I should probably start by saying it has been a long winter, with more snow than we expected, and colder than we thought it would be. In all fairness everyone local keeps saying it’s unusual weather but seriously I have heard that enough time during our travels that I wont believe it until I see it. Having to hand haul water to the goats and chickens every other day wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be but Lee’s inability to work in his new garage has been a pain. We didn’t really think about that fact that it has no insulation or heat and it’s just to cold to putter out there.

The house itself has been pretty warm though which is nice and I am a big fan of our propane heat. Still, part of the fun with the land and animals is getting out there every day and there were many many days where it was a struggle just to let them in and out every day. The reason I mention this is because when I started to feel restless I initially thought it was just winter blahs but then Lee and I realized that we have been in the same place 11 months and in the house for 8.

Generally in our travels that was the maximum we wanted to stay anywhere without pulling up our jacks and rolling out, so I initially didn’t recognize the feeling for what it was: Hitch Itch. For those who haven’t traveled full time, hitch itch is a real thing where travelers start to want to move on. The time period varies from person to person and place to place but the feeling is pretty standard across the people I have talked to. Basically something in you starts to say, “It’s time to go” and when you can’t scratch that itch for one reason or another it gets uncomfortable.

I don’t know why I thought that completely changing my life and buying a house would stop that cycle, but obviously for us at least it didn’t, or hasn’t yet.

You can mentally make a decision, but often emotions take some time to catch up and I think that is where we are. I’ve talked to some folks in similar situations and they are combating those feelings by planning trips, either in a small RV, or traditional “vacations” with flights and hotels. To be honest neither one of those options really appeals to me right now. First and foremost I have these animals I am taking care of and don’t have a good solution yet for taking a long trip anywhere. Secondly, some part of me likes being in one place and the hassle of traveling for a short period of time isn’t really appealing. If we were in a position where we could take longer trips it would definitely be more appealing but I have sort of locked us in by the type of home I have purchased.

And to be honest there are days I feel like we have made a terrible mistake. Lee is quick to say “what is the alternative” and he’s totally right about that, plus I really like being close to my in-laws and we’re loving the time we are getting to spend with them. Frankly that has been the best part of moving back home although it depends on the day whether or not it is worth it on balance. A big part of that is the money. Being debt free was a pretty awesome way to live, but now we have a mortgage and a car payment and the corresponding lack of freedom that comes with it. Oh yes, we had to buy a second vehicle because neither the truck nor my little Venue drove well in the snow at all. In December we found ourselves in a situation where some days we didn’t have a vehicle that we felt safe leaving the house in (country roads, minimal snow removal) and bit the bullet and bought a snow worthy Santa Fe.

Don’t get me wrong, we like the car and the house, but we very quickly slid back into a traditional life, and it happened MUCH faster than I would have though possible. Still we are keeping an eye on retirement and as long as we both have decent jobs for the next 8 years we will come out of this with minimal debt. And I am really glad that we are putting our money into something (a major motivator for me buying this house) but everything costs so much and the improvements we wanted to make are going to come much slower than either of us want.

I type all this knowing full well these are all first world problems, but I thought I would take a minute and catch everyone up on where we are with the move. In a nutshell, the transition has been much tougher than we expected, but there have also been many unexpected joys along the way. As we head into our first spring in the house we are both very excited about planting a huge garden and using the excess food to donate to our local food bank. One of my favorite parts of standing still has been the opportunity to get involved in the community and sharing our good fortune with others. That was always a challenge on the road and we are taking full advantage of the opportunity in our sticks and bricks.

That’s all for now, and cross your fingers we are done with the snow for this winter. Watching my goats and chickens venture into our backyard with the nicer weather has been a huge lift to out spirits and I am sure the garden will be amazing. Lee has a plan!!!

We very much appreciate your support of our blog.

• You can purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full-time RVers.
• You can purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itune

I know it’s been awhile, so before I jump into Thanksgiving let me give you a quick catch up on what’s been happening. After Oliver left we had lots of fun with several local things and I got serious about crafting! Now that I have space I have been picking up craft supplies at estate sales and have been trying my hand at making different things for the house. Some have turned out great, others not so much but its been nice to connect with my creative side. I really miss pottery.

