Back Porch Farm

It was a first date and I had the jitters. And with royalty no less! Out the southern window I could see the truck turning onto our road, snow kicking up beneath the back tires, the bobbing headlights cutting through a frigid twilight. I adjusted the shoulder straps of my Carhartt overalls, smoothed the mud crusted legs over my thighs, and hoped they didn’t make me look too fat.

And then I saw him – King Arthur himself – riding high and proud in the back of the pickup, his crusty beard cutting a path before him like a rusty saber. Damn, he was HUGE.

I fumbled on my muck boots and tripped into the front courtyard, head lamp gleaming from atop my wool hat. Jim and I shook hands, our collective breath clouding our first introduction. He asked if I had something that could be used as a ramp. I ran around to the shed and dragged back our pet ramp, previously used for an old Pyrenees. That worked fine for his Lordship, and “King” stiffly decended down his red carpet.

And that was when the reek hit me.

I had heard about how buck goats smelled, I had read about it in books, but experiencing it firsthand was… shocking! I struggled with the rising of my stomach as my gag reflex threatened with menace. But I kept smiling, swallowed stoically, and petted the old goat on his sticky, knobby head. Uck. He was the height of an Irish Wolfhound, his back as high as my waist. More like a small pony in fact. And scruffy, and old, and ugly, and did I mention stinky? Have I mentioned yet the way he STUNK?

Together we led King Arthur into his new digs, the palapa in our barnyard pen. I had safely locked the girls and Bucky in the barn before his arrival – no need to have introductions in the dark. He was enthusiastic about his royal welcome: the bowl of grain rations, the fat flake of alfalfa, the throne of fresh straw, and the shiny new bucket of warm water. Jim and I locked his gate and I gave a quick tour of the barn and yard with the short versions of goatie intros (Jim to my goats). The temperature was already plummeting, fast heading down to it’s predicted -13. We slapped our arms against our sides, stomped our rubberized feet in the snow, made a few quick remarks that required a brief laugh in response, and then high tailed it back to our respective warm retreats – me to the house and Jim to his truck.

And that was that. For that night anyway.

Randy did the animal chores and milking in the morning as I got Isla her kefir and toast. This process was constantly interrupted by my need to run to the north window and watch the courtly proceedings as the caprine courtship commenced. Gates and doors were flung wide with great fanfare and Hazelnut had been mounted and well serviced, in -13 degree temps, before the royal trumpets of sunrise had even sounded! Damn! Not bad for a 10 yr old buck. And he only took a short smoke break before he was chasing her amorously around the pen for a second go, upper lip curled back, neck stretched forward, and tongue flapping and blabbing loudly in Hazelnut’s nether regions like her tail was a microphone and he a punk rocker. Fiona and Bucky, both around 10 months old, were terrified, running away in short bursts of speed to huddle together, necks entwined, behind a sage brush. But they, too, were fascinated, and did not run TOO far off. They were just as glued to the scene as we were. Up close animal sex can really bring out the voyeur aspects of humans and animals alike I guess.

King Arthur has proven to be quite sweet, beneath all that horny, lusting, sexual freight train of hormones and stench. It’s a good thing, seeing as he’ll be here for something like a month. I couldn’t help but notice Jim’s hopefully comment that if we wanted to keep him longer – we could. Ha! Fat chance that! But we do need to be sure we are getting our money’s worth out of the elderly gentleman. First Fiona has to go back into heat (she had her heat a week before King arrived), be successfully bred, and then we need to see if either of our does go back into estrus again 21 days after experiencing the Wild Thang. Pregnancy needs to be confirmed before we get our sweet smelling barnyard back because I plan to have TWO milking goats this spring and a pen full of bouncing baby kids!

King Arthur, the resident “Dirty Ole Man”

Himself.

Which brings me to Bucky, our current buckling with the wanky left ear and pronounced overbite. Having been castrated at a young age, he, fortunately, does NOT share King’s “ode de cologne”. What a sweet little skewer of kabobs he is, that little nugget of tenderness. It’s fortunate my deep feelings for him do not exceed the limits of my stomach lining. With King Arthur settled in to impregnate the ladies, Bucky is next on the farm to do list. I have stressed away many sleepless nights imagining the process of harvesting a goat for meat. I have read the most graphic of blogs to learn all the standard ways. I have talked to farm friends to file away as much technical information as I can. Some of the details are still foggy, such as what sort of gun to use and where exactly to place the muzzle on his head bone. Some say behind the eye, some say the back of the head. One website showed the forehead. My nurse friend says I need to find the medulla oblongata and shoot there to scramble all signals immediately. He also lent me a game butchering book which I have yet to look through. I figure the butchering of a deer and the butchering of a goat should be about the same as they are both ruminates. I hope I am right.

But my main goal is for Bucky to experience as little pain as possible, and to know he was loved (well, sort of), respected, well cared for, and had a very pleasant life with us, albeit short. Isla will participate in the blessing we say over him and the thanks we give his goatie spirit for the sacrifice of his body so that we may eat it. I have not yet decided if she will be present when he is shot. She has asked to be. She also wanted to see the headless roosters Randy butchered, the the body of our hen who was savagely decapitated by a weasel. She is pretty tough that way for a 3 yr old – a farm girl through and through. We have talked openly about Bucky’s fate from when we brought him home last spring until the present. She understands. She tells friends that Bucky is our freezer goat. “Everything has to eat,” she explains with an off handed shrug of her delicate shoulders. And we would like to take responsibility in as much of our animal meat procurement as possible, knowing that the animals were treated well, fed well, and lived a healthy life. And also that they were dispatched in as humane a way as possible. I do not want a repeat of the demise of Fiona and Bucky’s father back at their birth farm. I was not present, but heard it took 3 shots to drop Lancelot, and that he went berserk in between, pumping out so much adrenalin that the dogs would not even touch his meat.

And so I pray my shot will be true, because I have volunteered to pull the trigger….

….and the time is nearly nigh.