Goats? Really?

I've always liked goats, and in the last few years I would have had one or two.  But my husband hates goats, and it really isn't their fault; they are just curious and playful.  The first goat I had back in the sixties was a sweetie, but she had one fault that made Cliff roaring mad:  When he'd hop off the tractor to open a pasture gate, that goat would run through the gate before he could get back on the tractor, every time.  She had twenty acres of grass to eat, but as they say, the grass is always more tasty on the other side of the fence.  One time he got of the tractor, saw her running toward the open gate, picked up a large rock, and threw it at her.  That misplaced something in his shoulder and he had to go to a chiropractor before he could use that arm.  

Goats need special fencing, too.  The spacing in the kind of fencing farmers use for cattle are just the right size for a goat to get her head in to eat grass on the other side.  If it isn't a horned goat, that's fine; but a goat with horns pushed through the square in the fence and gets trapped, because her horns won't let her get out.  She will bah bah bah all day long, but the minute she is free, she'll go right back and get stuck again.

I could go on and tell you about the time a goat we had kept getting up on the seat of Cliff's Allis Chalmers tractor and thought she couldn't get down, or another one that we caught jumping on my brother-in-law's brand new car.  But by now, you surely get it.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw on Facebook Marketplace some goats for sale and Cliff grudgingly said OK.  I only wanted one goat and lady selling them insisted she would not sell one by itself because it would be "depressed".  I've had a single goat several times, and they didn't seem depressed to me, but I finally agreed to take two.  However, I had forgotten the grandson's two dogs; one of them would definitely kill a goat.  She is not a friendly dog.  I told Cliff I was sure she would crawl under the gate to the pen, and he said he could fix that.  But not wanting to spend any money, he started turning a small pasture near the grandson's house into an eyesore with old boards and gates and other junk; I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have deterred the dog anyhow.

My birthday is coming up: I'm pretty sure I have dementia because I'm losing a lot of words, and I'd like to have something I want before the final curtain rolls down.  Thanks to my grandson doing all the work building a goat house and being willing to help Cliff put up a new fence that will work (which I'm paying for), I think I'm going to be able to get my goats.  I found a different lady with registered goats and she's wanting to sell a few.  She won't sell just one either, and the registered ones are a little higher priced.  But she said she would haul them to us, and I could take the mama goat to her billy goat to be bred when the time comes.

The goat house the guys are making isn't fancy, but the only cost is their labor.  The goats won't care, and neither will I.  They may even be able to hop up on the roof.