I also voted for the first time in person in 10 years and at the same community center went to a wonderful local craft fair.

And we had some friends over and had our first bonfire!!

Glad we got the bonfire in because not long after we got our first big snow. It was interesting because it was the first snow in their lives for the cat, chickens, and goats and none of them were particularly impressed. Jack has been in snow several times so he took it in stride but the rest of the animals were like WTF 🙂 Thankfully Lee already had installed electric water heating buckets for the goats and chickens so I didn’t have to worry about frozen water. We did have to pull the hoses in though and it’s NOT fun carrying a big bucket of water down to the barn

Thankfully the snow didn’t last long and once it melted the goats and chickens got much bolder. They started to come into the backyard to eat the remaining leaves as they fell. Once Lee mentioned that the chickens would eat the bug larvae I was all for the exploration. If we end up losing one to a hawk at least they had a good life. Speaking of chickens I am still getting 4-5 eggs a day, but thankfully I found a young family I can donate my excess eggs to.

Finally Thanksgiving arrived and even though it had been years since I made a turkey it is like riding a bike. My secret is Reynolds wrap Turkey bags which keep the turkey super moist. I do put foil over the breast and wings though to stop burning and it turned out to be delicious. Maybe next year we will raise our own turkeys but for now this went great. It was a small group with only my in-laws, but I went ahead and made all the fixings. We had lots of leftovers which I am a huge fan of.

Best of all on Friday and Saturday I got to do something I have really missed. I have been collecting Christmas items at estate sales and between those and the items DeDe gave me and my daughter Kyrston (who converted to Judaism) returned to me I had a wonderful mix of old and new. I even got to watch the Ohio State game while I decorated which was awesome!

We haven’t got the tree yet because I am committed to getting a new one at least this first year but things feel very cheery. Just in time because the weather is cold and colder for the next couple of weeks which has taken some adjusting to. Lovely having all this space though for decorations and I can’t wait until I get the tree up!

We very much appreciate your support of our blog.

• You can purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full-time RVers.
• You can purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itune

As much as I loved the 10 years we spent traveling the country I will say I really missed having a place that my kids and grandkids could come and see me. So it’s not surprising that as we were picking out a house and land the grandkids were a huge thought in our mind. We were then of course super excited when Kyrston flew in with Oliver for a few days on a school break and we got to share everything with them. It was also Oliver’s first plane flight and he got to meet the pilot and even got a cool pair of wings. Nice they still do that.

I couldn’t wait to get back home with them and the tour went so great. I loved sharing all the little things we had done with my friend and daughter and Oliver really loved the land and the animals. The cat in particular took right to him and the two of them hung out non stop over the next few days. He did a really good job with all of the animals, even finally getting one of the chickens to let him pet her.

I knew coming in that Oliver has a ton of 6 year old energy so I had planned some activities around the farm on purpose to keep him entertained and hopefully teach him some stuff. We picked the last of the corn, peas, and carrots from the garden, and he and Kyrston shucked the peas for me. Kyrston and I also made corn sheaves and added them to my front yard decoration…super fun.

We also fed the goats and chickens every day and gathered eggs along with taking the goats for walks around the property. I tried to take the animal chores in small doses and of course he had plenty of time to just run around the property. At first Kyrston was a little nervous not having him in eyesight, but soon she felt comfortable and he and the dog were wandering everywhere. Dede and Denny also came over one day to see him and another time we carved a pumpkin that we gave to the chickens to eat. Oliver loved that. Lastly we had so many wooly caterpillars all around the door to the house and his job was to pick them up and move them out near a tree. He loved that job !!

It wasn’t all about the farm though. We went to a local corn maze at Lohstroh Family Farms (highly recommend) and he had a blast running around their play area and corn maze. I really enjoyed the farm shop!

The big activity though was the Ohio Renaissance Festival. This freestanding village has been a renaissance festival for over 30 years, and Lee and I were there the very first year. I have been more times than I can count and my kids have fond memories of going there. So it was at the top of Kyrston and Lee’s list of places to go. I’ll be honest it’s not my favorite place, and I really don’t like dressing up for any occasion, but when Kyrston asked me to dress up with her and Oliver the love of my grandson won me over. Turned out the costume was actually OK and I loved how Oliver and I matched.

