Rockstar serves his groupies

Upon his arrival the girls were in a lather of goatie hormones.  Such a handsome boy, with cologne to die for (if not to die from).  Rockstar’s grooming was perfect, he was encrusted in urine; he had peed all over his face, goatie beard, and down his front legs, even into his mouth, an amazing feat!

Yeah, he is a real cool dude.   Like a true star he swaggers between his groupies flapping his tongue, while the shameless hussies wiggle their tails rapidly under his nose and brush up close to his magnificent presence.

A couple of the girls will try to get his attention by squatting and urinating so he can place his nose in the urine stream.  This is so wonderful he raises his head, curling/rolling his lip to detect the pheromones that tell him she is ready to be mated.  

Now the party starts. He begins dancing with a lucky girl by kicking one of his front legs forward along her side and singing; well it is actually more like a blubbering and hollering, but hey, he is the star, who am I to criticise his musical talent. 

The girls swoon, they love him. He is Rockstar!

Rockstar

Jagger was my first buck and predecessor to Rockstar.  I had no idea of the bucky ritual when they are in rut. All I saw in my paddock was my buck doing his best impersonation of Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones. He was strutting around the paddock stage, lips curling, tongue flapping and belting out his interpretation of ‘I can’t get no satisfaction’ to the girls. 

Jagger 

There is no other smell to compare to the eau de cologne of buck. It is possibly the worst stink you could ever encounter and this is even before they start urinating over themselves for rut.  Imagine an acrid stink on steroids!  The buck has a scent gland behind his horns that produces oil. I am sure the oily particles float through the air permeating the very pores of your skin, rendering clothing unfit to wear, wedging in the sinuses and making your eyes burn. Don’t even think of touching him even with a finger the smell will not easily wash away, but for some reason the does think it is the most divine aroma and go mad for it.  

After the does stage door date with Rockstar I now have 20 wide loads all due to kid anyday.
Yippee more cute kids! 

This girl still had six weeks to go at the time of the photo. I am betting this lovely wide load is having triplets.

I was normal three goats ago

I saw a T-shirt on Pinterest with the slogan, ‘I was normal three goats ago’.  I have never seen anything so apt for myself.  It is no secret I shamelessly love my goats. My hubby begs me not tell people that. He reckons it makes me look loopy; too bad, it is far too late to save my reputation, everyone has already formed that opinion of me. 

This love didn’t happen straight away. Goats are just goats, right? A herd animal that hangs out in the paddock. My son describes them as meat walking on legs. I tried to think of them that way until after we picked up our first 20 pregnant goats.  I then observed how intelligent, social and trusting they were and how each had such a distinct personality.  I found myself secretly naming some of them. Black Betty was bossy and brash, Woolly because of her long coat, Cleopatra walked like an Egyptian, Muriel...well she looked like a Muriel! 

I was told from the beginning not to name my herd goats, certainly not the males, who on anyone else’s property would have a short destiny.  A name forms an attachment.  Well, I am sorry, it doesn’t matter if my horned ones have a name or a herd number I still become emotionally connected with them. They all have their unique personalities which I know like the back of my hand.

My boys with no names - ha!  Number 1 Son, Big Boy, Cheeky, Diesel, et al.

Traits are passed on to their kids, I will be doing husbandry on a goat and comment to him or her (yes I talk to my goats too) how their hooves or personality is just like their mum’s or even their grandmother’s.  My hubby looks at me strangely asking how I could possibly know who their mother is from our large herd. I look oddly back at him and state ‘how could I not know!’, then reel off mum’s herd number. Sure enough when he checks the back of the ear tag for their mother’s number I am always correct. 

The true passion for my goats began with the fist kidding on our property when I hand raised three kids. I was now to discover not only could a goat be intelligent, trusting, packed with personality, curious, at times infuriating and strong willed but also how loving they can be.

Coffee, Victor and Rose were all born the same day.  Coffee and Victor’s mother birthed quads. She had decided she could not raise four babies so she was tossing the smallest two through the air trying to kill them. 

The gentleman we bought the does from had advised me not to interfere with the whole kidding process.  I watched doe '# 3' trying to rid herself of these two and thought "Surely he doesn’t mean for me to simply allow her to kill them?" Coffee was the runt but oh so determined.  Each time he was tossed away he went back to her trying to get milk.  So I marched in there and rescued them. Stuff not interfering! 

