Sigh. Nearly a year without a post. It's been BUSY okay? Life gets in the way until it doesn't. Goats have been born, lived and sold. That's the condensed version. Early on we decided we would take a vacation this year. We would drive to California to spend some time with family. What's it been three or four years since we've been out there? That was our last vacation too. It's about time for another one. It takes some pre-planning to leave for any length of time. The dang animals insist on being fed and watered. It might be possible to leave a huge quantity of alfalfa pellets in the barn for the goats, but goats are, contrary to popular belief, very fussy eaters. After a couple of days the pellets would become stale and the goats won't touch it. You almost have to have someone come over and feed them every other day. Then there's water. I've built 2 automatic water systems for our creatures over the years but they break down often. Cheap plastic materials in the floats or valves cause most of the problems. A break in a line or freezing weather would be doom. The drought of the last 10 years in Central Texas has played havoc with our fencing. What were once strong goat resistant fences have become loose and wobbly. Goats are clever creatures and they are always looking for a means to subvert any system designed to contain them. The older goats have taken to jumping over the top of the field fencing and through the electric lines. Since they are not in contact with the ground, they don't get shocked. Clever rascals! The younger goats have taken advantage of where the pigs had pushed up the fencing and they nose under it. Fortunately the pigs are now enjoying freezer camp and won't be damaging fences in the future. Electric fences work great until a twig comes into contact with the wire and grounds it out. You are always having to walk the fence-line to fix it. Several years we would have large quantities of Walking Stick insects walk along the fence wire until they get to a post. As soon as the bug sets foot on the post the bug would be killed and it's body would short the fence. One bug won't bring the whole fence down, but there are dozens. Last week I came home from work on a Monday to find 11 goats in the middle of the street! They had gotten out and couldn't figure out how to get back in. I tried to herd them with my motorcycle, but that was surprisingly ineffective. So I parked the bike, opened the main gate, got behind the little buggers and walking along in full motorcycle gear (helmet riding suit gloves and boots) flailing my arms and yelling I got the herd back in. A month ago we got an angry note from a neighbor that our goats were getting into their yard and eating all their feed. The neighbor said they were next door but neglected to mention what direction and the name on the note was different than who we knew our neighbors to be. They did include a phone number so I left a message. In the mean time Kristi and I went to find where the goats were getting out. We found a spot that had a trail leading away from the other side of the fence. While the fence looked good this was the only spot we could find that was a possibility. This was in a far back corner of the property and the woods are too dense for any mechanized transport. After an hour of locating tools and supplies to repair the fence, we got to work. By then the neighbors had gotten back and we found we were fixing something that wasn't a problem. It was a different neighbor. He told us the goats were coming in via the creek. That's on the opposite side of the farm. We found another spot where it appears that our dog Brisket, had dug a nice hole under the fence and the goats followed him through, then they'd go down the creek which is mostly dry this time of year and to the neighbors. It doesn't help that they have decided to install a hunting for hire setup and they are putting down corn every day. There is no food that goats like more than corn so one plus one definitely equals trouble here. After fixing that hole we have only seen the goats over there once. The new hole was fixed and maybe we're good. We cannot have the goats getting out to wander the street while we're gone. We have taken a bit of a drastic step to solve these problems. We have sold most of our herd. Most of the power goats went to 2 buyers. One fellow wanted them to clear his 25 acres and eventually he'll bring in cattle. The other buyer trades animals and I guess he gets a good enough deal from us that he can make a profit on them. We are left with 11 young castrated males, "wethers" and between now and when we go, they will be harvested and join the pigs in the freezer. We will get to take a little time to get fences repaired without having to worry about goats dodging cars in the street or neighbors corn being eaten. We are also looking forward to doing some traveling! Taking weekends off from time to time and seeing Texas and neighboring states. Probably shooting WAY to high here. It's nice to dream.