the day was hoped to begin to ReSet my self. I got up at 4:30. purposefully moved along with all my morning things, an eye on the list of possibiities i'd prepared. This pic from last years seed catalog has nothing to do with anything except maybe is an image of passion? and the day Was, about Passion. Not my hopes or my intentions. Goat Passion. I have no energy left for many details and even if i could give you all of them, you still wouldn't have the Real Picture of how it was...only a movie with SOUND could come close.
some back story: for the last weeks, maybe a month and a half, and yes, whenever any let up, all through the RAIN days, there has been all the activity that is a part of these Goats winter Heat. The ones that want to, WANT to be bred. They hang around the bucks, offering their fragrant rear ends, "flagging" their tails, which acts to fan their fragrance to the nostrils of the bucks. Some vocalize. Ours do. There's more, but that's enough. The bucks will respond with urinating on themselves and tasting it, practice erections, blubbering and snorting, loud gutteral and sometimes shrill vocalizations, getting whatever contact they can through the fencing that the Does press against. Problem here is that Sunny Ray is now the only intact buck but he is too old for much of this. Nogal was intact, but for whatever reason, had little committment to the show of all of it, was a gentleman. He IS the sire of the two wethers we have, Black and Minion who will be 3 in March. Anyway...he didn't do much to entice. And now he's gone. So, crazy, the Does have turned to Jack Flash who is probably 8 years old? Wethered since a baby, kept for the company of an intact buck who till a year or so ago was Sunny Ray until the day he discovered he was stronger and began to become a bully. So he's been alone. Today he made up for it. Late morning all those sounds were suddenly Out Side this door and there they All were. Including JACK. BIG COMMOTION. Alyssia got here as soon as she could and to make a long long day short, we reconfigured gates, feeding areas, added another board to Jack's Catch Pen that being how i thought he got out...jumping over.... and watched them all afternoon, trying to figure out all the possible scenarios . Our last and almost given up effort finally ended with him back in his own Forest. I tried one more thing one more time and it worked. Done. But then, of course, Black jumped into his catch pen to steal his hay and because of the new board, couldn't jump out. That took more time. But also got done. Then, Alyssia's car battery was dead...she'd left the door unlatched and all the interior lights were on all day and so Jeff had to come to jump her. Complications with that, but finally.
it's dark out.
i walked down just before this. Everyone is so quiet like Goats are at night, their eyes all glowing in the dark as i approach. Them wondering What On Earth I'm Doing
and i thought about how it was Jack's truly BEST MOST MAGNIFICANT DAY EVER. He spent the day with them, walking their trails with them, being so FANCY and mounting mounting mounting over and over and over even tho he doesn't have the equipment...but for some crazy reason, the Spirit is there . I am searching the internet...nothing so far. But it Happened. If he were an intact buck, all 12 of these doe Goats would have been bred in 5 minutes. Ta Da
