The Spare Bedroom

It is hard to believe that I am living in the last few hours of the first month of the year. Where did January go?

When I purchased this ranch I did so with a purpose in mind, to help those individuals who are ill, homeless, and seeking God for healing. That is still the goal even though it seems more of my time is spent these days taking care of animals then my other tasks. The truth is all is important.

I occasionally get contacted by someone with MCS looking for housing or someone who knows someone with MCS who is homeless. The spare bedroom is still available but so far no one has made the decision to come live out here. It amazes me how many people are terrified of being in the country. Before buying this property I knew a lot of folks with MCS were living in the woods or camp grounds because of MCS, and so I expected it would not be long before someone (or many folks) would request to come out to the ranch. But that has not happened. The only explanation I can come up with is that folks living in the woods or desert do not have access to the Internet, where folks living in the city do. Also, most of my friends live in the city and so when they contact me about someone, that person is already in the city and may not want to leave. This month alone two separate friends contacted me about someone they are currently helping who has MCS and is homeless. I told them the spare bedroom is available, but I have not heard back. In the end, I know God will send just the right person at just the right time.

Since no one is currently living in that spare bedroom, it is available for friends and volunteers to stay in. This month my friend, Rick, used that room during eight days of volunteer work. He came out here to do a few maintenance repairs and help me build a goat pen. Once complete, the goat will have a nice home to hang out in. The first step in building a goat pen is to clear the area of cedar trees so we have a place to put a fence. We borrowed a friend/neighbor’s chain saw and started cutting down Mountain Cedar trees. No one likes Cedar trees, which are actually in the juniper family. They suck tons of water out of the ground, prevent other trees and plants from growing, and cause bad allergies. We started cutting down trees Wednesday afternoon and finished Friday afternoon. While Rick sawed the multiple limbs/trunks of each tree, I dragged and carried the branches away. By the end of the week I had formed six huge piles of cedar to burn. Even though all the cedar piles are green, we did succeed in burning one pile. The other piles refused to burn, but their day will come.

Rick had to return home that Saturday but he is planning on returning in February for the next phase of the project, building a fence. This land is very rocky and one does not need to go very deep to hit bedrock. So digging holes for the fence poles will probably require renting a jack hammer. Rick has built many fences in his life and is spending this time at home doing research on how best to build a fence in this type of terrain. Hopefully the pen will be finished in time for Lawn Mower the goat to be removed from the garden so I can once again plant a spring vegetable garden in there.

Besides building a fence, Lawn Mower will need shelter from storms. I have scraped dirt and rocks off a large sheet of rock that will make a nice floor to her shelter. The plan is to build her a shelter using available materials, rocks. There are rocks everywhere here so why not build a shelter using those rocks, instead of going out and spending money on wood. In preparation every time I spot a good rock I pick it up and relocate it to where her shelter will be built. Thankfully garden wagons make that task a little easier.

You might be thinking to yourself why am I going to all this work and expense for a pet goat? Why not just get rid of her. Yes, Lawn Mower is clearly a pet. She is very attached to me and acts more like a dog then livestock. The reason is simply, God gave her to me. Not long after Lawn Mower showed up I started receiving offers from folks happy to take her off my hands. When it became clear I was not going to find her original owner, I started praying to God about what to do with her and the message came back loud and clear that she was mine. So at the urging of a friend I named her. I also started learning about goat care. If I am going to own a goat I want to take proper care of her. I know from talking to experts she is receiving proper nutrition. I can tell she is happy. But I also know she is lonely. Goats are herd animals and she needs a friend. I have put the word out that I am willing to take a kid that has been abandoned by its mother (or the mother had triplets and therefore is unable to care for a third baby as goats only have two teats). Ranchers like to breed their goats so the babies are born in the spring and so I may have two goats in a few months.

I have also learned there is a lot of money in goats, especially boar goats, which is what Lawn Mower is. Boar goats were developed in South Africa as a meat goat. I have been told I could possibly get $150 for Lawn Mower at a stock show. I have a lot to learn still but the idea of breeding Lawn Mower and selling her kids has crossed my mind. That would help recoup the money I have spent on her. Also, there is the possibility of goat meat being on the table in the future when more folks are living out here. Lawn Mower will never be sacrificed, but maybe she is the beginning of something bigger. Only time will tell.

So even though no one is currently living here except for me, that spare bedroom is getting used. Anyone else desiring to spend a few days in the country and do some work for the Lord is welcome to come out, just let me know. I will also entertain renting the room out to someone who just wants to be out in the country for a few days of peace and quiet. And when the time comes that someone needs that room for housing, there is a twin bed in the office, the couch folds out into a double bed, and I have air matters that can be blown up and thrown down on the floor for more beds. So if a family wants to come out and volunteer for the weekend, just let me know. There is plenty to do out here, besides building a goat pen.

The Goat Story Continues

It’s been about three and a half weeks now since I looked out my kitchen window to see a goat walking by. As I sat here figuring out the time line, I am actually shocked, for it seems more like several months that I have had her. During the first two weeks I attempted to locate her owner. I placed a sign up by the mail boxes, alerted several business owners in case they overheard something, and placed a notice in the local weekly paper. Then I waited. The goat was never tattooed or tagged in any way, and without such identifying markers there is no way to know who the original owner is unless they come forward.