Oliver is definitely a screen kid so I didn’t know how he would do with low tech activities, but after some initial resistance on his part he did get sort of into it. He liked all the rides (which are human powered) and in particular liked our family favorite Shakespeare in the Mud. This trio has been doing their act since 1990 and it was really cool to see him enjoy it so much. Basically there’s lots of silliness and mud involved and what little kid doesn’t like that?

As the day wore on though it got more crowded and hot I was ready to go. My main complaint with the Ren Fest is that it is an alcohol heavy venue and I enjoy it less and less as it gets later in the day. Still glad he got to experience it and really we jammed a ton in to a pretty short visit. Personally my favorite parts were just hanging around the farm and showing him farm things, and I hope to get to do more of that in the future.

We very much appreciate your support of our blog.

• You can purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full-time RVers.
• You can purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itune

Fall has always been my favorite season and although New Hampshire falls were spectacular in their color and splendor they were also often very short. Ohio fall may lack a bit in the color explosion but the length of it can’t be beat. For the last few weeks, we have had summer like days with cool nights, and our windows have been open to a fresh breeze around the clock. The leaves have been slowly falling from the trees in stages is fun for us and the goats. Turns out goats love newly fallen leaves from trees, so I have started going on daily walks with them. We walk the whole outer yard together and they munch leaves along the way. Everyone wants to get in on the action and now even the cat follows along. I never imagined that this would be my life, but it is a really fantastic way to spend a lunch break.

Lee also built them a goat jungle gym and they love playing king of the mountain.

The chickens are also doing amazing. We are consistently getting an egg per day per chicken and some of them are double yolkers. Those eggs are the size of a goose egg and seem to happen after I give the chickens a bunch of kitchen scraps. Almost every day they get whatever is left over from my cooking and that continues to make me feel great. At this point the goats turn up their noses at everything (picky little girls) so the chickens are reaping the bounty. We also tried something we saw on instagram and gave them a pumpkin with two small holes cut into it and they have cleaned that out.

With all these eggs I have started doing a ton of cooking and so far, most experiments have turned out OK. I bought a Sailnovo Pasta Maker Machine which was a little intimidating at first but works pretty good and I made homemade mushroom ravioli and my great-grandmother’s egg noodles. I also tried making bread (the chickens were happy that day because it was terrible) but we luckily found a used bread machine at an estate sale for $10 and that bread turned out great! And after some trial and error I learned a method to hard boil chicken eggs and made some yummy, deviled eggs with my mom’s recipe.

As a side note fresh chicken eggs are super hard to peel after boiling because age makes the insides shrink a bit for an air pocket next to the shell. I tried lots of ways but finally read in the Prairie Homestead cookbook (love her website too) to steam the eggs for 21 minutes. I thought this was a bit excessive, but it works beautifully, and the eggs are super easy to peel. That’s a big deal because we are swimming in eggs and I am trying all kinds of ways to preserve them. Pickled eggs anyone 🙂

Lee’s been busy too gathering supplies for various projects and organizing his workshop. He built a really cool workbench and a grill station and has kept costs to a minimum by looking for near free items on Facebook marketplace.

He also made me a goat hay holder which is awesome and he is teaching me how to do some things for myself. I hung my own pictures for the first time in years including some signs on the goat stall. It’s nice being handy myself and Lee’s been pretty patient with teaching me stuff.

It’s been fun and our new tradition of estate sale Saturdays have gotten us lots of bargains. I like them because I can get craft supplies which I used to make my own cloth pumpkins. Being crafty is awesome for my mental outlook and sometimes things turn out really great. If they don’t, I don’t worry about it because I am getting all the raw materials really cheap and it takes the pressure off. Lee’s parents are also cleaning out their basement, and we get first pick of what is going to the thrift store. The combination of sustainability, upcycling, and being thrifty makes me incredibly happy.

One last thing I should mention is we are really living in farm country and these folks are super busy. Harvesting trucks are everywhere and they are running round the clock. Anyone who doesn’t think our farmers work hard should hang out at my house for a minute. It’s constant activity on the road and fields around us.

