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Goat Diary 2007
by Mr. Mojo

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Goat pictured - Vienna. Goat not pictured - Faith.
(Mother & Daughter. Beautiful Alpine milk goats.)

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March 07 - Goats come to live with us as a "gift" from a farmer paralyzed from the waist down after a motorcycle accident. Heaping curses on their heads, as they had girdled a 50 year old prize apple tree on the farmer’s father-in-law’s farm. Since the father-in-law was an Old Order Mennonite who was letting the farmer live in a Quonset hut on his property, the tree girdling represented a pretty serious ( F ) -up.

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April 07 - The first seeds are started on our new farm. Twenty plus fruit trees are planted. A vineyard established. Nine 3 x 30’ rows are hand turned in the garden, countless rocks picked from soil, manure and calcium added in appropriate quantities to enrich poor soil. In these beds many vegetables are planted, tomatoes, basil, about a thousand onions, potatoes, carrots, beets, kale, collards, broccoli, brussels sprouts (these were never eaten), several large beds of asparagus, strawberries, blueberries etc.

All of these crops are seen by goats as legitimate targets for guerilla attacks.

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May 07 - The goats reveal their true intentions: to assault garden plants and trees at any and every opportunity. Generally their window of opportunity consists of a gate, or a fenceline that can be breached . Persimmon tree charged with malice, severely pruned back to the whip. A serious setback for a young tree.

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June 07 - Broccoli patch assault damaging but not devastating - massive broccoli harvest regardless.

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July 07 - Two more broccoli assaults. My senses are numb to them now. Besides, everyone gets sick of broccoli. As always, Faith is the leader in mischief.

My father's herb garden is decimated in several sneak attacks. On each attack only one target is hit, first the borage, then the peppers, then it was the basil. Largely this is a decorative rather than a food producing bed; it being in a prized location however, beside my father's painting studio, the effect is that of demoralizing propaganda.

This location is particularly useful as an escape route for the goats, being within sprinting distance of a large gate used for occasional vehicle access.

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Aug 07 - Several butternut squash plants are denuded in a surprise attack. But some root burrowing maggot is the real foe - their infestation, resulting in dwarfed pumpkin and squashes, bodes ill for Halloween, I fear - no matter; a strong will fuels a frail physique.

Persimmon tree assaulted for second time. Re-sprouts with vigor despite summer heat. Other trees flourish or languish as the laws of survival permit, when compounded with the inadequacies of the caretakers, deficiencies of the soil, etc.

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Sep 07 - Goats live out their last days in goat opulence. There is daily talk of killing the goats. Serious effort is made to find them a new home. An enthusiastic buyer is located, but never shows up to take goats. Goats declared permaculture failure. They still have not been bred, for reasons that are unclear. Perhaps puritanical lack of enthusiasm for personally supervising the breeding process - that being a private affair of the heart. Or that we simply had no buck.

A freezer is purchased. Thank God and good fences that they never hit the vineyard.

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Oct 07 - Execution is the solution. Death quick and painless. Assassinated while doing what they loved, running through an open gate to gnaw on a bale of straw. We should all be so lucky.

Goats are hung, skinned, gutted, butchered. During the gutting process it is revealed that goats have several thousand parasites in body cavity and organs. Orange pill shaped life forms.

Skins are stretched. Meat wrapped in butcher paper and frozen. Two weeks later I have parasites. Goats get the last laugh after all.

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