Electric goat fencing
Heidi and I went to visit my dad in the nursing home yesterday. In the few short hours we were there, the goats managed to escape…again. This was the 7,458,653rd time this year that the little beasties have escaped. They do so despite the several hundred dollars I have invested in goat-proof electric fencing, the family dog being unwittingly held hostage inside the pen when she was diddling around in there, and all three of us getting zapped by said fence. When the family dog could not escape, I thought this was a good sign that the goats would not be able to either. Obviously, not good enough. Either that, or the dog is not as smart as the goats. Even a mediocre lawyer could make that case.
The pen is loaded with wondrously delightful varieties of grasses – armpit high, so they were not escaping due to hunger. Unfortunately, Ken had planted two locust trees in the pen – which Ben and I were careful to enclose with fencing. They were finally getting a good start on life and had begun to take root and actually grow. Cottonwoods also line the ditch bank, so woody material was not the issue. The goats managed to strip both locust trees bare. I’m now convinced that the goats are smarter than my children and possibly smarter than the bulk of society. I do believe a cancer cure is on the horizon. A goat will find it.
As luck would have it, a goat, unlike a goldfish, will not fit down the family toilet, so disposing of them into the septic system is not going to work. The livestock sale has been suspended for two weeks. Seems the owners got tired of chasing goats and took an unprecedented length of time to recover. They probably needed some therapy, too.
That leaves said mess on my shift. All while Ken, the international tele-commuter, explains to bosses and colleagues that the caterwauling going on outside his window is actually not the rape and mutilation of a teenage girl. Oh, didn’t I mention? A crying boer goat being led against its’ will can let out a cry which is amazingly like a teenage girl being enlightened that her mother is no longer willing to do her laundry anymore. The goats scream so convincingly that I have found myself running outside thinking Heidi has come to some grizzly end only to find a lonesome goat who lost his mother over a knoll. This discovery always comes with no apologies. And, if one has been in the goat business too long, one can almost see a smile on the little goats face when this happens….Don’t ask me how I know that a goat can giggle, too.
“How long do you have to keep them?” asked Dad, at yesterday’s visit. He knows that immediately after the fair, there is a mass exodus of goat farmers running to the local livestock sale to liquidate their entire inventories. Coincidence? I think not. Thirty-three days, I answer. Thirty-three long, torturous, homicidal days where the survival of both my teenage children, all of the goats, my hollaring husband (stunned by the loss of some expensive landscaping feature) are all at risk.
Ah, the fun of farm life. Yes, that’s what I am in it for…. Of course, to my notion of imagination, my city sisterhood has day-planner issues, broken appointments, hair and nail issues, and OMG, parking with which to contend. But, since none of those issues involve electrocution by a fence that was supposed to be turned off, or lunging over a rocky hillside to grab the leg of a fleeting mass of goat hair, I feel limited pity. In fact, I’m tempted to trade. Any takers? I’ll park your car and explain to the manicurist that the nail color is chipping again – you can keep one smiling goat inside that fence while sunbathing in your skivvies on my patio…you just have to keep that one goat INSIDE that fence. Deal? Deal? Yeah, I didn’t think so….
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