It’s a nice life we are building here and although I would like to meet more people in the area and we are adjusting to living on a budget there are worse ways to slide into retirement. I feel like we are building something here and for me at least it’s nice for our money to go into something that gives me so much joy. I am keenly aware though that we haven’t spent a winter here yet and I think that will really show us if this was the right choice for us. So far though I have loved the fall.

We very much appreciate your support of our blog.

• You can purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full-time RVers.
• You can purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itune

One of the interesting things about traveling all of the time is some of the basic human entanglements in life slide right by you. At least they did for me. Less so for Lee because he was so engaged with people online, but for me I had created a little bubble for myself, and I largely ignored things that bothered me. Confused? Well let me lay out some examples.

The “where are you from” question. – We got used to always being from “away” wherever we were but the explanation we traveled fulltime largely explained that issue. Now we are in a town that is 20 minutes from where I grew up so I answer I am from Grove City except people look at license plates (they always have everywhere by the way) and form judgements about you based on that. Since the truck still has Florida plates and the little car has California plates the reactions to our plates are wildly different depending on which vehicle we drive. It is so ridiculous in some cases that I have asked Lee to speed up getting new plates so we can just move on from that judgement. Like I said when we were moving it didn’t matter much but now this judgement is coming from neighbors and local business owners who we are trying to build a relationship with for the long term. If you screw that up you’re living with it for a while. Speaking of which…

Permanent Neighbors – Now we have neighbors and although people largely stick to themselves out here in the country no one wants to be the person who pisses their neighbors off. At least we don’t. We intentionally bought property where we aren’t on top of anyone else, but we still have a few neighbors within eyesight and shouting (or barking) distance, and don’t want any problems with them. We can’t just pull up and roll out if there is an issue so making sure we don’t inadvertently piss someone off is a big deal. Lee in particular has been extra careful about making sure our lawn stays mowed and we have no eyesores. We never were ones for political signs either, but I think we would both think hard about that as well. Things are very polarized right now and the only sign I feel comfortable with right now is an Ohio State Buckeyes sign which is sort of a religion around here.

Politics – I, by choice, was largely isolated from the extremes of politics that are impacting our country, and we mitigated that even more over the last few years by staying in places that mirrored our political beliefs. Yes, I have lost Facebook friends over differences of opinion, but that is very different than being in one place and dealing with the fallout of these disagreements in person. I was prepared for the need with casual acquaintances to just stay away from the subject, but things have gone much farther than that. Since California plates = Liberal and Florida plates = Conservative in many people’s minds the difference in treatments can be a little startling. Lee in particular who is much more open on Facebook had a really difficult time buying things from Facebook Marketplace until he changed his profile picture and marked his account as private. You may think it’s crazy but trust me we did a before and after study on his experience and it was markedly different. The worst of it though is family schisms which I largely ignored in the past but cannot now that I am here.

Family – I was always an oddball in my family, so I didn’t expect anyone to roll out the red carpet or anything when I came back, but I am surprised by how fractured my family is. There always was lots of family issues for a variety of reasons, but now it seems political differences has overshadowed most of those grievances. Over the last several years brothers and sisters have fallen out over religion and/or politics and the one thing I hear over and over again is people with differing views no longer feel welcome. Unfortunately, both of my grandmothers (who never would have tolerated this behavior) have both passed away and the schisms continue and widen with each passing year. I don’t know why I am surprised given the state of the country but to be honest I was because I truly though family bonds would transcend those issues. On the one hand I find this very disappointing but on the other hand since I have always felt on the outside of things for me personally it doesn’t change much.

Friends – Actually more difficult than family has been negotiating friendships. It’s easy to be friendly on Facebook because it doesn’t cost anyone anything, but rekindling old friendships is not as easy as one might think. A huge part of that I have to own because Lee and I have been just us for a really long time now, but I was hoping that staying in one place would allow me to rebuild a friendship network. I find myself very hesitant though to open myself up to other people and it’s not like folks are banging down my door. People have lives and friendships they have maintained through the years, and I have not been a part of that. That’s fair and since I made the choice to live relatively remotely it’s not like I am running into people I know every day. The simplest thing would be to start fresh with new relationships but at the age of 59 that can be tough. I tend to be pretty introverted when it comes to personal relationships, and it takes a pretty special set of circumstances to push me out of that. The friends we made while RVing were based on shared experiences, and a lot of my current activities (work aside) tend to be pretty solo.

