Goat Anyone

Grass Eaters

The interns were not satisfied with just having chickens to raise for eggs. They wanted the true permaculture experience and learn how to raise animals for their food. Our friend Jini has a farm in Redwood Valley where she raises goats. She had a few spare male kid goats to let us have down at the SLI. After class one weekend Roby, Chris, Cuatro and I drove to Jini's house to pick them up. The boys sat in the backseat of our truck with the goats sleeping on their laps. Thankfully no accidents on the way home. We spent the next day finishing up the pen and strawbale structure for them to hang out in under the solar panel array. Goats are notorious for getting in trouble and sneaking out of their pens. Hopefully they will not chew through our fence. The chickens are becoming jealous because they are not getting the attention they are used to from the interns. I think they will be happy when the goats are gone. After a few weeks the goats were wrangled up and taken to Gini's to meet their maker. We all headed up and had a ceremony for the goats and did a bit of yoga to relax and get in the right frame of mind to experience our first slaughter. Despite being warned not to get too attached the interns decided to name their goats. As a compromise they would not give them names of endearment. Instead they named them after how they are going to eat them-Shishkabob and Vindaloo. The guys call them Bob and Louie and the girls call then Shish and Vin. Past interns who have watched the processing turned into vegetarians!

The first goat was taken to a separate area away from its brother and the other goats. A very eery feeling came over the farm. It was almost like a death row walk. The other goats knew what was about to happen. Everyone got a bit emotional especially when the two brothers started crying out for one another. I won't go into details about the slaughter just to say I don't need to watch another one.

I think I am going to stick to vegetables!