Goat Outing

Furry Husband's biggest account likes us to bring baby goats once a year to his store. We set up outside and about a GA-ZILLION children come through. The owner of the store promotes some wines with goats on the label (for the adults of course) and he has goat cheeses set up for people to try. We aren't paid to do it, we do it cuz we like the store owner and he seems to have this thing for baby goats. He just loves them!

We were there from noon to 3pm. When we got home, Furry Husband had a glazed look on his face and was suffering from serious post traumatic stress. He was on his Italy wine trip when he set this up to do for the first time last year. He didn't know how much work it would be. I got some good sympathy out of that.... he had no idea what I'd gone through while he was livin' it up in Italy!

People aren't savvy about the animals. They leave the gate open when they go in and out. You have to be aware of where the goats are at all times for this reason. The children want to pick up the kids. There are some children who are totally FREAKED out by the goats and are screaming and crying. There are children running after the goats. There are children putting handfuls of straw in the water for the goats. There are children putting their fingers into the goats mouths. The adults and children are asking ALL kinds of questions from every direction. And there a GA-ZILLION people coming by and coming into the little pen that is set up for the goats. It really is a lot of work. These pictures were taken during a lull in the action. I think at one point we had a dozen people/children in the pen with us to see the goat kids.

At the end we got the straw bales that made up the pen which we will use as bedding in our goat houses, and I got A LOT of my favorite microbrew beer in exchange for our time and energy. You drink enough beers and you forget how much work it all was! If liquor store owner was smart, he'd wait til we'd tapped into those beers and were feeling no pain to set up next year's goat outing!