Farm Fresh Blog

When the clouds parted the moonlight reflected on the road ahead of me as I walked down the highway in full police uniform leading a goat on a leash. Not only did it light up the pavement, but it illuminated the absurdity of my life.

Who else does this?

And here's the most baffling part. As the goat walked beside me, I couldn't help but think that she heels better than my Border Collies do. I know. God forgive me. I thought it. I was thankful that we didn't encounter any passing motorists, for even in our rural community a cop leading a goat down the highway at midnight might raise a few eyebrows.

I know why this happened. It happened because Other Half went out of town again. Drama always finds me when he's out of town. I had just arrived home from work and was moving goats from their outside pen to a stall inside the barn. They greeted me in the dark and everyone filed into the light except one. A big pregnant one. A big, big, very pregnant one.

I heard her calling me in the dark and mentally calculated her due date. Since her sister gave birth a week early the idea of her giving birth two weeks early wasn't outside the realm of possibility but it sent shivers down my spine. So I hustled everyone else into the barn and went back for her. There she was standing in the dark, calling to me - on the other side of the fence.

Somehow she had managed to go over, or under, or perhaps like a vampire, she turned herself into a wisp of smoke and blew through the fence. Nevertheless, we had a problem. She had managed to enter the yard of the rancher next door and although he wouldn't mind, he has a large pack of Black-Mouth Cur dogs that have been known to chew the ears off cattle, so I didn't even want to consider what they could do to a pregnant goat. Since the goat was still intact, I imagine she got in there after he had let his dogs run and returned them to their kennels for the night. That meant the only other occupant in the yard was an Australian Shepherd who would be okay with the goat, but who might bite me if I enter the yard to retrieve said goat. This is the part where it's nice to have neighbors who understand farm animals.

I called the rancher at midnight to inform him that my goat was trespassing. He offered to come outside and help. I told him I'd be happy if he just called the dog inside to keep it from biting me, but by the time I walked through my gate and down the highway to his gate, he already had my goat in hand, and she was happy to see me. The neighbor and I both noted the upside to having tame goats. Clipping a leash on a goat and walking it down the highway is a lot easier than trying to chase down a wild goat at midnight.

The most difficult part of the whole adventure was getting the goat back through the main gate while an overexuberant Livestock Guardian Dog was trying to give an unwilling goat a health inspection. Imagine trying to close and lock a gate while a large white dog is trying to sniff an appalled goat. Think Melissa McCarthy in "The Heat" trying to stick her nose up Audrey Hepburn's butt.  It was a culture clash.

And that pretty much sums up my attempts to juggle a full time job and a farm - it's a culture clash.