Changes At The Ranch

March was a very busy month. Not only was it very busy but a lot of changes have taken place.

A predictable change was the arrival of spring. Spring started showing up in February with warmer weather. Last year we were in a major drought, but the past few months we have been receiving regular rainfall. The rivers and lakes are still very low, but the land is seeing some rain. So when you combine warm weather and rain, nature starts sprouting everywhere. What were dry weeds and dirt only a few months ago is now land covered in lush green plants and an abundance of wildflowers.

The first spring I lived here I only saw two tiny Bluebonnet plants on this land. Last spring I saw none. This spring Bluebonnets are sprouting up everywhere. The Bluebonnet is the Texas State flower and loved by everyone. But they are not the only wildflowers to be popping up. The landscape is covered in wildflowers making it almost impossible to walk around without stepping on them. I am really enjoying looking out my windows at all the beauty surrounding the house.

The second change to occur at The Ranch was not so predictable; the spare bedroom now has a full time resident. I have mentioned my friend Rick before. He has been coming out here for the
past few months to work on a goat enclosure for me. This job has been a lot more difficult than
he ever imagined, as he has never had to build a fence in such rocky ground before. What would have taken him a few days to accomplish in San Antonio or anywhere where soil is deep, is taking him weeks of hard work here. Rick is making progress though.

Rick has made many short trips out here to work on this project since January. A few of those
trips included weekends, so Rick went to Church with me. During this time God started working on Rick. For the past year (or longer) Rick has been searching for ministry opportunities. He has preached at the San Antonio Rescue Mission, the Parole Office, and several nursing homes, but he longed for more. In the past Rick has pastured a church and worked as a Jail Chaplain. Rick just knew God had more for him to do then just preach once in awhile, but it seemed most doors were closed to him. Then Rick started attending my church with me and fell in love with the people there. He fell in love with Rocksprings. And he fell in love with the countryside out here. This place is peaceful and the more he was out here working on that fence the more he longed to remain out here. After much prayer Rick decided it was God’s will for him to move out here and help me with my work full time and minister to the folks in Rocksprings. When Rick told the Pastor at my church and several deacons of his decision, they all had the same response—“this is an answer to our prayers”. Rick is bilingual and he has already been asked to teach the Spanish language Sunday School class Easter Morning as the regular teacher will be unavailable.

Rick moved into the spare bedroom a couple of weeks ago. He has been very busy every since. His main role here will be in construction/handyman work. His to do list is growing daily and he hasn’t even finished the goat fence yet. When he is not outside working he is studying how to make solar panels and other how to manuals for the many projects that need to be built, such as cabins for people to live in. I have also provided him with literature on Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. If he is going to live here and help in the growth of Alpha Omega Christian Communities For The Chemically Injured, he needs to be educated on what this ministry is all about. Step one is to learn about the disease. His education has begun.

If taking care of cats and a goat, building a fence, along with many other jobs, and helping someone move out here was not enough to keep me busy, I also added two children to the schedule. Rick is good friends with their mother who is in the army. When spring break arrived
she was in need of someone to watch the children during the day. I said it would be okay and she drove them out here. The children spent part of the week out here ‘helping’ us work. The children again returned to The Ranch last Friday morning. Their mother needed to go out of the country for a week so we agreed to take the children again. This weekend we used the solar oven to make pizza and s’mores (graham crackers, melted marshmallows and chocolate). The children loved the food and learned all about passive solar power. We have also been teaching the children about Jesus. Sunday evening Rick took the children back home where he is babysitting
them when they are not in school. There is no school on Friday and so Thursday evening he will bring the children back to The Ranch for another lively weekend. Their mother will come pick them up Sunday evening.

South Central Texas/Texas Hill Country Weather

If you read the last few blogs it would be easy to walk away thinking it is cold in South Central Texas/Texas Hill Country, unless that is you live in North Dakota or somewhere else where it actually is cold in the winter. Not wanting to leave you with a false impression, I have decided to spend a little time on weather. It is true January 12 and February 12 were very cold days here, unusually cold days in fact. If you live in other parts of the world and want to keep close tabs on the weather here, the nearest big cities to follow would be San Antonio and Austin. Austin is in the middle of the Texas Hill Country, about 160 miles (258 km) to the east. San Antonio is about 120 miles (193 km) southeast. The local news stations that I have access to all come out of San Antonio, so I am much more familiar with their weather and how it compares to mine, then I am of Austin. Generally speaking though, there is probably not much difference between Austin and where I am, compared to San Antonio and my location. It does get colder here then San Antonio and the due to geographical conditions, snow is much more likely here then it is in San Antonio. And based on my observations over the past decade, it appears IF it is going to snow in the Texas Hill Country; it seems it more often snows where I am compared to other parts of the Hill Country. But that does not mean I live in a really cold climate, because I do not. The simple fact that it has snowed two years in a row here is very unusual and even one of the San Antonio weather forecasters remarked how unusual that is. And when it does snow here, folks often drive to where the snow is so their children can have the experience of seeing what snow looks like.