Overall, I think it’s odd that I feel lonelier in a house than I did when we were on the road. I feel less isolated for sure, but loneliness and isolation are not actually the same emotion, although they often go hand in hand. I gave up a community of like-minded people (our “tribe” as my friend Greg used to call it) and I have yet to find a new one. I remind myself that it is early days yet and I have plenty of time to find my people, but I am really going to have to force myself to get out there to make that happen. It was comfortable in my bubble, it really was, but it’s time to take steps back into the world and see what happens.

After Lee read this he said you deserve some cute pictures of the farm for getting through it so here you go 🙂

We very much appreciate your support of our blog.

• You can purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full-time RVers.
• You can purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itune

Well, we blinked our eyes and summer is coming to an end! This means cooler weather (finally) and the ability to catch up on all those chores we didn’t want to do when it was crazy hot. It also meant my garden was getting ready to harvest and I started putting some preserving techniques to good use. We started by freezing some corn and although we needed to buy a new Vacu-Seal (we got tons of use over 10 years out of our last one) it was pretty easy once I got the hang of it. One decision I did make early on after tons of research was I was going to try freezing without blanching. I know conventional wisdom says to blanch but I don’t like the end product so decided to try it without blanching. The key is to make sure your vegetables are bone dry before you freeze to avoid crystallization. I will let you know in the winter how it turned out.

I also picked some green beans and froze as well. I was shocked by how many beans were hidden in the plants and got several bags worth. Moxie came out to help (she loves the garden) and scared me a couple of times when her head popped up. Yes, she can go outside now but only during the day, and Jack goes outside to babysit her. We did this over the course of a couple of weeks while supervised and now she will come back when I call her and can go out alone if she wants. Also, we know summer is coming to an end because Moxie caught her first mouse!! She didn’t know what to do with it other than play with it so ultimately I took care of it and heaped lots of praise on her. Yeah Moxie the Mouser!

The absolute best part of freezing veggies is I can give the bad pieces or ends to the chickens, and they love them. Actually, almost all of my vegetable waste is going to the chickens which makes me so incredibly happy. Not only does it reduce my purchased feed costs but it’s also good for the planet and seriously feeds my soul.

While training the cat to come, and the chickens to come, I also decided I wanted to train the goats. The man I bought them from suggested getting a bell (I am a lousy whistler) and within two days I had them trained to come in from the big field. They love corn mix so it’s a great motivator for them but even I was surprised at how easy it was. They are still pretty skittish, but will all feed from my hand now although they draw the line at me touching them much. I’ll keep working on it.

In the midst of all that I had a birthday, and Lee’s parents bought me the cutest things. Denny got me a bird fan which I absolutely love and Dede gave me a tiki man tissue box. I can’t get away from all things artistic have to have a purpose but that’s working fine for me!

What else? Lee finally worked on some cool outdoor projects. He built a roost and “litter box” area underneath for the chickens which has completely solved my poop in the nesting box issue and has made it much easier to clean the coop.

Another big job we both worked on was getting the center stall ready for winter. It was full of broken pallets and was actually kind of dangerous, so we pulled everything out and stacked hay on one side and straw on the other and Lee hung up all my tools. This way when winter comes things will be close by. We still have the large tent for additional hay and straw but it has holes so we put a large tarp over it.

In between my asks, Lee also went to a barn my Dad is tearing down and pulled out a hundred or so oak panels and giant doors. He spent a whole week doing this but now we have enough wood for many, many projects. My Dad was also thrilled the wood wasn’t going to waste.

I also tried freezing eggs which I heard was a good way to save summer eggs for the winter months when laying slows down. You use muffin pans and add 1/8 tsp salt for eggs you will use for savory recipes or 1/8 tsp sugar for eggs you will use in sweet recipes. General consensus seems to be that they work great when added to a recipe not as well for a standalone meal. I’ll let you know in the winter when I try it.

