Meet Barnaby!

Caveman and I regularly talked about getting a larger animal.  Now in case you didn't know, we live in an old suburban house on a double lot.  Caveman says we don't even have a full acre of land, I am not sure, but our yard seems big enough to me. :)  We currently have a rabbit warren,

chicken pen, and a vegetable garden in the yard (more on all of those later) but there are enough weeds to keep a large animal happy for a while. At least until butchering time.

Enter Barnaby....

I asked my friend at work, she lives in Dixon, CA and has property and just so happened to know a family that raised a bunch of goats. Perfect! We need a goat to eat all our weeds so our dog, Fergie, doesn't get fox tails up her nose again (those hurt and they are expensive!).

Picking out Barnaby was allot of fun! Let me preface with the fact that my personality is such that when I get an idea I want to do it now! so Friday after work, my husband and I drive over to the gals farm.  She has pigs, 6 goats, 1 cow, and some chickens... I find myself envious of her large property and the fact that she gets to stay home and tend to the house and the animals.

So here I am in my skirt and heels walking through the dirt clods and going into the gate with these 6 goats (the cow stay off in the distance, apparently sensing we are looking for the meatiest morsel). The goats crowd around us, having been bottle fed, they are very tame and looking for food.  I tried hopelessly to fend of 3 of the goats trying to headbutt me and/or eat my skirt, while Caveman made up his mind which one will hop in the back of the pick-up.

Once we get one picked out, our gracious hostess offers us a dog carrier to take the goat home in. Caveman is dubious, "he grew up on a farm and they NEVER transported goats in dog crates, it couldn't possibly work", but we convince him to give it a shot and lo and behold.... he fit fine (wish now that I had got a picture of that!).

As soon as we got him home, my youngest immediately names him Barnaby. With only a little halfhearted protest from my 17 year old, Barnaby became the goats name.