Accidental Goat Farmer

This photo hangs over my desk.  My dad found it at an “antique” store (I use the term loosely) years ago and I still can’t make out the caption on the back.  My best guess is that it is from the early twentieth century. It sums up how I feel about my life.  Just photoshop in a few more children.

We live on a “ranchette” in northern California.  The oldest, “Charlie,” is away at college and the second, “Bella,” is away at boarding school in New England.  And, no, she’s not in reform school or rehab.  I always have to add that part when I talk about boarding school here in California.  I’m from the East Coast where going to boarding school is commonly considered a positive way for both teenagers and their parents to experience high school.  My oldest son went to boarding school, too, but not my third child, Katherine.  Katherine is finishing up her freshman year of high school at a local school.  She’s the true goat farmer of the family.  I just write checks, drive the trailer, and run interference for her at school when necessary.  I also restrain the goats when she performs a myriad of medical procedures on them, and I feed them when she isn’t home.  Of all my children, she figures most prominently in this blog because she actually does most of the work.

When Bella read the drafts of my first few entries, she protested loudly that the blog was entirely about me and my “only child,” Katherine.  Bella even ran a “search” function on the document to count exactly how many times HER name was used as compared to Katherine’s.  One thing I’ve learned about parenting is that NOTHING is fair.  Get used to that now kids.  Everyone’s star will rise, and each child will have a chance to be the “favorite” depending on the situation (and their developmental stage…).  Bella, for example, used to monopolize my time through her equestrian endeavors that required me to drive her around hell’s half acre to various weekend-long horse shows.  Charlie was the golden child when he played select soccer and I drove him across the state for various tournaments, practices, and games.  Now it’s Katherine’s turn and I get to tour around various fairgrounds across the state.  So, Bella, just deal with it.  And to Elizabeth, Robbie, Cash and Tallulah I say: Your turn will come.  (There, that’s my first bit of parenting advice.)

Back to the kids…Elizabeth is 11 and Robbie is 9.  Cash is 3 and Tallulah is 2.  I had the first five with my now EX-husband.  The last two were with my… what to call him…. he’s my ex-whatever.  We broke up a while ago and I still don’t know what to call him.  When we were together we fumbled through a variety of titles: “partner”(sounds like a business deal or a homosexual – I have nothing against the LGBT community, btw), “boyfriend/girlfriend” (sounds like middle school), “friend” (sounds like you are in denial), “boy toy” (one of my favorites since he was younger than me), “baby mama” (which is what I turned out to be), “lover” (if I wanted to shock the audience),  “companion” (as he referenced me in his will).  Usually, we just got around the whole thing by introducing the other by their first name and smiling pleasantly.  In this blog I shall call him… Bubba.

The children and I are in our 6^th year of goat husbandry.  Before that, we lived in San Francisco with The Ex.  We were well-heeled and well-connected.  My nanny and I managed the kids like a well-oiled machine, and The Ex worked hard at his….business… (no more hints).  The kids did all the yuppy kid activities: ballet, drama, soccer, art, book club, gymnastics, horseback riding, swimming, tennis, lacrosse, and squash.  We had one pug, two bunnies, two guinea pigs, a chinchilla, and some goldfish.  Bella and I also had a couple horses (off the property, of course).  The Ex is allergic to dust and animals, so I had to keep the menagerie down to a dull roar.  I confess that I got the rabbits just to spite him as the relationship was on its final descent.  Take that, hah!

The marriage ended in a blaze of glory (maybe I’ll write about that in a later post – in hind sight it really was funny).  A year later, I moved with the kids “to the country.”  Well, “wine country” that is.  I wanted to get out of San Francisco and away from the thousands of people I had known in my married life, and I was also being more frugal.  But really, I was moving in with Bubba.  Sacre bleu!  The scandal of it all.

Bubba lived on a goat farm with his mother… yup, with his mother, who I will call Marge.  Either one of those statements should have been enough to scare me off, but I was in a “delicate place” emotionally.  OK, maybe I was stone cold crazy.  Nonetheless, there we were – me and my five kids living on my new boyfriend’s pygmy goat farm (Marge did move out, though).  The rabbits, chinchilla, pug, guinea pigs, and fish all fit right in with the 40 pygmy goats, 1 donkey, 1 miniature horse, 3 cats, and 3 other dogs.

Bubba has been “in goats” for a very long time.  If I told you how long, you would surely triangulate to his real identity, so I will be intentionally vague.  He and his mother started the hobby when he was child and joined 4H.  They chose the “pygmy goat project” because: 1) you did not have to sell pygmy goats at the meat auction at the end of every season, 2) pygmy goats are small enough for a single mom to manage (Marge was divorced, too), and 3) pygmy goats are just so cute.  Umpteen years later they were still doing it when I arrived on the scene.  Now that I have left the picture, Bubba and Marge live together again and continue to “do goats.”  All I can say is that “goats” must be a very potent addiction.

I, too, stayed “in goats”…. for Katherine.  In our 5+ years on the goat farm, Katherine had developed quite a passion for all things “goat,“ and loved the process of breeding and showing the little caprines.  Today, we have 30 goats (28 pygmies and 2 boers), 2 mini donkeys, 5 chickens, 1 guinea fowl, 4 cats, 6 dogs and 1 goldfish.  And the kids do not take ballet, squash, horseback riding, drama, lacrosse or soccer.  Thank god.