It hasn’t all been at home stuff though. We have been attending estate sales every Saturday which we really like and we took advantage of clearance sales to stock up on all the seeds we will need for next year. Even deeply discounted it was still $90, but good seeds are worth it because the two knock off seed packets I bought produced nothing. To get them organized I bought a super cool seed storage box and then Lee gave me his labeler to mark each box with the item and the plant dates. I feel so organized!!

It hasn’t all been work though because for the first time in forever I have been able to decorate for the fall. We didn’t have room in the RV for many decorations, and it has been a blast picking things up at estates sales and going all out. My whole life I wanted to live on a piece of property where I could have straw bale decorations for fall and now I have it!! Lee even bought me a pumpkin yard sign to add to the motif. It’s been busy and hard work but really fun and I have no regrets about moving back into a house.

We very much appreciate your support of our blog.

• You can purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full-time RVers.
• You can purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itune

Small town living as I remember it involved neighbors bringing over apple pies when you moved in but honestly I am sure that is a fantasized version of how things went even 40 years ago. We were both a little surprised though that after two months of living in the house we had only met one neighbor. Turns out he was also our Fed Ex delivery guy and it was super sweet when he made a point to say hello while making a delivery. I felt vaguely guilty about how much work we had created for him in the last month with all our Amazon purchases, (yes I know its his job but still!) and didn’t enjoy the meeting as much as I could.

Part of the reason we moved so far out was we didn’t want close neighbors but still you want to know who is around you, just in case. I even mentioned it to my new hair dresser in Mt Sterling (side note seeing the same hair dresser two times in a row was a novel treat) and her response led me to believe that the country folk friendliness myth was just that. Anyway a couple of days later we were pleasantly surprised when we got an invitation to a neighbor’s annual back yard “block party” (country mile party?) in the mail. The neighbor not only put a real stamp on it but also added a note and said we hadn’t met but wanted to make sure we were included. That’s when I learned that the small crossroads right down the street (can’t even call it a town) was it’s own unincorporated community with about 100 people considered part of it and I was one of them! It even had its own Facebook group I learned later but I will get to that.

Everything was going right along and we had 4 blessed nights with no goats escapes, when we were on the phone with Lee’s aunt and he saw the goats across the street! Yes that’s right. What ensued was one of the most insane evenings of my life which is funny if you weren’t me in the scenario. The goats started going down the road, which gets a fair amount of traffic and we were chasing them. They can run pretty fast when they want to and there was no way like in a pasture to get in front of them. Finally I stopped cars in both directions and had 4 people trying to catch the goats. Two were neighbors and ultimately one (who was an electrician and had a work van) popped the mom into the back of the van and drove slowly back to our house while the baby followed.Yes it was funny, but honestly I was scared to death someone would get in an accident and country road or not people drive fast on it. The momma goat refuses to be on a lead and the baby wont let anyone touch her at all so it wasn’t great. We got them home and immediately went and bought twenty more 16′ long and 50″ high cattle panels. We managed to get them in our truck by hanging them over the top and Lee’s plan was to install them the next day. We know the gates we have are a weak point so we also planned on adding more snow fencing and lowering the gates a little.

The next day went fine and I checked on them routinely. At 3:30 I even went out and gave everyone a watermelon treat and things looked pretty chill. Finally at 5:30 I went out for the evening feed and the goats were gone. I don’t just mean out of the gate I mean gone. So I drove all the roads and ultimately hat in hand asked our neighbors if they had seen them. Our neighbor across the street was mowing for several hours and he was in his early 30’s and very nice but had not seen them. He remembered them from yesterday though! Then I drove down to the neighbor next door with the 35 acres and explained I thought it was possible they were on his property. He also had a young family and definitely could relate to animals getting out. We gave him our phone number and then went back home and watched Clarkson’s Farm (available on Prime Video) which is our new favorite show because it proves we aren’t the only idiots.

At 9pm we got a call from our neighbor and they said they saw on the small community Facebook group someone had found the goats. That’s how I learned we had a Facebook group. Lisa (who also works from home) only had a name so she got on the State auditor website and found and address it was .1 miles down the road and there we met another neighbor Ruth who had a huge farm with our goats in her barn. Ruth was also very nice and told us her neighbor found them on the road and had assumed that they were hers and put them in her barn. I could see why because she had goats, sheep, pigs, rabbits, a mini horse, and dogs all over her property. It was controlled chaos in the best way and she obviously knew what she was doing. As another side note while we were there we saw goats jumping over 4 foot fences with relative ease and when we asked why they didn’t wander off she stated because they knew that’s where the food was. Since we are feeding the Momma goat the best quality hay and corn we can find and have beautiful pasture I didn’t know what to say to that. Honestly I think she is just trying to get to a bigger herd, which I don’t have.

