Boer Goats

If you have been a part of our lives for the past year, then you know about the goats.
It is almost hard for me to write about them, because this is not just a distant memory, it is closer to home than I want to accept and has been a source of contention to say the least.
A little over a year ago, back in October of 2009, the kids and I were at home getting ready for our evening routine, when the phone rang.
It was Ray, of course, calling to let me know that he was on his way home, but for all of us to come outside to the porch... he had a surprise!!
Oh Boy, was all I could think.  The kids all got so pumped, because Daddy's surprises were always very exciting.  Not like mine.  My surprises were things like, making brownies for dessert, or renting a fun movie to watch as a family.  Good surprises, but not life altering.
Daddy's surprises are always, "in your face, get ready to embrace whatever curve ball he is about to throw our way, you REALLY will never guess" kind of surprise, and always very exciting.


We all went out to the porch, where we stood and looked down our driveway for Ray to come home.  We saw a truck, that we didn't recognize, pulling in the gate through the trees.  As it got closer to the house, we could see Ray in the back, holding on to something.  It was alive.


As the truck pulled up to the porch, the kids all started to scream, "It's a goat!!"  The girls, especially Esther and Anna started calling it "adorable." The rest of us just approached it slowly to check it out.
Now, to Ray's defense, we had discussed having some animals on our 10 acres, besides dogs and cats.  The summer leading up to this, we had started raising chickens, and had entered the "farm fresh" egg business.  We had also talked about getting some goats, eventually, because I love goat cheese, and thought it might be kinda fun to have fresh goat milk.
But, at this point, our property was not fenced for goats.  Cattle and horses, yes, but not for goats.  We have bob wire and pipe fencing around the entire property, and cattle guards.  This is great for large animals, but not so good for goats.
After the excitement wore off from the kids, I inquired as to where we were going to put this goat.
Ray said, "Oh honey, it will be fine, he will just walk around and eat all the weeds and brush."
So, for the night, we turned her loose, by the way, her name was "Sassy."  Also, she was FREE.  You have to be concerned as to why someone wants to give you a FREE goat.


Anyway, the next morning, was a Thursday, and I was leaving on an annual get together with some friends from college.  I had lots to do, as the homeschooling mother of 5.  We had to pack their bags, leave meals for Ray, load up all school work, pack my bags, get the kids to where they were staying, and just get out of town for the next 3 days.  This is always a stressful thing anyway, getting out of town with 5 kids, but then to top it off that we had this goat roaming around.


Now, I will say, that it would have been no big deal, except that this goat is a friendly goat, loves people, and thus, wanted to be as close to us as possible.  So, she had camped out on our porch all night, and if any of you know goats, anywhere they stand for any amount of time, they poop. (Sorry if this grosses you out!!) Little goat poop everywhere on the porch.  And if you don't know goat poop, it doesn't really look like poop at first sight, it looks like little black balls, not really that noticeable at first, until you know what you are looking for.


Well, I had not been outside that morning, I had just been sending kids out with armfuls of stuff, loading the car for the 4 day weekend.  On one of the many trips, my sweet daughter came marching in to get her pencils for school, and I saw her tracking, what I thought was mud, into the den on the carpet.  Once I started cleaning it up, with her helping, we realized, it was not mud, but poop!!!


I screamed halt, for all people to remove their shoes, thinking at first that this had been a mishap, and Ruth had accidentally walked in the grass.  What I didn't realize was that all of them had been walking back and forth through the goat poop, since it was all over the porch, and we hadn't noticed it, since this was a first for our family.
I went outside, after cleaning it up, and saw that it was EVERYWHERE.  We were living in a goat litter box!!
I screamed at the kids, to get in the car, we were running late now, because of the clean up, and I called Ray on my way out of town.
With the most Godly voice I could muster :( , and with the most respectful words I could find, I basically told him, that was it!  After only one day, it was the goat, or me.  That goat had better be off my porch when I get home!! I am sure the Lord was honored in that conversation!!


I headed off for the great weekend, hoping to forget this all happened.
On Saturday, my cell phone rang.  It was Ray.
He said, "Did you know goats can jump 12 feet straight up in the air?"
"What?!"