So what is normal winter weather for South Central Texas and the Texas Hill Country? The simple answer is there is no such thing as normal. The best description for the weather here is variety. To give you an example, Sunday February 12 it was cold. The temperature was 27f (-2.77c) when I got up that morning. There was no precipitation when I drove to church. But half an hour later there was snow and sleet coming down hard. When I got out of church it had stopped snowing and though the streets were covered in an icy mess, the drive home was not bad. Around 2:00pm it started raining and continued to rain all day and all night. Sunday’s high was 32f (0c). To my surprise the ground remained covered in snow turned to ice all day. Usually the ground is to warm for anything to stick and with all the rain I fully expected it to melt, but it never did.

Monday morning I was up and dressed by 5:00am, as I had promised to drive some married friends to Fredericksburg (84 miles/135 km) for routine medical screening tests (the kind they put you to sleep while they conduct them). When I got up the temperature outside was 34f (1c) and there was still a thick layer of ice everywhere. Once on the county highway, it is only a little over 3 miles to the east before reaching the next county. It seemed as soon as we drove into the next county the road conditions really improved. The ice disappeared and except for some dense fog, it was easy driving. We never again saw ice. It took us a little over an hour to get to Kerrville (64 miles/ 103 km) and by then the temperature had risen to 39f (3.8c). It was about 2:00pm when we finally got home and by then it was sunny and getting warm. I had a sweatshirt on and outside I was a little too warm (I left my coat in the house).

Tuesday morning it was cool and I did put on a coat when I went outside to feed the animals around 7:15am, but it did not take long to warm up. It was sunny all day and sunny days mean it will warm up quickly. By 9:00am all I had on was a sweatshirt. It was already to warm for a coat. I know the high temperature here was 72f (22c).

It is now early Wednesday morning. The sun has been up for less than an hour. The temperature outside is 58f (14c). It is cloudy with a chance of rain, but should be clearing out by noon and sunny this afternoon. We are expected to reach the low 70’s (21c-23c).

So there you have it, typical South Central Texas/Texas Hill Country weather is never typical. It can be freezing one day and hot the next. So if you hate cold weather and it is a cold day here, it won’t be cold for that long. And while folks in the northern states are just dreaming of when they can plant their vegetable garden, those of us here are already preparing. There is still a chance of a hard freeze so it is still a bit early to plant that garden, but many of us have already started the process.

(It is easy to cover these pots with some sheets when freeze warnings are issued.)

Update: Around 8:30am I decided to take a break from writing and go outside to get a little work done and let the goat graze. I wore only a long sleeve shirt; it was just too warm for a coat. Clouds did move in and it got breezy but rain never appeared. It is now closing in on 2:30pm. It is 68f (20c) outside, but passive solar heating has heated the house to 75f (24c). I learned a long time ago that the sun actually feels hotter here then it does farther north. So I know 68f is actually warm enough for short sleeves. No matter what, 75f is a short sleeve temperature. So there you have it.

Sunday morning it snowed and three days later on Wednesday I am wearing a short sleeve top. Now that is typical winter weather here.

Winter On The Ranch

A week ago my friend Rick came out for another week of working on the ranch. The current project is to build a goat enclosure. That requires a fence, which is easier said than done. Soil is at a premium here and rocks are plentiful. We rented a jack hammer and started digging holes. After 3 days of hard work and sore muscles we got a good start on half the holes. Rick is use to building city fences where there is soil. So this has been asking people a lot of questions, observing fences along the highway, and learning a lot. Saturday he went home, but it should not be long before he returns to continue the work.

It doesn’t happen often but occasionally the temperatures drop to the freezing range. It did so today (Sunday). To make this event even rarer, it came with precipitation. Here are a few photos I took today when I got home from church.

The fence posts are the beginnings of Lawn Mower's new enclosure. She will have about 1/4 acre to roam.

Lawn Mower was probably born last March or April. So this is her first snow. I gave her some more alfalfa upon returning home from church because what I gave her this morning is covered in snow/ice.

The snow is not fazing the cats at all.

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.

An Untypical Typical Day

My day usually begins the same way. I wake up, turn on the light, get out of bed and head for the thermostat to turn up the heat. I usually set the thermostat for 62f at night so the house is usually pretty cold when I wake up. I have a space heater in my bedroom which I run at night when the temperature outside is low, which it was last night. After resetting the thermostat for 68f, I return to my warm bed.

Especially during the winter months, I am usually awake long before the sun even thinks about rising. So while I am waiting for the house to heat up I like to open my Bible and start reading from where I left off the day before. I enjoy snuggling under the covers, listening to the night sounds that I may hear, and contemplating on God’s Word and praying. It is such a peaceful time.

Right now in the earth’s solar cycle the sun starts to peek over the horizon around 7:05am. If I am up early, once the house is warmer I venture out of my bedroom and into the kitchen. I am a tea drinker so my first task is to make myself a nice warm cup of tea. Once that is accomplished it is time to make breakfast. While enjoying a warm breakfast I turn on the computer.

