Orville and Wilbur with a rider, Oregon
Little Boy Darling with Do and Re, Hawaii
If you have
never met a goat you might not imagine how sweet they can be.
The subject
of goats came up for me when my daughter told me about the #Weston Price Conference she attended last
week in Los Angeles.
It was a
food conference, and you might wonder how the subject of goats came into the
conversation. No, don’t eat them. Use
them. One of the presenters was a farmer. And he said we need more animals on
our properties.
I began
thinking about Orville and Wilbur our free-range goats, who came running from
the forest every morning to dive into the horse’s hay. They talked to us,
followed us, came when called, and hiked with us. They kept the brush cleared
around the house, and they never damaged anything. Well, they would have eaten
all ornamental plants and flowers, but everything not wild was behind a deck
railing. The house was fenced in the
goats were fenced out.
One thing
the farmer said about goats is that they are problem solvers, and they use that
ability to get out of fences. They use that ability, too, to climb on anything
fun, but we didn’t have that problem with Orville and Wilbur, as all temptation
was out of reach, and we lived in the forest. They were perfect.
When we
moved to Hawaii we bought two little nannies, Do and Re, still on bottles when
we got them, and the only time they were penned was in the dog kennel when we
were away from the house over night. The rest of the time they were free-range,
as sweet as kittens, and kept the property trimmed as though we had hired a
ground crew. They came when called and hiked along the “green trail of bliss”
with us.
There was a
star fruit tree close by the house whose fruit tasted terrible (another tree in
the orchard tasted great, I don’t know why the difference), but the one by the
house dropped fruit on the ground leaving a mess—not after we got the goats, they
erased all evidence of ground fruit. And you don’t have to worry about goat
poop, it’s like a deer’s, pelleted, and when dropped into the grass it disappears.
A downside
was that we had to enclose anything that could be climbed upon, the boxes in
the storage shed, the Prius, and the tree in the front yard. So I suggest
penning in the house and leaving the goats free. They will stay close, they
like people.
That’s our
story.
The conference
speaker said that people are desert makers. If ground is scraped bare in a dry
arid climate, like Africa, the ground can heat up to 140 degrees where no plant
can survive. With animals and grass and
grazing, the soil will be about 70 degrees, perfect. The grazing animals will
nibble the grass encouraging it to grow. One must not allow them to over-graze
however, but rotate them to different pastures. And goats, being browsers, will
keep the brush cleared. In Oregon they can clear out blackberry bushes that left
to their own devices will over run an
entire acre—or more.
The farmer showed
two pictures with the caption, “Which picture had the rain?”
Neither.
The green
land had animals, the dry one didn’t.
Up to Chapter 10 on oneyearontheisland.com