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.
THE END
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