Goats were not part of the original plan. The plan was chickens, maybe a garden, and a simple, manageable thing we could build slowly without overextending ourselves. That was the plan.
Then we visited a neighbor’s farm one Saturday and met a pair of Nigerian Dwarf does. They were the size of large dogs. They had these strange rectangle pupils that made them look permanently surprised. One of them climbed directly onto the hood of our truck and just stood there, staring at us.
We drove home and spent the next three weeks talking ourselves out of it. Goats are more work. Goats need more space. Goats get out of fencing that would hold a rhinoceros. We had heard all of this. We understood all of this.
We got the goats anyway.
The reason — the real reason, underneath the jokes about being persuaded by a truck-climbing Nigerian Dwarf — is that we wanted to understand where the rest of our food came from. We already knew about our eggs. Goats meant milk. Milk meant soap, eventually. It meant cheese. It meant a product that could become something real, something we could share with our community.
They arrived in late fall. Within two days they had escaped twice, eaten a hole in a feed bag, and figured out how to open the gate latch with their lips. We have never been more frustrated with any animal in our lives. We also have never laughed harder.
They’re part of the farm now. That’s just how it is.