This is why we don’t have goats…

People sometimes ask us why we don’t have goats. We have plenty of room and fresh goats milk is oh, so good for you. Well, aside from the fact that I really am not interested in milking a goat twice a day, every day, there’s this little thing I call the annoyance factor. There are so many annoying things that happen in one’s daily life that you really can’t control. (See my post about pet peeves, for just three of these.) But there are also many potentially annoying circumstances which one can and should try to avoid. For instance, I’ve been Wal Mart-free for the past six months and my annoyance quotient has been greatly reduced as a result.

Goats fall into this latter category of avoidable annoyances. Case in point, Sunday afternoon my sister-in-law, Deena, called David and asked if he had some type of wire cutters she could borrow. She and her daughter, Shelby, were at the home of some mutual friends who happen to live near us. These friends were out of town and had hired Shelby to take care of their animals. When they arrived they found one of the goats had her head stuck through the fence and couldn’t get it out. Deena had tried and tried but to no avail. David went over to help and was able to maneuver the goat’s head and horns back out without cutting the fence. All was well and good.

Until this afternoon. I was taking a nap when Deena called me very apologetically. The goat had her head stuck again. She had tried her husband (my brother) but he was in a meeting and didn’t answer his cell phone. She then tried one of our neighbors whom she knows well and who often works from home. He wasn’t home this time, though. She then called me. I called David at work to ask what tool I should take over there (hacksaw) and where I would find it (bottom drawer of tool chest, although that isn’t where I ultimately found it). I didn’t ask him to come home because I knew he was really busy. As I was getting ready to go help with the rescue, it occurred to me that I didn’t have a car. You see, our Suburban broke down on the way to Tulsa this past weekend and was spending a couple of days there getting repaired…to the tune of $959.29. Guess where most of our *stimulus check* is going?

Also, I didn’t have Deena’s cell phone number because I had dropped my cell phone last week and it was in being repaired…to the tune of $75…and it contained all my cell numbers. I was just about to call David to have him find her number for me when he called back to say he was coming home to help. I got a hold of Deena and told her what was going on. She left Shelby in charge of the goat and came over to pick up me and the hacksaws. We then went back to wait for David.

And because the best way to handle things like this is to take pictures and then blog about them, here is today’s photo essay titled, “Why I Don’t Want Goats”.

“Hi, my name is Filene but you can call me Stupid.”:

My cute niece, Shelby with “Stupid”:

Okay, turn your head this way…

No, not like that. How did we do this yesterday?…

Don’t even think of biting me!

Uh, she’s choking:

Had to cut the fence:

Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last!

Shelby has a bit more patience with the goats than the adults and takes some additional grain to the miscreant because the other goats don’t want to share. That goat is lucky, I’ll tell you that.

Deena and I then fastened some chicken wire along the fence where “Stupid” likes to stick her head through. I told her we could start a business, “Deena and Deanna’s Fencing Company”. Or maybe not.