That was Friday, all day long.
To top it off, I performed goat wrangling duties.?ÿ That's right, goat wrangling.
In a nutshell.?ÿ Co-worker received a message and photo about 10:00 a.m. showing a group of what had to be his goats going down a road.?ÿ Possibly as many as 15 young billy Boer goats out for an adventure.?ÿ He got ahold of his 19 year-old daughter who wasn't to report to work until noon to ask her to search for them.?ÿ No luck, of course.?ÿ We were about 30 miles away from his place during this period.?ÿ As we grabbed a quick lunch, he said, "I really need to go home and find my goats."?ÿ Told him that wasn't a problem as the next place on my plan for the day was three miles from his house.
Dropped him off at his house and we spent about an hour slowly searching separately for his goats.?ÿ No luck.?ÿ Gave up and we met up to go work on the job down the road.?ÿ Had made it no more than a mile when he received a call from a neighbor saying he had goats near the old milk barn on his home farm.?ÿ We traveled separately to meet up with the neighbor who couldn't find the goats now.?ÿ All three of us searched for a good 30 minutes before the neighbor found them within 200 feet of where we began our search.
There is an old saying about goats and fences.?ÿ To determine if a fence will hold goats, you get a bucket of water and throw it at the fence.?ÿ If any water passes through the fence, so will a goat.?ÿ That is a true statement of fact.
Nevertheless, we herded them into a cattle corral while my co-worker called his brother-in-law to bring his stock trailer to the neighbor's place.?ÿ Remember what I said about goats and fences??ÿ The three of us had to keep encouraging them to stay in a cluster.?ÿ More than one escaped but all were eventually returned to the cluster.?ÿ What was hilarious was that the neighbor had a 400 pound young steer in one of the corral cells.?ÿ It was very helpful at driving any stray goat back to where it came from.
We had seven of the 14 critters in that cluster and finally grabbed each by leg, ear or horn to get them loaded up.?ÿ Number 6 of 7 was the one I drug/carried by his horns into the trailer.
The brother-in-law had announced upon his arrival that he saw two goats wanting to cross the highway to get where we were.?ÿ That was at the edge of a 200-acre field of soybeans that also happened to belong to the neighbor.?ÿ The soybeans were taller than the goats.?ÿ Once we had the seven loaded, I took off down the highway slowly looking for the other seven.?ÿ Suddenly, I saw one head appear above the dark green soybeans.?ÿ It was probably 300 feet from the edge of the field.?ÿ Now, with four workers on the scene, the goat was alerted and it began to walk/leap to get to the other goats it could hear in the trailer.?ÿ Slowly, the other six goats followed the leader to the road, frequently leaping up because they would lose sight of one another in the soybeans that were taller than they were.
We repeated the journey to the cattle corral and finally put them all in the trailer.?ÿ BTW, did I mention in was between 96 and 100 the whole time we were doing this.
Goat #15 must have been napping when the entire rest of the group abandoned him at home.
That ended the work day as it was nearly 5:00.
?ÿ
I think that is a fine goat story. I hope nobody "got your goat". That's an old expression that means they "got under your skin". Or that they "really got the advantage of you".
Goats. I think there exists some sort of Satanic wisdom in a goat. When leading them with rope or chain, they often will deliberately go on the wrong side of a tree. They are quite selfish, stubborn, opinionated, snort, fart, jump on your car, break your wiper blades, dent your hood, and poop down the air inlet at the base of your hood. Eat clothes off the line, flagging off the trees, and well the little devils are full of mischief.
And taste good, with salt, pepper, and a crock pot.
N
My neighbor, who was also the party chief I started working for in 1977, had to serve on the jury when a local fellow named Cleston Jenkins was the defendant in a case where his goat kept getting out and bothering the neighbor.?ÿ Apparently he was getting on the neighbor's porch and showing off some x-rated activities in front of the neighbors wife and daughter.?ÿ Cleston usually kept him in the house, but the apparently he figured out how to open the screen door.?ÿ Don't remember the outcome, but he claimed he was just a good ole goat and didn't mean any harm.?ÿ Ever heard the saying about somebody having the "scruples of a billy goat"?
Cleston usually kept him in the house,
By any chance was Cleston's wife named Elly May? ?????ÿ
At one point in the search I thought to myself, "Now, if I were a dumb old goat, where would I be hiding?"
That did not work.
