How Mama destroyed Bro's Image

Bro was a hard worker and earned a pretty good paycheck as
a teenager. Of course all that backbreaking hard earned money had been reserved for his top priorities....girls and cars! He lavished over both!

Mama loved Bro as much as she loved the rest of us. But I think she had a special kinship with Bro, after all he was the one who milked her everyday. "Beeehhhh! "Beeeehhhh!" Those were Mama's words of content.

I clearly remember Bro spending time on the road with babes in the car on his time off from work or school. During that time, he was truly in his element! Time on the road however, meant testing the testosterone behind the wheel. There were times where he just felt the need for speed and had to put the pedal to the metal. The cops used to say "Bro, you will run out of money before we run out of tickets!"

One of his prize possessions was his AMX. Wow.... did that car impress the babes and intimidate other speed racers who might be thinking of the remote possibility of conducting a speeding contest! (Conducting a speeding contest = drag racing. I thought I'd provide a definition for us laypersons.)

He had just had the car freshly painted with a metallic blue for $99.99 at "E.S." (Some of you will know where that is and remember that price. Even then it was cheap cost-wise and paint-wise too!). Metallic blue at that time was a new thing and and we all marveled at how metallic paint shimmered in the sun.


Photo of AMX Metallic Blue courtesy of :
www.newcarandtruckwarehouse.com

Bro pulled up in the driveway of the old farmhouse with a cheerleader babe in tow and his shiny, newly painted AMX and parked the car. He explicitly let me and Dad know that the paint was still wet and not to disturb the vehicle. Bro went inside the house with his babe to let the car dry in the sun for awhile before the big cruise for the evening.

Mama was curious as to all the hoopla and wanted to check it out. Plus her milker was home and she always liked to let his babes know that she was the dominant female in the equation. These were still the days when we could not keep Mama in her pen if she really wanted out. So, Mama chose an opportune time to escape and check out the surroundings. Bro's car was there and this time Mama decided she was not going to let him drive off without her. Mama was probably planning on sitting between Bro and the babe in the car for good measure and to make her point clear about being the first female in Bro's entourage.

Mama proceeded to walk up on the hood of the car and down the other side and did that a few times until she found a comfortable place to perch herself on the vehicle. It wasn't my turn to watch Mama so I was not to blame. Dad was also distracted while Mama was trampling up and down the vehicle.

Photo courtesy of:

getyergoat

I can still hear the ringing in my ears from the formidable shouting that day. "Mama!!!!! What are you doing on my car !!!", Bro shouted. Other words were thrown in too and I'm sure you can imagine the rest. Mama's hoof prints were all over the freshly painted car and a big spot where she was laying had come off the car and onto Mama's hide. The shrilling sound of Bro's yelling got the dogs barking, Mama bleating and Dad and I rushing over to assess the situation.

Once again Mama got what she wanted. How could Bro go out cruising that night with the newly painted metallic blue finish full of hoof prints and a big spot where Mama stood her ground? Bro had to take his babe home right away. The babe did not want to waste anymore time figuring out how she was going to socialize for the evening now that Bro's car would not be escorting her on a cruise. Bro had no other recourse but to stay at home that evening. Mama was happy knowing he was nearby the pen and that he would be up bright and early the next morning for the daily ritual of milking! "Beeeehhhh! Beeeeehhh!"


Photo courtesy of:
www.joyfulheartsfarm.com

It's been awhile since I have posted! I hope you enjoyed the story! I'm waiting for more goat story contributors! Tell your story right here on the Got Goats? blog! I will help you to facilitate it! As always....
good goating to all from blog monitor and writer of the Mama stories: Jubie

Billy

I grew up on top of one of the larger hills in the foothills of Pennsylvania. We always joked that rush hour was when the mail was delivered.

Our parents always gave us many opportunities to keep a look out on our property and we never knew exactly what would happen or show up at out door next.

So one day, Billy showed up. I was 7 at the time. My brothers were 6 and 8 years of age. Billy was a goat. Billy the Billy Goat had a great personality. No one really knew what kind of goat he was.

Billy had the run of the yard and property. He was well behaved, for the most part, and every morning you would see his furry face on the porch looking in the window waiting for us to come out and play.

Billy’s favorite games to play were hide-and-go-seek and tag. I must admit Billy was not good at hide and go seek. He would look for us and find us relatively well but when it was his time to hide he lost interest and hid poorly.



But in tag, he excelled! He would fly over the porch rails to head us off and could tag us in no time flat. And he never hurt us in any way.





I have great memories of Billy. He was our only goat at that time and he related well with us and the dogs. We did give him away after a year though to the neighbor who had goats. The reason being, without a fence he chewed the bark off our fruit trees and was causing quite a bit of damage.

