For some people who have dairy herds, the "girls" are kept out in a pasture a safe distance away from the house…. the driveway… the garden…. For others, limited space has the girls literally in the backyard. This can lead to some interesting times.
       For example, there's nothing like coming around the corner after a trip to the feed store to find your previously secured full grown Oberhasli doe standing IN the back of your brand new truck, happily munching on fresh hay! How she managed to jump over the upright tailgate still amazes me. The "Oh My!" turned to "Get DOWN!" when she started eyeing the top of the truck as the next jumping point…..
       It is also really cute when the babies are little and they follow you everywhere, even into the house if you forget that you left the door open for the dog. It's a whole different ballgame when you are sitting calmly at the computer waiting for the dog to come in and a furry nose touches you in the ear…. Especially when your dog only reaches your knee! I am still not sure who was more startled by my screech-all I saw of my doe was a brown blur of a retreating rump.
       The past few months I've discovered I have a green thumb for plants grown in containers. With the help of a friend, my porch now has a bunch of different cuttings and bonsai plants and veggie plants in containers. Of course, the girls have been plotting their escapes ever since! So far the only solution that has worked is keeping the plants on a shelf five feet off the ground….. making watering a bit tricky but keeps all the leaves on the plants instead of in goat stomachs. Lesson #1 of bonsai…. Keep goats away! Somehow they left that one out of all the rule books, not really sure why.
       I thought one way of keeping the girls secure would be to put them on nice long chains under the shady trees (supervised of course)… they could mow the yard and stay out of my plants. I quickly found out some goats don't like to be chained! My Saanen doe was content as long as I was in sight-the moment I went around the corner, her whole world ended! Or at least that's what it sounded like. So back in the pasture she went. My Oberhasli doe seemed amiable to it… or so I thought. I could not figure out how her chain tangled so quickly until I watched her literally running in circles to kink it, and then running to the end of it as fast as possible trying to break it! After a few rounds of this, she would grab the chain in her mouth and yank on it. When this didn't work, she went over to the carrier she had for shelter and proceeded to stomp all over it and kick it around the pen. After a couple of weeks of this, we'd both had enough and back out she went!
       For those of you shaking your heads saying, well, keep them in better pens- you've never met my goats. Bungee cords? No problem! Chain latches? Easy to open after a day or two. Wire? Makes the panels easier to climb over. Chain link fence latches are toys to play with. Eyehooks are even better, the spring kind are apparently fun to mouth. Ropes or old dog leashes? Chewable! So far the only gates that hold have been secured three or four different ways. And if you don't think the girls can reach the latch, you'd better tell them that! Just when I think the fence is sound, somebody manages to get out and prove me wrong. All along I've been thinking it's cute when they follow me as I fix the weak spots…. Turns out they are just watching to see how to undo my work!
       Just when I think they cannot come up with another antic.... they prove me wrong. Like the day my (very friendly) Oberhasli buck got loose and scared the poor guy fixing our hurricane-damaged garage… The worker said he felt eyes watching him and when he turned around and saw big yellow ones, he dropped the bucket and almost fell off the ladder! I still have not figured out how Oscar got loose, but apparently he decided the repair guy needed some company…and was willing to provide it.
       All in all, living with dairy goats in the backyard leads to some memorable moments! Now, if only those moments were of the "remember how the goats ate all the weeds and nothing else" type…………versus the "goats decided to trim my bonsai plant" variety. Oh well, these are the things we laugh about at the goat shows… and the things we'll miss when the girls are gone. Until then, I'll keep fixing the fences!