The first hint I had of this goat’s origins came that first Monday afternoon. As I was driving back home from visiting a neighbor I was flagged down by a passing motorist. The woman in the truck asked me if I had seen a Great Dane. I said “no, but I did find a goat”. That perked her interest and she requested to follow me home. It turns out her dog and my goat was last seen together the previous Friday afternoon. The two friends then took off. My house is one mile from the mail boxes and 1.8 miles to the east of those mail boxes is where this woman lives. Fencing forced the two to follow the roads. I never saw the dog and neither has anyone I know. As far as I know the dog is still missing. But we all know where the goat went.

Soon the paper came out with notices of a lost dog and a found goat. As each day passed with no one calling it seemed more and more likely that I was now the owner of a goat. I started praying about what I should do with this goat. Offers were starting to flow in from people willing to take her off my hands. A retired neighbor who used to own goats said they had a pen I could put the goat in if I decided to keep her. The woman with the lost dog had planned to give the goat to a relative, as the goat had spent several days at her place causing problems before taking off. So I could always give it to her relative. Then a friend put me in touch with a goat rancher who gave me lots of advice on caring for my new pet. He also told me if I decide to get rid of her he would be more than happy to come pick her up. Then finally a county worker putting up Christmas decorations in front of the County Courthouse said she could provide a good home for the goat, even promising me the goat would never go to the stock yards to be butchered.

Faced with all these prospects and the possibility of never finding the owner, I started praying about what to do with this goat. That is when I sensed God telling me the goat is mine. I never heard any words; I just felt I was to keep this goat. Before then I had assumed I would have to find her a place for her to live since she cannot stay in the vegetable garden forever. Goats and vegetable plants do not mix. With this change of heart and thinking, I decided I better start learning about goat care.

During a trip to town (Rocksprings) I stopped by the County Agriculture Extension office, where I was given some information on raising 4-H goats. I came home and started reading the fliers. There is a lot of work that goes into raising an animal for 4-H, most of which I do not need to worry myself about, but it was interesting reading about it.

While I sat in my living room reading the literature my phone rang. It was a woman who lived in Rocksprings (15 miles/24.14km away). She had just gotten back into town from visiting family over the Thanksgiving Holiday, and had read the notice of a lost goat. It turns out her goat had disappeared from her yard several weeks earlier. The family had driven all over town looking for the goat but never saw any sign of her. Since her goat had never made any attempt to get out of the yard before and was always locked up at night, they feared she had been stolen. A lot of what she shared about her goat sounded a lot like the goat I had found, but the distance made both of us wonder. Still, it had to be checked out. Her goat was a female boar-cross. I had found a female boar-cross (probably crossed with a Spanish goat). Her goat was a sancho, so was mine. I had learned just the previous week a sancho is a bottle-fed goat and use to being around humans, more of a pet then livestock. Only the issue of the distance made both of us pause. Unless it was an adolescent joke, why would anyone steal a goat and then drop it off in the middle of nowhere? Clearly, in this case a picture is worth a thousand words and I gave her my email address so a picture could be sent to me.

I would spend an anxious night waiting for a picture of the goat. I thought God had told me this was my goat. Had I been wrong? Everyone had told me I probably would never know where she came from, were they wrong? Did the goat I was now viewing as my goat really belong to this woman in town? If so she had a right to come fetch the goat.

The next morning I stared at the picture of a baby goat being bottled fed. I analyzed the photo and then went looked at my goat. There were a lot of similarities but it was clearly not the same goat. I was relieved I was not going to lose the goat I had now become fond of, but sad for this woman and her family. When I informed her it was not the same goat, I learned she now had to call her grandson with the bad news. I really did feel bad for them and have prayed they find their goat, but most likely it was stolen and would never be seen again.

So now I own a goat, which I have named Lawn Mower, who is living up to her name. In the past three weeks I have learned if sold at the stock yards she could easily fetch $150, but she is not for sale. I also have been informed I need to get another goat so she has company. Since ranchers often want to get rid of sancho’s, I assume it is only a matter of time before God brings me a second goat. Most ranchers breed goats in the fall so they will have their babies in the spring. In all likelihood, Lawn Mower was born last March or April. How she wound up alone in the middle of the country is anyone’s guess. It is possible someone bought her for their children and then decided she was too much work and just dumped her. I will never know.

On December 2, I drove to San Antonio to attend a Christmas party. I returned with a friend who came out to fix some things around the place. While here a hard freeze rolled in and we woke up that Monday to a light dusting of snow on all elevated surfaces. Before Thanksgiving I had hung some tarps on the garden fence to act as a windbreak for Lawn Mower, but she needed some shelter. Without any trees or structures to hide under she had no protection from the elements. So that Monday my friend and I, using more tarps, thick long cedar branches, and some metal roofing that laid around the ranch, we built Lawn Mower a pen. It is only makeshift and can be easily removed come spring. But for now she has a dry place to sleep. This morning when I went outside to do my morning chores I found her asleep in her makeshift pen.