Billy was happier with his new goat friends, but he still liked us "kids" too! So we would go to visit Billy when we could and get in a game of tag.

Denise Grant http://thegardenersrake.com

Thanks for the Billy story Denise! I wonder if Billy ever hung out in trees with his friends? I mean Billy could fly so maybe he could fly up into a tree.... what d' ya think?







White Tree Goats










Black Tree Goats

Black and White Tree Goats!

Rosie

We once thought it might be a good idea to get a goat. Our back garden had, due to laziness on our part, reverted to overgrown English jungle and to clear it and return it to a manageable garden in which to grow vegetables again seemed like too big a task without a flamethrower. The garden was large by our usual standards, and, rather liking the idea theoretically, we thought 'let's get a goat and it can eat all this lovely greenery and keep it under control'. Bad idea.

We bought a female kid in the local market, feisty and voracious, with a distinct personality that we grew to love; forceful, cute, very bright. She settled in well and began to eat. At first all was fine; we fed her vegetable scraps as well as free run of the plants in the garden, and she ate anything we gave her, even trying to eat our clothes while we weren't looking. She grew up and her appetite increased. She ate washing from the clothes line, I always thought that was a rural myth but she really did! I believe fervently that they can digest anything except concrete.

After a while the garden started to look a bit bare, and as she was now fully grown and we were going to be running out of growing food, we had to buy in goat food, and I began to spend at least an hour a day gathering wild food from hedgerows and woods nearby. Everything we provided she ate. I became slave to the goat. She killed a young tree planted by our daughter by stripping off the bark up to the height she could reach on her hind legs, around eight feet.

She had a wicked sense of humour [I expect it's a goat trait], and would run at the pallet fence you were standing behind, launch into the air aiming all four feet at you [causing a sharp fall backwards in alarm] and turning at the last second to launch off the fence inches from your chest. She also learned quickly how to undo the door to the chicken run by watching us [it was a lift and draw bar sort of latch], and would daily let them out to join her, snickering as we struggled to get all the hens back inside, nibbling at our clothing and giving the occasional loving head butt. Quite a sense of humour.

So if your garden is overgrown, get a mower, a trimmer, a scythe, a large pair of scissors, a samurai sword or even a horse. Just don't get a goat unless you have several productive acres. I can't believe Oxfam send them to Africa.

What happened to Rosie? We found someone with lots of land and three goats already, she joined them happily and set about eating the first hedgerow, and never looked back. We missed her for ages, the garden was returned to vegetables and, with frequent doses of chicken shit, produced beautiful crops.

Will goats never cease to amaze? Thanks Peter for the Rosie story! I hope she is happy in her greener and larger pasture these days! Did you know you can rent goats to clear your yard when needed? Rent-a-goat is very popular in some areas. So, since you know you don't want to own a goat, how about renting one the next time your yard needs clearing?

Rent-a-goat is the new craze! These workers are from the Seattle area.

Goat signs, T-shirts, bumper stickers and more at "Getyergoat.com"

Mama Munches Her Way Toward Jail

It was spring! Mama loved the spring weather. In the springtime Mama was a determined forager; not by force, but by habit. She was a wanderer of sorts who nibbled her way to greener pastures. She figured out how to escape from practically every fence we had made to contain her.

One day upon my return from school to the old farmhouse, the front door was slightly ajar. No cars were in the driveway so I entered the house with caution. Well, I didn’t get very far before I discovered Mama in the living room eating our coveted rubber tree plant -- one that had been in the family for years! She had the plant out of the container, a skinny little tree trunk in her mouth, roots on one end and leaves on the other. It was as if she were holding a rose in her mouth, somewhat like a Tango dancer, but a bit more voraciously.

Mama and I met eye-to-eye for a moment, then suddenly the little tree trunk snapped in two and that was the end of the plant. Mama kept what she could in her mouth while I escorted her back to her shed. Once again Dad had to go back to the drawing board to figure out how to keep Mama from escaping!

While Dad continued to try and outsmart Mama, she continued to escape. Mama’s trailblazing days ended quickly however, after the police got involved. I had just stepped down off the bus and my brother was behind me. We were walking toward the old farmhouse when we saw a patrol car driving by with Mama in the back seat!

We hailed the police car yelling, “That’s our goat! Are you taking her in?” The police officer saw our frantic gestures and heard our shouts. He slowed down, and then finally stopped the car. As we approached the vehicle he stepped out and asked if the goat in the back seat was ours. We assured him she was our goat, and he proceeded to tell us why she was in the police car. She had escaped from her pen, wandered across the street, and ate all of the neighbor’s prized flowers growing in her garden. Well, Mama wasn’t entirely guilty of eating the plants, only the flowers! After all, there were stubs left where the flowers used to be.