Ray had decided, since he wanted the goat to clear out the brush on our property, and the only place we didn't want the goat, was on our porch, that he would lay an electric underground fence around the house and yard, so that the goat would not come onto the part where we lived and played, but would still have access to all the other parts of the property to eat the brush down.


Do you know that goats are related to sheep.  Sheep are thought to be some of the most dumb animals in the world!! That is why the Shepherd has to LEAD them to water, and MAKE them lie down.  We are compared to sheep in the Bible....but anyway.
Ray thought it would be a good idea, to put a shock collar on the goat, Sassy, and then flip on the electric fence he had soooo diligently worked on to keep this goat off of my porch.
He turned it on, then shooed the goat towards the house.  Ray said, as Sassy approached the electric underground fence, she began to baaah a little louder.  By the time she was on top of the wire, she jumped straight up 12 feet in the air!!!
Ray couldn't believe it.  She turned and ran!! Ray thought he had Victory!!
He was so proud of himself as we drove in on Sunday afternoon.  So proud of the way he had fixed the problem.
He demoed it for me and the kids several times to show us how she would turn and run. Success.
That night, as we unloaded the car, and all were on the porch, I guess Sassy just couldn't stand it.  She would get closer and closer, and as the current would get stronger, she would just keep pushing through, until finely, she would leap across the current, baahing loudly the whole way.  She would then happily walk up to the porch, for us to pet her.
Ray thought maybe he just didn't have it turned up enough, so he cranked up the current to the highest setting, then we all snuck into the house so Sassy wouldn't see us, and prayed that she would stay outside that underground fence.
To our dismay, the next morning, there sat Sassy, all curled up on our porch, happy as could be to see us!!
UGHH!
Well, all I can say is the Lord is using this as a refining fire for me.
More to come on the goat story later.

Have a great day in Him, the Maker of all things, even Goats,
JJ

Ski Trip?

Well, we just got back from what was supposed to be a wonderful ski trip with my family, the Janszen's.  This was going to be a special treat for all of us, kids, spouses, and grand kids.  Mom and Dad had invited all of us to come meet them up in Colorado for a week of skiing in the beautiful mountains.
The mountains are MY thing, by the way!!! Love the mountains, topped with snow. Just love them!!
We all also love to ski, well, sort of, Anna, our 6 year old still isn't really sure yet, but all the rest of us LOVE it!!
Well, as you know, if you have kids, a job, a house, a life, it is HARD to get away, out of town.  After Ray,  flipping the call schedule around, making arrangements for all the animals, chickens, goats, dogs, cats, house, mail, etc, we headed out 2 weeks ago on a Monday morning.
As we headed out, Jesse, our 14 year old son, complained of a sore throat, cough, and ended up having some fever.  We treated him for the fever, and felt this would probably pass, so we kept going, definitely not going to turn around for that.  This would pass, he rarely gets sick.
That night, in a tiny town in New Mexico, as we all slept in a hotel room, Jesse was delirious with fever, so much so, that he tried to leave the hotel room mistakenly, then started breathing soooo labored that we had to throw him in the shower, then out in the -12 degree temp outside, to shock the chest into opening back up again.  After we got him calmed down, we treated the fever again, and prayed for the morning to come.
Good thing, the next morning, we were able to drive into Co. Springs to pick up some medicine that would help.  Still thinking that this would pass, we headed on to Beaver Creek.
We arrived that afternoon, so happy to see my family, parents, brother, sister, spouses, fiance', and niece and nephew!!
We told them to all just stay away from Jes, but the rest of us were fine.
Poor Jesse was not doing well at this point, feeling awful, just wanting to rest. No skiing for him.
The next day, we got Jesse situated, then headed out for our first day of skiing.

Ruth and Joshua on our first run!!

