cell phones were this way. Lee and I lost the cell phone for two days once. We looked everywhere and I even cleaned out the refrigerator searching for it because you never know, it could have wanted a snack. I even went through the freezer, checking out all the ice cream cartons. And a good thing I did too. There were a couple of cartons of ice cream that would have gone bad in several months. Lucky I noticed that. Lee and I were even crawling around the house with flashlights looking under all the furniture and several times got seriously frightened by some over sized dust bunnies.

We checked every place in triplicate because we figured the cell phone was good at camouflaging itself. Now with a cell phone, there is no pager button to punch to make it let you know where it is hiding. It just stays quiet and giggles as you walk by in its little cell phone giggle that can’t be heard by the human ear. And, when its battery runs low it doesn’t set there and beep that it’s hungry. It just smugly goes dead.

With a healthy goat, you never have to worry about losing it. Sure, it might decide to go on a visit to the neighbors, but even then the neighbors will let out a holler where the goat is. Or if the goat gets on the wrong side of the fence or gate and wants to come home, it will beller until someone notices it. A goat’s batteries never run down.

If your goats are like our goats you always have a bunch of talkers in the group. They let you know if they are out of hay, if it’s suppertime, if it’s raining, if it’s snowing, if a bird just flew over head, or to even tattle tale on each other. Every day someone butts someone and that injured party turns and bawls the attacker out, doesn't butt back, but just stands there and screams, "What did you do that for?!! You wait 'till I tell Connie! She’ll give you what for!" So you basically always know where your goats are.

Now, if you do have a "quiet" herd that just might go missing on you, I always put a collar and bell on the boss does and that way I know where everyone is. You can hear them sneaking into a field they aren’t suppose to be in. I keep picturing them trying to hold onto the bell with a little hoof, trying to muffle the sound. And the others turning on them, "If you can’t be quiet, we’re not taking you!" Or even the bell wearer shouting, " What? I can’t hear you! I’ve nearly gone deaf wearing this bell all the time!" Either way, you are going to be able to find that "quiet" herd.

Another nice thing about being able to find the goats. You have a secret weapon, the feed bucket. A goat in the know, cannot resist the feed bucket. Shake that feed bucket and they come running. Hopefully you can stay ahead of the herd while shaking the bucket or you are going to get little hoof marks all over your body. Football players could learn from goats. Goats are the best tacklers I’ve ever seen. I think during football training season that the coach should give the players, one at a time, a bucket of grain out on the field and turn a herd of goats loose on them. I guarantee faster running times, better dodging abilities, new techniques of tackling, and improved wind capacity, and I bet the football players improve also. Or, they are going to have little hoof prints all over their bodies. Those sharp little hooves can find all the places the football pads do not meet properly.

Forget that movie, "Dances with Wolves". A newer and more exciting movie called , "Running with Goats," should be made. Or possibly the movie "Loudness of Kids" instead of the "Silence of Lambs." You think that movie was scary, try carrying a feed bucket out to locate your weaned kids. Such screaming. And the kids are loud too, chasing after you trying to catch the feed bucket.

No, thank goodness, goats never run down, you never need batteries, and you can always locate them. Okay, I’ve got to go. I believe I can almost make it to the feed pans without them noticing. Their "look-out" goat for the herd has just walked out of sight of the house and I have the feed bucket hid by the gate. Nope, lucky us, they can’t be lost for even a couple of minutes. Hope the gate is unlatched, I’ll only have a couple of minutes to either run through or leap over the gate and get the feed out. Yep, thank goodness we never lose our goats for a minute. Rats.