OT Goats [was: RE: [TheForge] Beware the quiet welder] OT

[Peter Fels & Phoebe Palmer]

My crazy old aunt moved to the the middle of the chaparral way outside 
LA and raised her goats and her other kids, who came out quite well.
Then they ran a freeway through about a mile away and the properties 
around her began to develop. Her grazing territory slowly contracted and 
the new neighbors complained. When i last saw her, she was a small, gray 
haired woman with a pinched face, clothed from head to foot in gray, 
tattered clothing who would wander from vacant lot to vacant lot filling 
a bedspread with selected weeds that the goats preferred. The bundle, 
slung over her back, was often as big as herself. The county was on her 
case till she died...she clutched her bible to her breast through every 
confrontation...quoting verse to counter county ordnances...pf

Jeff & Leslie wrote:
> My girlfriend and I had  dairy goats about 35 years ago and kept em in a 
> three strand electric fence.  It kept em in pretty well but one doe 
> would get down her knees and slide the hot wire down her head and back 
> and crawl out.  Never could break her of it.  The pen was naturally too 
> small and we'd take the tiny herd for walks in the woods most evenings 
> and they'd have a big time eating oak leaves, blackberry vines and 
> assorted other hard plants, really didn't care for grass or hay unless 
> they were quite hungry.  They did like kudzu and I'd stop on the way 
> home from work and load the trunk of the old 58 chevy with kudzu vines 
> I'd cut with a machete.  They'd gobble up the kudzu except for the very 
> bottom of the pile, as they are too picky to eat the part that was 
> touching the ground.  That's when I discovered that kudzu has a 
> beautiful purple flower that just doesn't show above the flowers much. 
> Kudzu is known for making the milk "ropey" , but we didn't notice such, 
> perhaps because it was only a small part of their diet.
> 
> Around here herds of sheep are rented out to control kudzu and clear 
> underbrush.  The city uses em in a couple of places near me.  They come 
> in and set up an electric fence and leave the herd for a few days and 
> move it to the next place.  Fun to watch.  They have a huge dog that 
> stays with em and barks ferociously when you get too close.  Poor dog 
> carries a heavy weight around his neck to keep him from jumping the fence
> 
> Jeff Valentine
> 
> 
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