the best laid plans …

So there is going to be a farm. Great. Now what.

I asked FarmBoy what we wanted to do with this farm. He said goats. I just fell off my chair. He wants to raise goats, milk them, make cheeses and the like and eventually have a big enough herd to sell of babies each year.

I was thinking he would say a big garden. Maybe a horse. But goats? There goes my ideas.

So when I knew this place would be mine, we started drawing up plans and ideas. The property comes with a barn and a feed shed. Nice. The property comes with acres of pasture for haying. Convenient. I have everything I need. There is no reason not to have goats. So FarmBoy built and electric fence and we were ready to go.

Meanwhile, I am moving forward with my chicken obsession. Coops were bought, chicks were ordered. Plans were made. Somehow the chickens had pushed the goats aside. One day FarmBoy and I were chatting about goats. Let’s wait until next year he said. Let things settle down for us. A lot of people would do just that. For me, I took it as a challenge. I am not patient, I have never been good at waiting until next year. So “just for fun” I did a search of Craig’s List. And wouldn’t you know it, they had an ADGA registered Dwarf Nigerian “doeling” (little girl) for sale. I made some inquiries, it was still available. So we went from Next Year to loading up the truck to go pickup our first goat.

Meet Bernice –

In this photo she is about 5 months old. She has the blue eyes that make her such a special goat. I hope all of her babies have blue eyes as well! If you have noticed her ears are green, no, that isn’t an error in the image. Goats registered with the ADGA should have a tattoos in both of their ears which records the year she is registered as well as the breeder’s farm designation. As for the “Liberty” necklace, Liberty is her given name, but she looks more like a Bernice to me. And oh my, does she have attitude!

To keep the image in context, Bernice is a Dwarf Nigerian. Today she weights about 26 pounds and is maybe 20″ tall at her shoulders. Just a little thing. Like a small to medium dog. She fits easily on a lap.