I wish to apologize that I have not written a blog post sooner. My excuse is rather simple, being that, I have had no time to dedicate to writing. So I shall do my best to summarize the most important event that has transpired since my last post. Right now I am rather tired, so please forgive that this is mostly devoid of humor.
This morning, I woke up convinced that what happened yesterday didn’t really happen. I had completely, totally, utterly forgot that we had purchased a new addition. So I meandered downstairs at six a.m. to let my dog out, and when I casually looked over the beautiful landscape, I saw the brown blob. I say blob, because I had woken up about thirty seconds ago, and my vision remained blurry. Then it clicked. We really had purchased her, and I had to get dressed in a rush to take care of her.
24 hours earlier…
“If we got a milk goat then our milk expenses would decrease.” My mother was trying to persuade me that we should get another goat.
“I know that, but we don’t have a stanchion or a place to quarantine a new goat. It would be impractical to look for one right now.” The inevitable rebuttal came: “Those are easy problems to fix, besides there is a really good deal on Craigslist for a milking nanny, she is a nubian.” When I had been considering adding another goat to our herd, I had really thought that the nubian breed would be the best choice, and my mom had not forgotten.
“Goat milk tastes funny.” That was my brother’s reason why not to get a milking doe. Not sufficient enough according to mom, because you “will learn to like it”, even if you don’t like it now. My father liked the idea of avoiding having to keep going out of his way to pick up milk every week, so there was not a chance that Timothy (my brother) and I could win this battle. Hoping that the person selling the nubian doe would be your average Craigslist seller (i.e. won’t respond for days upon days, and when they do it is to tell you that what you are interested in has already been sold), I wrote a short sweet email just to simply ask if she was still available and if she is, might I call the seller to ask some questions about the doe. The seller replied within thirty minutes. I couldn’t help but think ‘Bah-Humbug’.
Then I put together a list of questions that you should ask before looking at a goat and driving a very long distance. I thought that there was no way she could meet all the criteria. Confident of my own phone skills, I made the call to talk to the lady selling her.
“Why are you getting rid of the goat?” “The man who owns her had a stroke yesterday and can’t get out of bed to milk her twice a day.”
“Is she a registered nubian?” “No she isn’t registered but both of her parents were.”
“How many kids did she have?” “She had two kids a month ago.”
My questions went on, and the answers were quite satisfying, so that there really wasn’t anything bad about her that I could tell my mother to dissuade her from wanting to see the goat. Thus a trip was scheduled for the day, so that we would go and see the goat around noon.
When we went to see her, I did a quick inspection, deemed that she had need of a hoof trimming, had parasites, and was thin.
“Alright, load her up.” An inward groan on my part, then she was all packed up, and we were on our way. There wasn’t anything seriously wrong with her, because we have hoof trimmers, lots of goat dewormer, and good pasture for her to get fat. Soon enough we were home.
If the state of health was not exactly perfect, her temperament was. She was fine being led around on a halter and leash, didn’t mind meeting the chickens, and liked eating weeds. Â She had no intention of fighting with the other goats, or making any attempts at escape. Â Around the dinner table that night everyone was puzzled about what to call her. Since she is black and brown, sort of a hazelnut and chocolate, we called her Nutella.
