A couple of years ago I was given the nickname of “The Crazy Goat Lady”. Isn’t it funny how something will happen in your life and it ends up making an impact?
It all began at the Tulsa State Fair a couple of years ago. On the first day of the fair I saw a lady with a T-shirt on that said “I am one goat shy of being the crazy goat lady” and remarked that I needed that shirt. Well, the next day I came in with a goat puppet that I had ordered before the fair. Of course I was having fun with it, having it “talk” to everyone we would meet. The booth next to mine was Tom and Keith (aka Twisted Family LLC) and when they saw me with the goat puppet, they told me it was official, I WAS the crazy goat lady. I had a lot of fun with my goat puppet, entertaining children and grow ups alike and started referring to myself as the “Crazy Goat Lady”.
Since then I have ordered a shirt that says “I AM the crazy goat lady”. I even went as far as getting my husband one for Christmas that says “I am the Crazy Goats Ladys Husband” and my sister has one that says “I am the Crazy Goat Ladys Sister”. If you can’t have fun with what you do, you should not be doing it.
I love my goats and they are treated more as pets than as livestock. I can be having a bad day and go out, watch the goats and I can’t help but smile and sometimes even laugh out loud. Their daily antics are fun to watch, and then you get the interaction of the Great Pyrenees dogs and maybe a chicken or duck, or even a llama or two. I don’t think I will ever be able to live where I can’t have all of my animals to interact with.
Yes, it is a lot of work and having so many animals, and sometimes it does have its downside. For example, trying to get a first year nanny to get on the milk stand and stand still so you can put the milkers on her can be a real challenge. Or running around the pen trying to catch that last baby goat who has decided it is NOT going in the barn this evening. Or how about having to cut a baby goats head out of the fence because it has stuck its head through the panel (because you know that grass is better than what is inside the pen) and then does not want to back out of it, so you cut the fence. I have even given one of my goats a “stick of shame” this year. This is just a stick that I tapped to her horns so they can’t stick her heads through in the fence. You do what you have to, when you live on a farm and are responsible for the daily lives of your animals.
Being a “farmer” is not for the faint of heart. There are times when you wonder if it is worth all your time and effort when you go out and find that one of your goats is down and you don’t know what is going on. You do your best to doctor them and involve the vet in what needs to be done and then they still don’t make it. This year has been a rough one. We have lost 6 goats. We are doing our best to keep the rest of them healthy, which means mixing them up a cocktail for them to drink every day that we hope will keep them on the healthy road. It is something I came up with and it seems to be working. If you want to know more about it, E-mail me and I can go into more details. I do it for the love of my animals. Sometimes that means we don’t have supper until 9pm.
We love showing off our animals and what we do on the farm, so make plans to come out and visit us. Spring time is when the most action is because mid-March the Kids (baby goats) start arriving. If you have never experienced the birth of an animal or the antics of the little one, you are missing out on a great experience. To me, it is the good life, to others it might just seem like a lot of work. The pay isn’t great, but I would not change it for the world.
