Udder End Farm

In the beginning God created goats, and then he created man to take care of them. God did not build any fences to keep the goats out of the garden; He left that to us. I build fence to keep goats out of the garden, but, like original sin, goats will always enter the garden. What should I be learning from this?

My place was built by an out of work oilfield welder (translate that fiend), with his own three hands, completely from spare oilfield parts. This is a mixed blessing to be sure. I’ve got a nice solid pipe foundation on which to base my fence, but the location and size of gates is non-negotiable. This good foundation protects me from my goats, but it wasn’t completed around the exterior perimeter, so it doesn’t protect the goats from the carnivores.

When I win the lottery, I’m going to go out and blow all of the money on fencing. I don’t need to buy fancier goats. I need fancier fence to protect the ones I’ve got. The perfect fence would keep out lions, coyotes and (bears, oh my!) kids on 4-wheelers. It would have several nice gates to ride a horse through, but not let a goat out. I would use mesh small enough to keep horns out, that wonderful v-mesh which some millionaire horse breeders use, with 8 inch steel reinforced concrete posts every 6 ft. It would be high enough to keep alfalfa-mooching deer and elk from jumping in- about 14 feet high (would that keep out lions too?). My fence would have an extra 4 ft of concertina wire on top to help keep out lions. I would like it to be an electric fence, about 18 bazillion Kilovolts at 96,000 amps, powered by solar panels. The perfect fence would be buried 36 inches in a concrete foundation. It would be painted green. When I win the lottery I will be able to pay someone to keep this marvelous fence painted green. I have not yet found that winning ticket lying on the sidewalk, and I have to spend every dollar I get maintaining and building more of the ordinary sort of fence.

How do you know if your fence will hold goats? Throw a bucket of water on it, and if it holds the water it will hold the goats. Sometimes, however, something that will hold water won’t necessarily hold goats. I swore up and down no goat in the universe would ever willingly get its feet wet. I was so sure of myself, I would have bet my winning lottery ticket. Let this be a lesson to you not to gamble. I pronounced this to my friend Phyllis, in front of witnesses. Phyllis was worried about it, because she had just brought home her first load of Boers, and wanted to turn them into her sheep pasture on the river. “Oh no”, I decreed. “Goats will never cross the river” One fine Sunday morning, after I had gotten all gussied up for church and was heading out the door, my phone rang. Some neighbors were calling to tell me my goats were at their house, a mile or so down the road. Without hesitation, I changed back into barn grungies, exchanged my Bible for a bucket of grain and trotted off down the river to find my goats. Passing my property line I glanced back and spied a large group of familiar red heads in my own field, within my own fences. I counted the heads - all present. I trudged back home and checked other pens. No AWOLs. Hmmm. Setting the bucket in the back of my truck, I drove out looking for mystery goats. I pulled into the neighbor’s to find a herd of unfamiliar red heads milling around the front porch. Alarm bells went off in my mind. No, those were goat bells I was hearing, and these were the brand new goats Phyllis had just brought to her ranch across the river! Hoof-in-Mouth disease strikes again. Good fencing prevents Hoof -in-Mouth disease.

I feel my fences are adequate most of the time (that doesn’t explain why I suffer from Hoof-in-Mouth, most of the time). Over the years I have learned to layer those cheap galvanized horse panels two or three deep, and space my t-posts every 4 feet, and reinforce this set up with those expensive pipe horse panels, and then insulate the whole mess with 3/4 inch boilerplate- the stuff they make drilling rig floors from (that’s a trick I learned hanging out in oilfields). It holds most of my goats in, most of the time. Every so often a buck will just go smashing through it, like a little bulldozer, and end up in the flower beds. By the time the roses are thoroughly pruned, I have the fence patched up again.

My biggest pain is caused by my boundary fence. The original fiend put it up about 75 years ago with his own three hands, and I’m sure he saved a lot of money doing so. It is 8 inch woven sheep wire, big enough for most bucks to stick their horns through, or for your average coyote to slip through without messing up his hair. The cedar line posts are set ¼ mile apart, with t-posts spaced about every 38 feet. It’s topped by two strands of sagging, Ruthless brand, 4 point barbed wire. Anyway you look at it, it’s a lousy fence. We will rebuild it some day when we get a Round Tuit. Or when we win the lottery.

Everyone knows good fences make good neighbors. I’m glad my neighbors have good fences, because it keeps them from hating my goats (Hey- we still have open range in these parts. You have to fence the livestock out !). One neighbor has a pet elk; we all hate the elk because she goes over any fence known to mankind, leaving devastation in her wake. A new twist in the neighborhood this year is that my goats have learned to tunnel under the fence. Then they go have wonderful adventures, leaving devastation in their wake. It’s o.k. though, because they always come home. Home is where the haystack is. Sometimes they return home through the tunnel under the fence, but mostly they return home past the haystack. Twice last week I returned home to find goats all over the haystack -and the flowerbeds, the garage, the front porch, and Eric’s 18 foot Bayliner, but not my new Dodge truck. The second time this happened some kind, helpful, anonymous neighbor had snagged a couple horse panels (the cheap ones) and fenced my goats inside my yard-to keep them safe, no doubt. Wouldn’t it be a shame to come driving along and find your neighbor’s goats shot- I mean smeared all over the road. As I sit here musing about this I hear whooping and screaming coming from the back field. My kids (two-legged) are rounding up goats and shooting- I mean shooing them back through a newly excavated tunnel; time for me to go fire up the tractor again. The moral of this story is always check your irrigation drainage patterns, and bury your fences (not your goats) 6 feet deep.

Isn’t there a Bible passage that tells us “Put not your trust in fences, for which there is no help”? I think it’s in Psalms. The guy who penned that thought must have owned some goats.