Another doe had also given birth to two kids not far from this scene of potential murder. I observed she was not bonding with one of the kids. Rose was curled up under a bush, not cleaned up after birth, totally abandoned by her mother. No matter how many times I took her over to her mother the mum would move her other baby away leaving Rose alone. 

Rosie not long after birth

Rose is sometimes in a world of her own.  I believe Rose was mis-mothered because she had a tough birth, lacking oxygen for a short time and did not move straight after being born. A goat mother will perceive this as something seriously wrong with the kid, abandoning it for the stronger of her babies. 

I rang my husband to tell him we had three new additions to the family.  The old cubby house in our suburban backyard had a temporary fence erected around it and saw renewed life as their weekday manor house.

Then eight weeks later Otis joined the lucky ones.

Yes I was normal three goats (+1) ago.

Hee Haw is heating our water

I truly feel for my rural neighbours who are so reliant on rain fall to fill their household water tanks. I had never really considered how much water I use each day, until I found myself in the situation of not having town water supply. You just don’t think about it with the total convenience of turning on a tap and having an endless supply flow out.  Gosh how easy is it to waste, standing under the nice hot shower just because I could or luxuriating in a super deep bubble bath...... manicured toes peeping out, glass of champagne, Lindt chocolate and that the best seller book ...... oh well back to reality. 

Our only supply of clean drinkable water came from a rusted out tank, which after rain resembled a sprinkler so in actual fact it held about a thimble full of water.  We lugged water from Sydney every weekend, doling out the exact amount one needs to accomplish a water task such as brushing teeth.  It was amazing how quickly it disappeared.    Weekend visitors to the farm knew not to ask what they could bring; the resounding answer was always “Water! Just Water.”  

Up until the house bathroom was usable we showered in a ffffffreeeeezing makeshift tin shed tacked onto the back of our shipping container.  An old bath tub left laying around the farm was appropriated to stand in.   It was given a good scrub and propped up on some bricks so PVC pipe could be attached to direct the water away. 
  

The colour of the dam water we showered in always bothered me, tannin brown with the addition of floaty organic bits and teensy water bugs.  Yes water bugs! Apparently all healthy dams are made up of zillions of aquatic insects. No, I don’t even want to think about the buggy things....surely they were boiled to oblivion? Were their little dead bodies all through my hair?

Shower number one was the camping style black plastic solar bag, perfectly useless in overcast or cold weather as the water doesn’t heat up.

Attempt number two at cleanliness consisted of a 20 litre bucket with a shower rose screwed into the bottom with an on/off lever. The dam water was boiled up in a copper then transferred to the bucket. The water boiled in the copper always had a smokey eau de parfum hint to it. With this method and the former it was a quick wet down, soap up, rinse off before the water ran out.

A good friend who often comes to the farm to help surprised us with a donkey.  Not the hee-haw four legged type, the clever man had built us a wood burning water heater which when set up had water pressure and felt more like a real shower. Such simple things in life make the heart sing.
Laundry was washed by hand in the old tub next to the donkey.  Goodbye manicures!  

The donkey set up was terrific until the copper pipes froze and burst in winter because we forgot to drain the water from them. 

While our makeshift bathroom shed was chilly in winter, during summer I had to worry about the likelihood of a snake hiding under the bathtub just waiting to strike out at my feet or face as I gingerly leant down to check under it and believe me that was the first thing I did, there was no way I was running outa there nakie with an aggressive Eastern Brown snake hot on my heels.   

It also proved to be a great hangout for Redback spiders ...... humungous Redbacks. Redbacks you could saddle and ride. Surely they are a mutant breed? The Redbacks in residence in our Sydney backyard are tweeny compared to these.   I have to admit I have a fascination with how beautiful the females are; all shiny black orb body with a brilliant vermilion red slash and how’s this for a baby making machine,  she can store sperm up to two years then lay 10 egg sacs, each containing about 250 eggs, and can repeat this a week later.  

My son was recently bitten by a Redback spider, not at the farm.  He was bitten twice on his back while at a pub in a bush setting.  As an adult it made him extremely ill, if he had been an infant or small child it may have been life threatening.   He was treated in hospital with two doses of anti venom; we are now waiting for him to start spinning webs.

