The Beginning

With the kids all gone and as our Afghan Hounds start to round the turn into their senior years, with the cat's all fixed, the chicken's all laying eggs, and the garden's all under control, we decided it was time to start our next farm adventure. At over $7.00 a gallon for organic cow milk we decided it was time to find another source for that addiction. After researching the many options, we opted for the Nigerian Dwarf Goat. We took Goat Class 101 at a farm not too terribly far from ours that also had Nigerian's and after much thought decided that we could adequately care for them.

We started with fencing. After talking to the two places in town that carried fence for livestock we opted for the Red Brand Goat fence. 4 foot tall with good sturdy galvanized steel. Instead of the metal t-posts we opted for wooden landscape timbers to afix the fence to. We were fortunate to have a son in law that had access to an auger on the front of Bobcat's version of a Gator. Really slick gismo to have when you're needing to dig fence post holes! We had them done in no time. We had no sooner got all the hole's dug when the skies opened up and fell a flood. At the time I was 3 miles down the road picking up my treasure find of organic Alfalfa/hay combo from another farmer. I got five bails in the back of the truck when the monsoon hit.

Not to fall too far behind schedule I kept the whip cracking and we decided to set the inside fencing first. The noise in the metal Morton building was deafening as the rain fell for hours. Tamping down the dirt wasnt too bad on the back, however it wasn't MY back ;-) I didn't even attempt the fence "stretch" but I kept those that were attempting the "stretch" in sandwiches and drink the rest of the day.