musings on a goat

It looks like out little collection of farm animals is going to get a little bigger.

That isn't to say that we haven't all that many animals running around as it is. Although Kayla and I keep our little flock of chickens as 'our' livestock, the farm as a whole is home to about 200 head of cattle.

Sometimes it's fun to branch out a bit - sometimes branching out is just a good idea. Every opportunity to learn about a new animal is an opportunity to rediscover part of a knowledge base that's getting narrower and more specialized over time.

Because it seems to me that the old time farmers knew everything - how to keep cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, horses, you name it; how to fix anything from a combine to a screwdriver; how to grow any plant and where to grow it.

That's not to say that farmers are less knowledgeable - I wish I knew a quarter of the things my father knows - it just seems that so much of that knowledge is now technology based. The Luddite in me shudders at the thought.

And so we're getting a goat. I know next to nothing about goats. I know they have hooves and look a bit like miniature ugly cattle. Beyond that I am largely ignorant.

But the opportunity to learn about goats excites me. I look forward to finding out about goat personalities and traits, what they like to eat and how they like to live.

It's exciting to gain a bit of knowledge out of the ordinary. It makes the world seem a little bigger again.

The goat will arrive soon. I suspect it will be a steep learning curve, but sometimes the bigger challenges are more worth it.

Happy monday from the brush prairie.