Goat woman evicts TV star from caravan

Those who thought they knew me laughed when they saw the ramshackle state of the farm house and the fact it is off grid, singing the theme from the late 1960’s TV sitcom “Green Acres” to me.  If you aren’t aware of what I’m referring to, do yourself a favour, Google “Green Acres” or YouTube the opening theme, it sums up the story rather well. I can certainly see the correlation to the condition of the house and I can only assume I was being likened somewhat to the Eva Gabor character.... OK so my go to shoe is a high heel, I will not leave the house without my makeup on and just maybe I sometimes over dress for the occasion, but none of that means I am a total princess and nobody knew of my secret desire to be a country girl.

Well, this Eva Gabor has chucked aside high heels (temporarily, one can’t totally abandon high heels) for steel capped boots and goat poo but never, ever her makeup! I conceded the hairdryer would have to be retired at least while living in our palatial tin can on wheels aka ancient caravan and while we didn't have a huge amount of solar power.  

The caravan was our home for 3 years while we slowly fixed up the vandalised house.

I can tell you that caravan was like an icebox in winter, to the point we would sleep with beanies to warm our heads and a couple of pairs of socks to stop the feet falling off with the cold.   A ceramic mug in the cupboard had to be warmed in the oven before pouring out a cup of tea or coffee otherwise the beverage would be cold by the first sip.   

For awhile living in the caravan had its dangers.  We were often visited in the dead of the night by shooters, spotlighting from the front gate across the paddock, bullets flying at whatever moved.  There was even a bullet hole through the ridge capping of the house!!! Obviously these would be hunters were dreadful at aiming.  As soon as we heard a slow moving car or saw lights dancing around the paddock my husband jumped out of the caravan with a torch, waving it around to alert would be gun toters we were there.  I thought it may have been interesting to shoot back,.... No, no, I did mean shoot into the air.

While on a shopping trip at the rural supply store in town I met hubby at the counter with my arms stacked with bright yellow fence signs “Private Property, No Shooting",  hopefully they yelled “Hey! Peops now live here. Rack off!”.   The perimeter fences were liberally draped with these lovely new decorations.

We did eventually learn of a lady who ran a bed and breakfast in town had been advising the weekend hunters to come out our way as no one lived there.  Hellooooo, endangerment much, thank you lady!

To finish up

two of my babies, just because I can and just because everyone loves baby goats! Aren't they the cutest kids you have ever seen?

The love affair begins

My husband had a midlife crisis, he decided a small rural property was a better investment than a home unit in Sydney.   

We bought a wonderful rundown money pit of 240 acres in the Southern Tablelands of NSW, absolutely neglected for about 10 years, 8 dams all with wombats taking up residence in the walls, fences falling down, top soil - what’s that?; 10 km’s of rutted dirt road to our gate, complete with a unliveable, vandalised workman’s cottage, no electricity, no phone, no internet, no flushing toilet!!  Enough to make a city girl want to keel over in despair.

Hubby's  idea was to have cross Boer goats for the meat market; the goats would also help clean up the property, and be hardy enough to cope with us being slightly absent to enable us to earn enough money to keep them in a lifestyle other goats would be green with envy over.  

Off I went and undertook an agricultural course (hubby didn’t have time with work). The course was not too deep, enough to give me knowledge about nothing in particular. I think at that point I took over husband’s midlife crisis.

          

                Exqueeze me, just learning how to hand milk.

So this is what top soil looks like and what is the long green stuff, can I have some at our place?

What do you mean by "steel capped boots don't come in high heels?"

We madly re-fenced 40 acres in readiness for our first 20 pregnant goats.  That spring we had 36 kids, 4 of which I had to hand rear being rejected by their mothers.  What a learning curve!!  Rose, Victor, Coffee, and Otis were probably the most travelled goats in NSW, going back and forward to the farm with us.  They lived in a cubby house with a penned off area in the backyard in Sydney. Thank goodness for tolerant neighbours!! When those little suckers are hungry they really let the neighbourhood know.

I thought I would be stronger but have to admit I crumbled with the pressure and that was the beginning of my love affair. Yes I am deeply in love with my goats.  Such intelligent, loving animals.  Slaughter – do not swear in front of me!  Much to husband’s disgust they are all my hairy little pets.  I am known as the mad goat lady.  At some point I know I am going to have to be strong and send future ones to the abattoir.

Well here I am, 2 Alpacas - Truesdale and MacIntosh, the best darn goat guards; 1 cat who adopted us;  1 short haired pointer, a most useless farm dog but loved anyway, she just chases the ducks around the dam until she is exhausted and scatters the goats to the farthest regions of the paddock; 60 plus goats (at the moment), 3 of which are the most spoilt beloved pets and I’m  loving every minute of it. 

 Tia the dam dog