After receiving some more helpful advice we got the goats home (thankfully we had picked up a large dog cage at an estate sale and we got our truck back from the shop) so we had a way to transport them. We both knew though that something had to change so after a sleepless night I decided to call the man who originally sold the pair to me. I know he is under no obligation to help but my plan was to pick up two more babies for my birthday on Saturday so after explaining the situation I asked if I could bring the Mom back. I should have gone with three babies from the beginning but in a misguided attempt to have some protection for the goats I had insisted on a Mom and a baby. I like the Mom very much but we can’t keep doing this and in my mind at least she is obviously looking for something. She also has some very bad habits that I don’t have the time or energy to train out of her but with babies hopefully we can start fresh. This isn’t unlike getting a puppy versus a full grown dog and since I do work 50 hours a week I just don’t have the time to put into her.

With some reluctance the seller agreed but we had to go that evening because his remaining goats were going to auction Friday. That was no problem because my intent was to leave them locked in their stall all day anyway while Lee fixed the fencing. The dog cage (on our wagon to transport) is already down there so this would be relatively easy. I truly had a sleepless night over sending this goat to an auction, but practicality won out and we loaded The Momma (notice I stopped calling her by name. There is a reason people don’t name farm animals) into a large dog crate we got at an estate sale and placed it on our wagon and put her in the back of the truck. Her baby went crazy bleating so it was all pretty dramatic, and we loaded her into the back of the truck by the window, Lee strapped the crate down and off we went.

The seller is about 20 minutes away and a really nice guy Rob who invited us to tour his small farm. I wish I could show you picture of these setups but that’s not really cool so let me try and describe it. He has two different small pastures and a couple of mixed barn areas with goats, cows, two HUGE hogs, and chickens. His animals (except for the pigs) all grazed together, and Edith was thrilled when she was let loose into her home. He had isolated the three babies (with one Mom) in a side room and after some difficulty we caught the three and put them together in a cage.

One thing we have noticed is most people have a hodge podge of building structures. What they spend their money on is fencing and after our experience I understand why. The previous owners spent their money on the building, but the fencing is a mix. You know that saying “good fences make good neighbors”, I always thought that was kind of weird but now I totally get it. Animals on the loose can cause all kinds of destruction to crops, landscaping, and gardens and it’s our primary responsibility to keep these animals on our land as much as humanely possible.

We got home and saw our baby was out and in the chicken area. Thankfully she had stayed close and we put the other three in the stall with her. Immediately two of the new ones got out through a REALLY small hole in the fencing. When I say hole I mean it is part of the fence design and we were both amazed they could wriggle through it, so we piled up straw bales all around to get through the night and went into the house. We have a camera to monitor and the baby threw herself repeatedly against the bars trying to get out but was locked in thankfully. We went out to check them one more time and then went to bed.

The next morning Lee woke up and went to get snow fencing (not always easy to find this time of year but Menards a local hardware chain we love had it) and then he put that along all the new fence he had just put up the day before. I have to say Lee has put everything on hold to help me fix this problem which is the only thing that make it possible with me working full time. The snow fence stops them from getting through the small holes and has worked on both the chickens and the goats by the way. Also way cheaper and easier than chicken wire although we know it wont really be a predator deterrent. Anyways, Lee got all that up and we were finally able to get them out of the stall. That was of paramount importance because it was going to be another humid 90 degree day and we wanted them to be able to get out of the stall.

Finally the goats can run free and although they are testing their fence so far no escapes. In some places we have triple fencing and if that doesn’t get it done I don’t know what will. The babies are super cute and Lee named them Jane, Paula Georgie, and Ringa; The Bleatles. That goes really well with my Spice Girls chicken group. I’m really hoping they all settle in quickly so I can start working with them and I even ordered a cow bell to train them to. Let’s face it everyone needs more cow bell in their life!

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