How many times have you taken someone out to show off one of your favorite goats and have found that goat in one type of mess or another? For example, a fellow dropped by to look at our older buck, Texas Joe. He had been really impressed with what he had seen from the road and wanted a closer look.

Proudly I took this fellow out to Texas Joe’s buck pen. There stood Texas Joe in all his glory, humped up like he was near death, nose running like a faucet, tail down, lifting up weary eyes as he blew bubbles out his nose, wheezing loudly.

What on earth!!! That morning Joe had been barreling around his pen, chasing his favorite livestock guard dog, Baby, his very best bud, just having a wonderful time. Not needing a hanky, not wheezing, so full of himself I thought he was going to sail right over the fence.

After my visitor had left, I charged back to the pen to see if I could give Joe last rites or anything. There Joe was, nose cleared up, eyes clear, tail curled up tight, sneaking around his buck building to catch Baby unawares, while Baby was sneaking the other way trying to catch Joe unawares.

I stood there dumbfounded. What had just happened here? I guess he must have just plowed through some old dust or a patch of ragweed to get that horrible reaction going that I had just showed off to my visitor. I’m sure it left a lasting impression to that visitor’s mind as it had in mine.

Or, how about showing off some favorite kids to visitors. That’s always a winner. Usually they have gone out to graze, fat, frisky, white coats gleaming, red heads shining. You take the visitors out to see these very wonderful kids. You call the kids down off the hills. They come running in complete abandoned, healthy, happy, and squirting green stuff all the way down the hill. Evidently they had found a particularly lush patch of brush.

They went out slick, happy, shiny, only the slickness this time is their green, runny behinds as they run circles around the visitors, showing off. I just shake my head. Wouldn’t you know?

Or, how about the time people ask you if you keep a healthy herd and they want to walk out and see them? Proudly I go marching out with my visitors. Yep, there they are. One of the healthiest herds in the whole area. Happily you and the visitors stare at such a wonderful sight. Just then a fat and shiny doe walks behind the visitors and starts coughing like she smokes 4 packs of cigarettes a day. What can you say? You’re cutting her back on her cigarettes?

Someone drops by saying they had a terrible time with footrot last year and wants to see how my herd is doing. I say just fine, hadn’t had a bit of trouble. We walk out into the herd. Up walks a doe that is barely hobbling, limping so bad on a right front that you fear she is going to fall over with the next step. After the people make a hurried departure, you go back to check on the doe. Stuck between her two "toes", lengthwise, is a big stick, wedged in tightly. I work it out and she goes happily trotting off. I just sigh. What can you do?

Or, how about, people showing up in fancy clean clothes wanting to see the kids in the weaning pen. Insisting on going in and walking among them to check them over for future buys. They go in the pen expecting the kids to stay well back because, after all, they are strangers. Goats don’t usually care much for strangers. Soon as they step into the pen, my kids charge them. Thrilled beyond words that they have visitors. The kids run through every goat berry, every bit of mud, anything else that looks particularly squishy and then jump on the visitors in great joy. The visitors escape looking greatly smeared, soiled, and whole-heartedly loved on by my baby goats. They ask for a water hose to hose themselves down before they get into the car. I never could teach my kids manners, such as, "sit", "stay", "no". By the way, that’s why I look the way I look if anyone should drop by. Clean clothes do not last long around here.

You think you are starting to get business smart about your goat business and you immediately fix up your sale list and advertise it early in the season. This is right after you’ve taken the kids off the mothers. The mothers have put their very all into producing milk to produce fat healthy kids and they look like walking scarecrows, you could hang your hat on their hip bones. They are slick and healthy but very thin from kid raising. But, you figure since it is so early in the season that you have at least a month to get them over raising kids, get some more weight on them, so you put the sale ad in and advertise them. After all, it’s is way too early for people to be buying goats, you just want them to start thinking goats. You guessed it. As soon as the ad hits the stand, people are calling, people are coming out, you are writhing in shame of your healthy skinny girls. Oh, wretched goat breeder that I am, when will I ever learn? All good plans always go astray.

And, there there’s the time when a young couple dropped by wanting to take pictures of my magnificent bucks. They honestly had the most expensive camera equipment I’d ever seen, outside of a sale ad. They were the up and coming Yuppie movement; young, rich, and an exciting world lay ahead of them. They just didn’t realize how exciting it could be.

We headed out to the older buck’s pen to see some mature muscles. What meets us is a buck that is smelling to high heavens who immediately strikes up a pose and starts urinating on his legs, his face, hosing down the ground all around him. His handsome blazed face is turning more yellow from urine then usual and he tops it all off by making a horrid face and curling up his upper lip. Yep, nothing like a magnificent Boer buck. What can you say?

The good looking Yuppie couple almost fall over themselves getting out of there, muttering something about seeing some cute babies in another field and taking their pictures. All the time the kids had been watching and running through goat berries, mud, and anything squishy, waiting for the young couple to approach. There’s nothing like showing off your goats.