Udder End Farm

By the time anybody sees this it will likely be sometime near the middle of February. This is a much better time to make your so-called New Year’s resolutions: First, because you’ve had a chance to test the wind and see which way your new year is really heading; Next, all those wee hours in a cold barn waiting on babies have stimulated both your imagination and your resolve to act on your imaginings;
Finally, you’ve managed to fudge away about 6 weeks that you don’t have to act on this year. I don’t know about you folks, but it always seems to me the New Year should start in the spring with the daffodils.

I suppose the first of my new year’s resolutions would be to make a few resolutions. I actually don’t hold much with such proclamations. Let my yes be yes, and my no be no. I either get the job done or I don’t, and I’m reluctant to commit until I actually do get it done. I never can be too sure of what any given day will throw at me so I want to be real careful about planning a whole year in advance. Also, I reserve the womanly prerogative of changing my other mind at a moment’s notice, unless I have absolutely stated an absolute yes or no, or until I, or the electrician, or the plumber have absolutely completed a project to my own satisfaction. Excuse me a moment while I run out to the barn to inform the electrician of a few changes…

O.K. My next resolution (and a very good one my husband says) is that I firmly resolve to buy no new goats this year, except for my new herdsire, which I actually planned to buy last year. I just didn’t get him picked out, but I know in a general sense who he is, and I definitely know where he’s coming from and I know he’s there waiting for me. I have to go to Texas to pick him up and the thing with goats is that you really cannot haul a single goat for two days and fifteen hundred miles all by his lonely self. So the truth is that I firmly resolve to buy no more than two new goats this year. Does fifteen hundred miles seem like a long way to go for only two goats? I’ll have to think this through when I get there.

I resolve to not let the goats filch my better cigars. I have a little problem sometimes- while sprawling back in my lawn chair admiring goats I let my cigar go out. There is always an opportunistic goat standing close by just waiting to reach out and nab said cigar before I notice it needs attention (the cigar, not the goat; goats always need attention). I’m usually too bemused or befuddled to rescue the cigar before it has been reduced to an anthelmintic. I realize my choices here are to only herf cheap cigars within the reach of goats or do my partaking on the back porch swing where I can admire them (the goats, not the cigars) at a distance. It’s good to have choices, and it’s good to share my favorite cigars with my friends (sometimes).

I resolve to clip each goat’s hooves at least four times this year (uh-oh, this is a biggie). I’m sure I can manage it. As of 9:00 AM this morning there were one hundred three goats in my yard. Not counting the ones that will be born in the next twenty four hours or so, that makes four hundred twelve goat hooves, times four trimmings equals sixteen hundred forty eight goats hooves, divided by three hundred sixty five days minus the forty four days we are into this year- that makes 5.13395638629 goat hooves per day to be trimmed. Gee! If I trim an even six goat hooves, or one and one half goat each and every day, I’ll have fulfilled this resolution before noon on November 16, 2005, and still have lots of time to bake pies for Thanksgiving dinner!

I resolve to sell every goat born on this place after 9:00 AM this morning. You bet.

I resolve to plant more roses this year. I need to replace the ones the goats have eaten, and I need exert my will and exhibit my defiance-to prove that I am not afraid of goat’s psychic powers over fences. I hope someone else of a scientific bent will resolve to do a study of just what dietary requirements of goats roses fulfill, so I can eventually buy it in a bag and feed it to them, instead of the goats helping themselves right off my bushes.

Here’s a resolution for the ladies only. I happened to walk past a mirror last year and realized I was 40-something. Raising goats will do that to you. Henceforth I resolve to henna my hair a slightly different shade of red every six weeks, until I have matched every hue my goats have to offer. It’s very important to have these common bonds with our nannies. Henna is particularly bonding, in that it looks and smells like something a goat might want to eat. Another possible benefit might be that I could tell my husband it wasn’t me that brought that new goat home, it must have been some other red-headed girl.

Now that I’m a feisty redhead, I think I will resolve to stay home from goat shows this year. My goats are just too meaty, beefy, big, and bouncy to satisfy the current fashion trend in show goats. If I wanted to raise red headed dairy goats I’d be seeing you all at the Nationals this year, but I’m raising Boers! And I’m raising them bigger, wider, heavier and meatier than last year! Yeah baby, you bet them’s fightin’ words, so just come on! You can’t make it past the pot roast much less have room for dessert. But I do in fact have a kitchen wall full of ribbons to enjoy while I’m eating those delicious goat roasts, so there must still be one or two sane, honest meat judges out there. By the way, pay no attention to that weanling buck eating my cigar in the photo- he’s in my freezer, as I would never try to sell such a weedy creature.

I resolve to boycott beef, unless someone else is buying dinner.

I resolve to get a website built so that you all can see for a fact that my goats are indeed extremely meaty, beefy, big and bouncy, and that I am not just blowing smoke rings. My children are quick to point out that I really have no talent for blowing smoke rings anyway, except perhaps from my ears (I come from a long line of feisty redheads). Of course, the only way to properly maintain a website is to take hundreds of pictures every day, so I can locate one or two good ones each month when I update, as well as the commitment to keep current videos on hand. On second thought, you just come to Colorado and see the goats in person. I resolve to build the website when I get my children in college.

Here is probably my best one. I resolve to repent of my sins at the very moment I utter them, kick them or demonstrate them to my children. Unless it’s kidding season, being prodded awake at 2:00 AM by the Lord Almighty to seek His forgiveness is not a welcome experience. Wandering through the barnyard at 2:00 AM to find the goat whose forgiveness I’m seeking results in a lot of commotion and occasionally a phone call from a concerned, light-sleeping neighbor. Waking up my children at 2:00 AM to ask their forgiveness results in cranky children. It’s always better to repent immediately.

If I were truly wise, I would resolve to repent immediately of all these New Year’s resolutions.