Ohiofarmgirl's Adventures in The Good Land is largely a fish out of water tale about how I eventually found my footing on a small farm in an Amish town. We are a mostly organic, somewhat self sufficient, sustainable farm in Ohio. There's action and adventure and I'll always tell you the truth about farming.


Monday, October 22, 2012

ThunderNuts!

For the love of Pete and all the saints! Would you just LOOK what we brought home yesterday?

Sir HumpAlot ThunderNuts, arrives to find a special kind of hell - our farm.

Meet Sir HumpAlot ThunderNuts. Can you believe it? We went out for ice cream and came home with a buck. Me with a stupid buck in my goatyard. AGAIN!  And yeah, I'm plenty mad about it.  The ice cream took the edge off but still... man.  Talk about getting your just desserts!

Go ahead all your mockers... get your laughs in especially since I had declared I'd never, never, never, EVER get a buck again.  I tell you the truth, sometimes life isn't fair. I've had plenty of "never say never's" but this one takes the cake.

What happened? What brought us to our lowly fate?

Bad luck and terrible timing, Friend. That's what happened.

ThunderNuts, with TBM for scale.

While I was loudmouthin' on about what a great situation we had with taking the goat ladies for dates up at the breeder what I didn't know is the The Big Man's craptastic truck was secretly plotting to steal all our joy and all our money in a clearly premeditated break down event of the century. So here I am cooling my heels while TBM drives my truck all week while his is getting fixed. If that wasn't bad enough, I'm not sure that Debbie was bred.

So all I could do this week - the Week of Weeks for the goats. Was sit around and watch all my dreams of expensive goat babies evaporate before my truckless-eyes.

And then. There I was standing around at the feed store near the ad board....and it caught my eye.... bucklings for just $50. Near our town. Available now! Come and get 'em!

So we did.

I can't hardly believe it. We drove to what could only be described as Deliverance-ville, then turned left and drove another 5 miles on a dirt road. I tell you the truth if I had been by myself I would have turned around. But luckily TBM was actually driving and so we pressed on. We did not hear banjo music.

But we did meet a nice woman with a beautiful herd of Boers and Nubians and mixes. She had a nice barnyard with all of the usual suspects and we laughed that we had about all the same things. But she had a bulldozer so I went a certain shade of envious green.

After perusing the lot we pointed at one of the bucklings that seemed to fit the bill. He's about six months old and is a Boer-Nubian cross. The daddy Boer was as big as a yak and as ugly as a gorilla. The momma wasnt around but I asked how much she milked?

"About a gallon and a half a milking."  A MILKING?!?!

I shoved the money in her hand, we scooped up ThunderNuts, and made our way back to what they would consider civilization - and we think we live pretty far out in the boonies.

The welcoming committee, Kai licks her chops.

Immediately ThunderNuts was initiated into our little farm. Dahlia went mad for him, batting her eyes and wagging her bottom. She coulda eaten him alive. Zander wanted to actually eat him - alive would have been just fine.  Then dear little ThunderNuts found the electric fence, got stuck in the other fence, was sprayed with the hose ("Leave that chicken alone!"), and Dog#1 taught him who was boss.

We're pretty sure ThunderNuts thought he had died and gone to hell. 

Immediately he got stuck in the fence. Immediately TBM had to fix the fence.

With that little goatling standing there screaming his head off, TBM said that it sounded like hell to him. In the background Kai and Zander whined and woofed their desire to end that little goat's problems....

Kai and Zander, wanna be goat enders. See how big Zander is!!

In fact, the only one who was happy about this entire arrangement was probably me - of all people. For exactly $50 in folding money and $6 in gas we have most of our goat problems solved. Of course, then there's Nibbles.

Even tho ThunderNuts is only the size of a small collie now...right about Nibbles size... the babies from a soon-to-be-full sized buck would be too big for her to have safely. So she is under lock and key in the free side of the Turkey House. Currently she is standing out there screaming her head off for all the coyotes to hear. I can hear a pack of them to the south of us and if she doesn't stop it I'll have to turn the dogs out to bark all the neighbors awake and keep the 'yotes out of the yard. For heavens sakes. Its a miracle that goats have survived as a species as long as they have even with our help.

Zander would love to help ThunderNuts out of his lowly fate....

To be sure I'll have to make a date for Nibbles with a mini-buck but I don't need to do that this week - or the next. So by the time I get my truck back we'll be ready for a red-hot-Nibbles-transport up to the breeder and she will be our last to kid.

One friend (you know who you are) has already been teasing me about getting another buckling and asked, "So how does crow taste?"  (insert a lot of laughing here)

Like goat curry, baby, it tastes exactly like goat curry. We figure the BBQ will be in about six weeks. Sure we'll try to pawn off ThunderNuts on some sucker but if not then cabrito may finally be on our menu.

So there you have it. Sometimes in this life you have to swallow your pride and get yourself a goat buckling. But as long as you are getting ice cream at the same time its not so bad.

Happy Monday everyone. Can you even believe it?


13 comments:

AZDesertFarmer said...

Let me be the first to say BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ohiofarmgirl said...

Yeah.. yeah.. let me to be the first to sheepishly shake my head....sheesh!
:-D

David said...

Funny story! Oh the cabrito! Well, at least he'll have had some fun before the deed. The dogs are gorgeous inthe autumn sun. Love the pic of the three of them!

Aly said...

On the bright side.....skip popping babies come spring!!!

Damummis said...

Girl, you are crazy. All kinds of crazy.

becky3086 said...

Well, he was a good deal anyway. I haven't seen one for that price here.

Heavens Door Acres said...

Awww, isn't he just the bee's knees!? CUTE for sure....better make those fences "horse high and bull tight" As you know....bucks are TERRORS on fencing. But, on the upside....I love our little buck. Of course, he IS a pygmy, and he needs "help" breeding our "GIANT" Alpines....LOL Congrats!

Carolyn said...

I'd laugh.....except we did just the same thing last month after I adamantly stated "NO more bucks".
Damn it to hell, needing those stupid penises (is that how you spell the plural of penis???)

Tombstone Livestock said...

Best laid plans need to have room to change. Take a piece of PVC pipe couple inches longer than the opening in the fence and duct tape it to his horns, that way you won't have to continually get him out of the fence or make repairs.

Diane said...

And I second that BWAHAHAHAAA!!!

Traci Sumner said...

we almost had our goat kebobs last night - dam buckling tried to go after one of my kids (and not the goat variety). I nailed him in the nuts so hard, I hope he's done his job with the girls already, because I don't know if he'll function agin. He's hiding out in the back 40 (okay, back 1/2 acre) every time he sees me coming, especially with the stick I nailed him with. So, how long do I have to keep him in with the girls before we have our "Knuckle"sandwiches?

Chai Chai said...

The smoke in the claustrophobic room was thick and the heat from the pulsating fire was enough to make even Nicholas sweat. As bits of bone dust and other exotic powders were thrown into the fire strange shadows of differing colors danced around the edges of the hovel.

An old hen with a clubbed foot and a blind eye waddled up to the fire and cackled dryly. Nicholas' hackles rose and he felt a chill despite the heat. "What do you see old woman?"

The old crone choked out a few sounds that could barely be confused with speech; "A new piece is on the board! Ware the bringer of Thunder!"

This was not the news Nicholas was expecting. "Nuts!"

As the crone ambled from the room her reply come to Nicholas' ears like a whisper on the wind; "Exactly!"

City Sister said...

What a great name for a buck...my goodness!

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