I made ONE run with Ruth (my 12 year old daughter) and Joshua (my five year old son). As we came down the mountain, Ruth said she thought she might throw up, then said she was so weak, she might faint.  I told her, "Don't you dare faint, I cannot carry you down this mountain, and get your little brother down also, this is his first run this year! Whatever you don't, don't faint!"
Praise the Lord, she did make it back down to the lodge.  We quickly popped our skis off, and one of the guys from the place we were staying saw I needed some help.  He ran and got Ruth some water, then he helped Joshua while I took Ruth on in.  I really thought she must have altitude sickness, and felt if I got some water in her, she would be fine.
As soon as we got indoors, and sat on the bench, she fainted!! Scary!!! I have never seen anyone faint before, especially my own child. I scooped her back up onto the bench, and she came back to me.  The guy who was helping me with Joshua, came in about that time, and I quickly got Ruth back to our room for her to get re hydrated, and rest. (I did go back and get Joshua right after that!!!)
So, first day of skiing was over.
Next morning, as all the family began to wake up, my kids started filing into mine and Ray's room. Anna first, with fever, then Joshua, then Ruth.  Oh no!!! Now we had four with fever.
We talked with my whole extended family, about us just packing up, and taking our sick crew home, but they all wanted us to stay, knowing we had just driven 2 days to get there to be with them.  We decided we would stay, and hoped this would be a quick sickness, and give it another day or two, and we would all be skiing together soon.
Esther, who was the only one without fever, wanted to go ski with the cousins.  I bundled up, and we headed out.  After about two runs....., you know what is about to happen!!! She starts talking about how weak she feels.  Yep! She had fever too!!! So now we were 5 for 5.

Hanging out in the pediatric ward, doing crafts and watching movies.

Ray ran to Walmart and got crafts, Lego's, and anything you can think of to do together in our room.  For the next few days, we didn't sleep much at night, doing med call for fever and cough, for 5 kids.  Ray and I had a few turns skiing some runs, while my Mom and Dad took turns hanging with the kids, but for the most part, it was pediatric ward for us.
We thought a few of them were doing better the last day of our stay up there, but the morning we left, all 5 had fever of 103+ Yikes!! One was even 104.9!! Scary!

The trip home.

We knew we had a miserable trip ahead of us, but we had to do it, so off we went.
The next two days, we had kids throw up 5 times in the car, 2 times had diarrhea in the car (YES that is right!!), one fainting in a Taco Bell parking lot, had to change clothes in a Casino in Oklahoma, and a gas station in Kansas, one go to the bathroom on the side of the road, with 30 mile an hour freezing winds howling, as we held them up between two car doors, constant coughing day and night.  Let's just say, it was a rough trip home!!!

Pure misery!!

As we approached Ft. Worth, Hallelujah!! We realized that something we had been planning to buy for Ray's business was going off of sale at midnight that night, the same day we were driving in.  We thought, "Why not?" We have made it this far, the traffic is bad in Ft. Worth, let's stop, let the traffic clear out, and run in an buy this item at Lowe's.
Boy, did we look like a motley crew.  Had not showered in two days, kids had on half clothes, half pjs,(because of the diarrhea incidents) hair a mess, all of us still wearing snow boots.  We looked rough!! I think the salesman felt sorry for us, he certainly didn't think Ray was a doctor, which was good, we didn't want him to know that anyway.  He gave us a great deal, and he even gave us a better price than what was on sale.  I'm tellin' ya, we looked so bad!!
So, finally home.  Yeah!!! Praise the Lord everyone slept good that night.  That was what we needed, because the sickness was not over, and to make a long story short, the kids stayed sick that whole next week, as well.  Another whole week off from school.
While we were trying to survive the second week of sickness, the challenges continued.  We had pool equipment freeze!!, audit letters come, and a pipe freeze, burst, and flood our storage and part of the apartment in our barn. After that pipe burst, Jesse thought I was losing my mind.  I just started walking around thanking the Lord for sickness, busted pipes, frozen pool equipment, audits.  Just thanking God for what He was doing.
Jesse said, "Mom, what are you doing??!!"
"I am thanking the Lord for these things, scripture tells me too." "I don't have to like them, but I will thank Him, somehow good will come out of this!"
I have to say, not sure what that is yet, but I do know this.
Because we were sick in Colorado, it really made us slow down.  My family is a go getter kind of family, lots of activity, fun, adventure. Because we were forced to be inside more, together, we had some sweet times of prayer with my Mom, Dad, Sister, and her husband.  My kids had some sweet times of dominoes with their "Buddy and Babe." We watched some fun movies together, and played scrabble.
So I can say, though, it was not the ski trip I would have chosen, some sweet times came from the sickness. As far as the frozen pipes, and things once we got home, not sure how the Lord will redeem those yet!! :) But like my father in law always says, "If money can fix it, it is not a real problem."
So I will continue to praise God, in the midst of the stuff.
God is faithful,
JJ