It’s been eight months since my last real blog entry. I could come up with a whole lot of reasons including writer’s block, illness, too darned busy, etc. Truth be told I did spend a whole lot of time in my recliner from September 18th until recently with an array of nasty ailments. But, I think the real reason I quit blogging was the re-homing of Banning and Donovan, my beloved little goats.
For the record, they are no longer with us. We retrieved them from the first attempt at re-homing but soon found we were having the same problems. A second attempt at re-homing led to them being returned to us for bad behavior. (Something about torn down fences and manhunts all over Penryn.) After a few more close encounters with a hip fracture I gave them both to a man in Stockton with lots of pasture for them to roam, graze and be goats.
We then acquired a female goat who will be the subject of a separate entry. Noisy little Ace did not get along with her, resulting in his re-homing to 18 acres in Sheridan where he can yell to his heart’s content. He is now the personal goat of an eight year old girl and has been renamed Fudge.
It probably seems ridiculous to real farmers and ranchers that the removal of an animal would cause such distress. I guess that is the proof that a half acre of land in the city does not a farmer make. I felt tremendous guilt about sending them away. They were cute and sweet and frequent contributors to my blog posts. They never physically attacked me, well except to eat my hair and chew the zippers off my clothes, if that counts. The problem was that Banning just loved me too much and in his zeal to prove it, I ended up getting injured a lot. He grew too big and really needed space to graze and run and do all the things big goats do. I hope they are still together, doing just that. I miss them all the time and will always remember the fun and laughter and blog fodder they provided. I have worked through the guilt and remorse and I am ready to start writing about the perils and joys of hobby farming. Aidan is still with us, albeit on a slippery slope lately due to his obsession with chicken feed. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t whisper the word “Craigslist” in his ear.
We have also added a pair of mini Oregon geese, Bonnie and Clyde. My little flock of chickens has grown from seven to twenty-one and more are in the incubator. I have hatched dozens of chicks in my incubator and I have lost a few and even had to end the suffering of a few who were not meant to be. We have lost a banty rooster to a hawk, battled raccoons and rats, and torn down and rebuilt more coops than I care to count. I realize it is all a big learning experience with wins and losses, happiness and sadness, laughter and tears. I am ready to start telling the stories again.