Our Maker's Acres Family Farm: Escape!

Right off the bat, I can think of a couple of great escape movies: Shawshank Redemption and Escape from Alcatraz. I like those type movies as they show planning, perseverance, patience and suspense. It's high drama. This weekend we had an escape drama of our own that taught me a lesson about goats that I should've known and remembered from the last time we had Boer goats.

Last fall I posted about a large water oak that we chopped down in our front yard and then split up for firewood. This was prior to purchasing Nellie, the goat, so I stacked it against the fence thinking that this would create a barrier and prevent dogs, possums, and raccoons from entering the pasture and devouring our chickens.

Firewood drying in stacks against the fence

From another angle below you can see the firewood all stacked against the fence in front of Russ and the round bale.

This worked fine until we got Nellie. You see, goats like to climb. Nellie climbed up on top of the woodpile and jumped over the fence and began browsing on the neighbor's peach trees - not good! So I grabbed her and put her back in the pasture. Later that evening, Russ was home and went out the back door to begin gathering eggs and Nellie was in the garage just staring at him. Russ put her up and then she escaped again!

Something had to be done! We locked her in the barnyard and crafted a two-pronged strategy to curb her carousing:

Step One: MOVE THE WOODPILE: This involved a lot of work! Immediately after coming in from work and school, the boys and I got busy with a wheelbarrow and moved the entire stack, just barely beating the sun going down. We avoided the darkness, but not the fire ants. The stack was full of ants. We stacked it 6 feet high and in a location away from the fence (this time)! I'm going to cover the firewood with a blue tarp to protect it from the elements. I want it to last for several years, if at all possible.

Re-stacked firewood

In addition to providing sanctuary for a bunch of fire ants, the pile was full of cockroaches. Never fear. The hens arrived and promptly got to work, devouring every single one and then scratching and cleaning the entire area. Look how nice it looks now with no firewood against the fence and the grounds keeping crew scouring the area!

The hens cleaned up the area!

Step Two: INSTALL AN ALARM SYSTEM ON NELLIE: I want an early warning system to alert us to her whereabouts should she find another way to escape. We want to be able to hear the old girl if she ever decides to pull a 'Houdini' on us again.