In the 1980's, I declared that no self-respecting homestead would be without a goat... or maybe more.
My husband had reluctantly gone along with my sale of the family car for money to buy a goat. This was a good goat, I argued. I didn't need a car. He did all the shopping on his way home from work. The car was nothing special to me but the goat and all the goat-related ideas I had about fresh milk, butter, ice cream, goat cheese and even an occasional barbeque were worth whatever it took to get my goat.
As I look back at the situation we had then, I am convinced that the acquisition of the family milkgoat was a minor salvation for my health in the grand scheme of things. To clarify, let me share that we had been through many more tough times, medically speaking, than most of our family and friends had seen or had to experience. In fact, a cousin later told me that they never dreamed we would survive our catastrophes and stay together as a couple very long.
In our first eleven years of marriage, I had been hospitalized fifteen times. I was not a real help to my husband financially. I had a baby every two years without fail! I just barely got by as a housewife and mother. My homemaking skills were good but my energy level flagged by days end. My standards appeared to fall somewhere between our parent's generation and the early pioneers. My young husband worked second jobs in the evenings and on weekends to make ends meet. I felt guilty all the time and really missed the companionship that fell to the wayside due to the bills having to be paid.
Looking back, I believe the purchase of the goat was my key to a quick rehabilitation after the 1980 surgery. I had something that no one else in the family wanted to tend to and my mother could not tend, even if she was not battling cancer. A goat. My mother was a Southern Belle. She simply would not have tended a goat. She claimed that I must have come from my father's side of the family more so than on hers. (This didn't hurt my feelings as I always believed that to be true. I was a real "Daddy's Girl.")
On a lighter note, we had fun with our goats! Just look at the photo above to see how cute the little Nubian kid is--on that particular day, my 7 year old daughter got him all dressed in a diaper and diaper shirt. On chilly days, the kid goats loved any excuse to come in the house and stand in front of our Franklin Fireplace to warm their little bones. They would stand as close in as their whiskers would allow...like right up against the screen we kept propped against the stove which served to keep the cinders from popping out onto the floor and our human kids from standing too close to an open flame.
Our children humanized all pets, naming them at birth, dressing them up, letting them watch TV and hang about like regular brothers and sisters...it was a good life in those days for the children on our little plot of land and equally good for the off-spring of our goats....not to forget the hogs, chickens, rabbits, dogs and cats...all the young ones played and learned about the world together.
A time came one Spring when we were doing some work on the goat fencing and we got the bright idea to relocate them to the island in the pond for safekeeping while the electric fence was down. So, we all happily rounded up the goats and herded them onto the pontoon boat. We ferried the goats out to the island. The plan was working fine. We only had to replenish their hay bale once a week as they were enjoying goat cuisine of honeysuckle and underbrush. The water was a natural fence as goats do not swim and so we left them out there for several weeks....I thought of the herd as "The Goats of Breakfast Island."
The island was named for happy times in the 1950's that my father would load up a picnic basket with bacon, eggs, bread, a jug of milk and his special skillet. Our thoughtful mother made sure we had dry matches, a red checkered cloth, and all else we needed to cook and eat breakfast over a campfire. Daddy had put a picnic table and benches on the island in hopes of family picnics. Our mother had very fair-skin and couldn't take the sun. We did not make much use of the arrangement except for these jaunts with our father. My younger brother and I would help Daddy paddle to the island and find sticks for kindling. My brother and I will never forget those occasions and yet, my own children wonder why we don't just call it "Goat Island."
So that the family goats would not miss their barnyard friends, we carried a flock of chickens over in a fishing boat as company...never realizing that we were making them fair game for chicken hawks until we saw a huge bird flying skyward with an ill-fated, favorite hen. On that day, we unhappily retrieved all the pets from "Breakfast Island."
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