The Trouble With Goats

Today we had a minor disaster at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  It could have been a lot worse, and I'm going to have to focus on that, but the events that unfolded left a scar on the garden and will take some time and hard work to overcome.  But we'll keep pressing forward.

I'll start out with the moral of the story:  2 x 4 welded wire fence is not effective fencing to keep goats out of the garden. I should've known better.  It's easy to blame some dumb animals, but I'm the one with whom the blame lies.

We have fencing that separates the garden from the pasture.  I noticed several weeks ago that Nellie, the goat, has been standing up on the welded wire fencing with her front hooves and this has broken the fence in places and she's been able to get her head through the broken pieces and feast on the succulent vegetables growing in the garden.  With limited time before the sun goes down, I've wired some unsightly tin against the holes to keep her at bay.  While it looks trashy, it's been effective - until today.

An attempt at patching the holes

Here's a closer look.  Like the story of the little Dutch boy putting his finger in the hole in the dike, I thought I had "plugged the hole."

Plugging the hole

Nellie is persistent, though, and didn't let that stop her.  She looked around for another point of entry and another weakness.  She found it.  This morning I woke up early, milked the cows and goat with Tricia and went to help a friend butcher 130 chickens.  At about 3 pm, I drove back home, weary, bloody, stinky and tired.  I was looking forward to a nice shower.  I immediately noticed something was awry as two goats (Nellie and her daughter, Annie) and a 350 pound heifer (Amy) were feasting in the garden.  ARGGGHHH!

I'll admit my first inclination was to go inside and grab my shotgun and put 3 animals in the freezer, but I let my anger subside, cooler heads prevailed and I got the perpetrators out.  Besides, I was tired of butchering animals after gutting 130 Cornish Cross meat birds.  I just wasn't game for field dressing 3 bigger animals.  In hindsight, it was probably a funny sight to see me running around, catching the animals and evicting them from the garden.  It was not funny then - not in the least. Once I got them out, I saw what happened.  Nellie had climbed up the fence and her weight popped the top staples out.  She was able to then bend the fence over and she and Annie and then Amy jumped over at ate to their heart's content.

The point of entry (I've pulled it back up and restapled it.

So now that you've seen the theives' entry point, I'll give you a virtual tour of the damage and then we'll look at the perpetrators that I apprehended.  Here are all the sordid details:

Here is some trampled garlic:

This isn't too bad and most will be salvageable

They really seemed to be attracted to the colorful and sweet leaves of the Swiss Chard and Bull's Blood Beets:

Yum!

They really ground the fresh Roma Italian beans into the ground, breaking stalks and ruining them.  Some will pick back up, hopefully.  These Roma beans are flat, instead of being round like Contender Green Beans.  In addition to the pods being flat, the whole plants now are literally flat.  

Flat Beans

The peanuts were a real favorite and crowd pleaser.  They were clipped down to the ground.

@#$^&!!!

The Purple Beauty Bell Pepper plants are completely de-nuded.  

This is gonna leave a scar

I discovered that the goats and heifer prefer the tasty leaves instead of the colorful stalks of the Swiss Chard.

Colorful Stalks (almost made me use colorful words)

This Purple Hull Pea ain't comin' back.

Uprooted and wilted

The tomato plants were sampled.  They really liked the Arkansas Traveler variety of heirloom tomatoes. You can see a hen in the background checking out the damage.

Diced Tomatoes

The pole beans were also a favorite entree today.

What a mess!

I don't think they left a single leaf on the vines of the Rattlesnake Pole Beans.

Leave Me Alone

The perpetrators were promptly apprehended and taken to Central Lockup to be printed and processed. Here are the mugshots:

This is a very guilty looking Amy, being held without bond in a holding facility, awaiting trial and sentencing for breaking and entering and destruction of private property.  I think she feels badly about what she's done.

Amy's mugshot

But here is the ringleader of the bunch, Nellie.  Nellie is being held in maximum security.  No bail.  As you can see from her mugshot, she is unrepentant.  She is being held for Breaking and Entering, Conspiracy, Destruction of property and contributing to the Delinquency of a Juvenile.  That juvenile is her daughter, Annie. Annie will serve out her sentence in Juvenile Hall.  Believe me, both should feel fortunate that capital punishment is off the table and they weren't sentenced to the Barbecue Pit (Cabrito, anyone?)

Partners in Crime

I laugh to keep from crying.  Really, it could be worse.  I think about the early settlers, who had predators kill their livestock, crops ruined by buffalo, hail, fire, rain or drought.  If my crops are ruined or yields diminished, I can drive to the store and purchase food.  This is a minor set-back.  With the early settlers of our great land, this would have truly been disastrous and could've meant life or death.

I'll move on from this.  I'll learn my lesson, bulk up the fence, roll up my sleeves and get to work.  In South Louisiana, we have a phrase for this, "C'est La Vie," translated in English, "That's Life."  The sun will rise tomorrow and we'll live to fight another day.  In times like this, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.  Peace!