must love oats

   


     Our two young goats are maturing and now ready to...um, well, to mate. Our intention for these girls was always to get milk. So now that they are older, I need to find someone who has a male goat for them to "date." Having never done this, and knowing no one who happens to  own a male goat puts me in a strange predicament. I decided to start my search where we purchased our two sister goats, the feed store. Unfortunately, the man who runs the feed store speaks Spanish. I do not.
     This is the conversation we had:
     Me:   "I need a stud for my goats. Do you have one?"
     Him: "What?"
     Me:   "A date. For my goats."
     Him: "No. My friend has the goat." He hands me a phone # with the name Jimi written next to it.
     I don't remember much from Spanish class, but decide to ask my friends via FB if I would be relaying the message of needing a stud for my female goats and inquiring the price if I asked," Me nessisito tu hermano chupa cabra, quanto denero por favor?" I am sooooooo glad I did. Turns out, my Spanish isn't exactly bueno. The translation for this would be something along the lines of, "Your brother is a cryptic zoological creature." Thank you for the BIG TIME save FB friends....
     Luckily, Jimi speaks a little English. The conversation went very well, and he is going to call me when he secures a date for my goats. I am not sure how that will work. Do they date first? Is it like a social mixer? Do they make small talk?  "Hi, I'm Clover and I like oats." I don't know. But I'll find out. And I'll keep you posted. Any if you happen to hear of any single male goats, please let me know.
     Till next time,
     Goat match maker Miss Jodi
     OK I have an update for you, we found a male goat to "Date" our 2 lady goats. I have some scented candles, the lights  have been lowered and Barry White is on the play list...I'll keep you posted. Let's hope this guy likes to, um...party....

      Update: Love is in the air.

     I should have know which way the day was directed...As I was getting ready to leave for church this morning I heard an unusual noise. It was Mr. Frederick the goat who as you may recall was visiting with our lady goats in hopes of, um...making some baby goats. I saw him munching on a leaf and upon further inspection I saw that he had jumped the 4 foot fence and was now out of the barnyard and next to our house. There wasn't much I could do (OK there was but I was already dressed and not willing to go out and wrangle a goat in my Sunday best) so I went of to church. When we got home we looked through the gate and did not see Frederick, but we heard him. Unfortunately he was in our neighbors back yard. He hopped a second fence and into out tweaker neighbors yard. Why? I have no idea...unless he is fond of smoking weed...Can you imagine waking up to the sound of a 5 foot (on all fours) tall goat bleeting and looking through your window at you? Not something that happens every day... Our Tweaker neighbor graciously offered to bring him back, but Mr. Frederick apparently was not finished visiting and would not cooperate. At all. So Jeff had to go over and convince him that visiting hours were indeed over. He finally managed to leash him and walk around the house to our back gate with the goat and all the while I was praying that he would not break free and run into the desert. We brought him back to the barn yard and decided to kennel him so he wouldn't start jumping into our neighbors yard again, but just yesterday evening had put all forty of our month old chicks into the kennel. So we had to round up all of those baby chicks (which may I point out is NOT an easy thing to do? They think their life is ending and naturally try to escape) and put them into a cage. Baby chicks were squaking, baby chicks were wiggling, one baby chick began projectile vomiting....it was not pretty. Let me just add right here that if you have not already figured it out, farming is NOT for the faint of heart. Not in the least. How does this story end? Well, I called the man who loaned us the goat and have not been able to get ahold of him yet...I'll keep you posted.