The Fences Gain Us a New Cat

It's Black what else would I name It?

D-Y, Keats and Mama worked diligently on the fences for a few days. Mama and Keats went out to pick up new boards from Home Depot (because of course the boards we had picked up were way too narrow). Why doesn't anything ever go as planned with our projects? Keats and Mama had finally moved the goats into the two medium sized stalls in the barn and out of the chicken coop area. When we came home there was D-Y playing with a new black kitten. The little guy could not be more than 8 months old. "I named him Negro ... cause he is black ... get it?" (another day we went off to the kid's dentist and Mama explained about the new kitten ... a lovely Spanish speaking receptionist said "How about Negrito?" which Mama finds less offencive.) Akita went a whole nuther route and calls him "Nero" and you know he showed up that day and never left.

And right away the trouble started ...

As we said above ... Keats and Mama had finally moved the goats into the bigger stalls. Dave, Delilah and Mira in one and Juliet, Lily and KneePad in the other.
*The Bigger Buck, Dave showed us a flaw in the barn doors by Butting one of the Does, Mira, out of the side door. He Butted her so hard that she pushed the door open - forward like a flap over an opening. She was then stuck outside in the pasture with no way for her to get back in.
*We then let the dogs loose in the pasture so they could check the fencing for "escape routes" ... they did a good job and didn't find any ... so we decided to let the goats out to meet the dogs.

More Trouble brews ...

*Mac, our loving Pomeranian/Ts hi Tsui/Coyote cross dog .... we thought would love the goats. He immediately kicked into Coyote mode ... singled out and chased the smallest of the goats, Lily. Grabbing her by the back of her neck ... He flipped her over onto her back. Okay this was not good ... so D-Y caught Mac and took him in the house.
*Finn, our "kinda dumb" Corgi/Shelty cross dog ... we thought would not be good with the goats. Finn was confused but his Shelty Blood kicked into gear and he began to herd the goats. He just didn't know what else to do with them ... so he herded them into the barn and back out of the barn and then he herded them into the barn and back out of the barn. At least he didn't appear to want to hurt them in anyway. But this was not really helpful behaviour so Finn was taken back into the house.

And the fences ???

They seemed good enough to hold the six goats in the pasture area. We were wrong. Mama and Akita put the goats out in the pasture and left to visit a new Goat. We had decided to put our "Buck - Dave" up for sale on Craigslist and buy a Dairy Goat so that we could start milking the Goats in the Spring. As fortune would have it ... we found some Nigerian Dwarfs, and a La Mancha Doe. When we looked them up in our "Goat Manuals" ... it seemed that both kinds produced milk after kidding (having a baby or two). Malika was visiting us so we took a drive out to Stave Falls area to view the La Mancha doe. They also had a homemade milking stand up for sale. Mama had been trying to figure out how to build one for as long as we had talked about milking goats. Malika was staying with us for the weekend so we picked her up and headed off to Stave Lake area to check out the La Mancha Doe. Arriving at a very pretty well kept property ... we met a lovely Ginger haired girl named Catherine. She showed us her La Mancha Goats, and her sister's Silkie Chickens (they were Red Silkies ... which we didn't even know existed). Her La Mancha's were kept separate "boys and girls". She had a lovely young black buckling in one stall and three or four does in the other stall. The Goats were a bit odd looking because they looked like they had "No Ears". They really had very small buds for ears. They were a bit skittish but brave enough to eat out of Catherine's hands. We had a small discussion and decided to take home the lovely Chocolate Doe. We said we would be back tomorrow afternoon to pick up the Milking Stand and Doe. We figured we better go off and rent a UHaul as our Trailer was full of a Thousand Pound "do-it-yourself Chicken Barn" in the middle of the pasture (a tale for another day). The Day wasn't over yet, but we will save the rest of this tale for another day.

Thanks for Reading and Welcome to our Barns,
The Lims