Farm life - gotta love it

I now strongly dislike goats. My sister owns eight - three of them she uses for milking purposes. She's been gone since yesterday afternoon, so I milked last night, this morning and this evening... and will continue this endless cycle till Sunday evening.

I attempted to lead my horse back to the barn last night while holding onto the goat's horn and making sure the kid and the nanny followed. The horse was pulling ahead and the goat was being stubborn and refusing to move. I had my 7 yr old niece slap him on the rump when he stopped and had her chase the other two goats back. I was wearing a skirt and flip-flops, trying to protect my toes while the horse and goat were both walking on top of me. When it came time to cross the creek, the horse stumbled and splashed mud all over me and turned sideways, blocking my path to cross. Then after much pulling and yelling, the darn goat really jumped the creek... I was hot and sweaty, covered in mud, and had milk splashed on me by the time I got back to the house, then had to leave 20 min later.


This morning, I thought I'd only let about three goats out to graze, because if you let them all out, they form an overwhelming force that's impossible to conquer. But, they don't follow your plans - Brooklyn decided he was going to be out today, so he rammed me down and rushed out the fence dragging me a little ways as I groped to hold onto the hair on his back. The 80 or so degree weather didn't make things any better. : /
Milking tonight, the horseflies were out, so I was having difficulty having the nannies stand still. But, when they did stay in one spot, their legs didn't. They were stomping at flies, which tipped the milk pail, and I squirted myself holding onto the utter while the goat was running away. Stepped into a not so dry area with flip-flops on (I know.. my fault. Bad choice of footwear) and couldn't catch one of the goats to put him away. Twice, he fled into a dark back room in the barn, that I wasn't too excited to go into (especially in flip-flops). I finally coaxed him out with a bucket of mineral feed and drug him into the pen by his curly horns.

I can now sympathize with my sis and understand why she gets frustrated... Though I got angry, I laughed at how funny some of those situations would have looked like from someone else' viewpoint... ;)