Our neighbor was beside herself and wanted Mama to be punished. She had called the police, and when the officer came, he had no choice but to put Mama in the backseat of his police car. He then drove Mama to our farmhouse and found Mama’s pen, but reasoned that everyone was either at school or at work. The police officer knew that she was an escapee and would only escape again if he tried to put her back in the pen. So he had no choice but to put Mama back in the police car and take her down to the station. He wasn’t sure what they were going to do with her when he arrived at the station. Would real bars even contain her, or would she eat her way through those too?

When the police officer saw us he was more than happy to release Mama with a warning. She had shed all over the back seat not to mention leaving deposits of lots of goat doo-doo. The police officer figured she was nervous, but I told him that was commonplace for Mama. I explained that she passed most of her time eating or doo-dooing, usually both simultaneously. She was practically an eating and doo-dooing machine.

The police officer let Mama off with a warning that she was to stay out of other people’s yards and could not eat their belongings. He also suggested we do something about the neighbor’s flowers. Not that we could do much for her this year, but at least we could apologize for the inconvenience.

Well, Dad finally outsmarted Mama and she stayed in her pen. She let us know she was not happy about it when we walked by. So, we included Mama on our walks after school and when we all hung out on the porch in front of the living room to watch the sunset, Mama hung with us too. We put Mama to sleep at night in her pen and she did not seem to be contemplating escape as long as she was able to roam with the dogs, walk and visit with the family she seemed happy. Maybe she dreamed of greener pastures in her own yard at the old farmhouse from there on in.

The next post on Mama will be about the time she ruined my brother's image. If you have any funny goat stories I'd love to hear them! It would be my pleasure to post your story right here on the goat story blog!



Goats on a green roof! Perfect grassy hill for them! Green roofs are good insulators and help protect the roof below the green grass. The sunlight does not penetrate the roof which means a longer lasting roof. A green roof helps to curb aging and erosion on the roof such as cracking, curling and pealing. As long as the goats have plenty to eat, they won't eat the green roof!

Illustrated Goats in this post are from
http://www.cafepress.com/getyergoat
They have a great selection of goat T-shirts!

Mama was a hunter!

From a herd of prospective goats, Mama goat was "hired" over several other goats because she seemed to have a much more intelligent look in her eyes. She stayed with us as a hired hand for more than a year. She was a dual-task worker: her jobs were to clear out the blackberry bushes and provide goat's milk.

She performed her duties with a diligence that was second to none! But Mama wanted more.When we took the dogs out to hunt for pheasant, she just had to go; if left behind she would pitch a fit and throw a tantrum! Mama thought she was one of the dogs, and she was therefore entitled to hunt.

On the hunt, Kimberly, our German short hair champion hunter with pedigree papers, had to put up both with her side-kick, Jerome, and Mama. Jerome was a stray male dog that wondered in one day, and decided to stay on. He loved Kimberly dearly! So, when it was the right moment for Kimberly to flush the birds out of the bushes, Jerome didn't mess with her. Mama on the other hand, had no such tact. She blew it every time!

Kimberly would point, stand at guard, and then when it was just about time..... Mama would yell "behhhhh behhhh!" and click her heals. She always knew something was going down but wasn't quite sure why there was so much intensity in the air. She refused to stand still and be quiet.

Poor Kimberly, she really was an excellent hunter and smart too! Mama was an even match however and usually got the better of things.

Next blog I'll talk about Mama getting arrested, hauled away in a police car and on her way to "the station". I promise to come back more often! Where are the rest of the goat story tellers?


Billy Bob! Without the belt buckle!
These are not photos of Mama. These goat photos were taken in Switzerland last year. Mama is from my younger years....Alas, I have no photos of her.

I love goats!

Hey!

I am looking for funny goat stories. They are mostly for my entertainment. You see my family had a goat when I was a teenager and there are some good stories about her. I'll begin to tell some soon.

More importantly, I want to hear other goat stories! I love goats and I know they are good for a laugh! Plus I am going to raise goats soon so I want to know more about them, but in a fun way.

Please send me your goat story so that I can read it, post it and share it with others too!

I am developing another blog about gardening and a website too. The blog is up and the website is close to launching. My blog truly is just that, it is my web-log.

This is the beginning of my adventure in small space gardening and eventually moving to a bigger farm in Costa Rica. You can follow me in that endeavor ( it will take a few years to happen but I'll write entries of where I am at with all of it). The objective is to have the small farm to grow food and have Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goats.

But that is not to say that I don't like just Nigerians. I love all goats!!!!!! So please send me your stories! Thanks everyone!

You can stay with me on my other blog: http://blog.food2gro.com and help me out here on this blog by collecting goat stories. Pictures are good too! I won't submit your goat story anywhere else! I promise! I just want a place to come to for good goat stories!

Good goating!
Jubie


Powered by WebRing.