Farm Roulette

You never can tell how things are going to work out around here.....

This morning, I called up the cows to come in to the lot for their 3 hours of hay buffet. Zipped around and checked on the hens, gathered eggs that Adam forgot to get last night ( very COLD eggs) and gave the bucks a round of alfalfa hay. Then back to the house to try and roust Adam out of bed for the second time. Decided to check on the critters in the garden and noticed that the calves in the front lot were bucking and kicking up a storm. I just thought that they were frolicking in the cool morning. Then the dogs started barking at something. There were 4 good sized meat goat bucks standing in the driveway looking intently at my fruit trees ---- and they were NOT mine. I set the dogs on them and they dashed off down the road and out of sight.
I called my north neighbor to see if he knew who was missing goats. He didn't have a clue. Chatted with my south neighbor and he tells me that there is a herd of goats that have spent the whole summer down in the deep hollow south of us. That is pretty wild and wooly country and people have lost cows down in there for weeks at a time. I don't see how they have survived the coyotes but..... I have neighbors that I didn't know about! They are wild as deer. My dogs regularly bark and race around the edge of our woods. I thought they were hazing deer but apparently they have been keeping goats at bay. During the storm last night, the dogs moved to the garage and these 4 must have ventured out early this morning into new territory. 

The north neighbor farms our crop land for us and he called me back to see if I had found their owner. After I explained the free range goat herd, he asked me about planting wheat on our ground. Now that we have gotten rain, it might just work to get a wheat harvest and then take a risk and plant late soybeans. I told him to go for it! I will probably never make it to Vegas so I'll do my gambling at home! It can't do any worse than this year's corn crop.