As soon as it is light enough outside I throw on my jeans and a coat and I am out the door to take care of the animals. I used to do this task in my PJ’s but somehow they kept getting muddy and wet so I now always put jeans on. This morning is extra cold, 31f with a wind chill factor of 13f, so I really bundle up. I put on a sweatshirt over my PJ top, then my winter coat, followed by an orange padded windbreaker and an orange knitted hat.

Often I am greeted at the front door by Tiger and Little Bit, the first two “employees” to come work at the ranch. Their job is rodent control. They have been here for 13 months and are very diligent workers. There has been a substantial decrease in rodents, especially mice, since arriving. I would much rather pay for their food and pet them on a regular basis then buy mouse traps and remove dead mice from the house.

The cats have wonderful accommodations in a cabin, turned kitty condo. Every morning I walk out to the kitty condo and scoop some food out of a bag and pour into their bowls. It does not matter if their bowls were empty or not, both cats will jump onto the counter and start feasting. I never leave without petting each kitty. Not only am I giving them love and attention, but I am feeling for prickly pear stickers or anything else that may be in their fur which needs to be removed.

After attending to the cats I turn my attention to the newest “employee”, Lawn Mower. Her job is weed removal and lawn mowing; she is also doing an excellent job. She has almost cleaned out all the weeds from the vegetable garden and I am expecting her to finish that job by planting season. Since her arrival I have spoken to several goat ranchers and consulted with a vet tech, so I am gaining some knowledge in goat care. I have also done some research on the Internet and for those who are interested, there is a great forum called The Goat Spot. On the advice of the vet tech I gave Lawn Mower a CD/T vaccination (Tetanus, Clostridium, Perfringens). I had never vaccinated anything before in my life, so this was a new experience. The hard part was trying to grab some skin on her rear end, as she kept turning around to look at me. But I eventually accomplished the goal. She didn’t even act like she felt a thing

Both the vet tech and the goat rancher instructed me to feed Lawn Mower about 1/2 cup of pellets twice a day. I have no idea what is in those pellets but she clearly loves them. Feeding her at first was a challenge because she refused to eat them off the ground. The first couple days I poured them onto a plastic frozen dinner tray and she gobbled them down, but she quickly started refusing to eat them. Not wanting the pellets to go to waste (they dissolve in rain), I stopped giving them to her. But somehow I discovered she would eat them out of my hand. Hand feeding a goat in the dark (Sunday mornings) or when it is cold and raining outside is no fun. The next time I drove to Kerrville I visited ranch style stores looking for a solution. The very last store I stopped at, a feed store, had just the perfect thing, a food trough/bowl that hooks to the fence. And the best part is Lawn Mower will eat out of it. So twice a day I pour her pellets into the feeder and she happily gobbles them down.

This morning is one of those cold miserable mornings that I do not want to be out in so I also threw a handful of alfalfa in the garden for Lawn Mower to munch on. She doesn’t need much as she also has some cedar branches to eat (she loves cedar needles). But since I knew it would be afternoon IF I decide to go outside to work (and let her out of the garden to graze), I wanted to give her some extra food in the morning.

Now that the goat was happily eating, I went off to check the rain gauge. As expected it is empty except for some dead bugs that somehow have fallen in and couldn’t get out. I dump the bugs out.

Usually I would return to the warm house but this morning’s sunrise is gorgeous and I have to take a few pictures. Then I return to the warm house, take all the coats, hat, and jeans off and put my PJ bottoms back on. I then log onto the CocoRaHS web site and record my rain gauge total.

It is one of those really cold cloudy mornings and the house just feels cold to me. It amazes me how much warmer the house feels when the sun shines through the windows, but today there is no sun. So I grab a magazine, return to my warm bed where the blankets and space heater keeps me toasty warm, and start reading.

Around 8:30am I suddenly remember the turkey. Last year I purchased 16 poults (baby turkeys). A friend raised the poults and in return I got some turkey meat and she got her foot in the door at being a turkey rancher. She had been raising chickens for eggs and meat for several years and was eager to start raising turkeys, but she could not afford the initial purchase. So we went in together. Turkey’s are a lot harder to raise I have learned and half the poults did not make it. A few months ago she selected the two largest birds and together we butchered them. Well, she actually butchered them and I assisted. The two turkeys have been in a neighbor’s freezer but recently I decided it was time to thaw one out and cook it. Because the friend did not want to pluck the turkeys by hand, she simply skinned it, which means roasting the turkey’s in the oven is out of the question. So this morning I removed the legs, thighs, and wings from the turkey and threw it in the crock pot with some vegetables.

Once that job was complete, I returned to my warm room. After a little reading and some phone calls, I decided to bring this computer into the bedroom. I cannot get online in my bedroom, which is a bummer, but I still have plenty of computer work to do.

The mail arrives around 11:00am and so I eventually put some clothes on and drove down to the mailbox. My weekly newspaper arrives on Thursday and I wanted to pick it up. Since it is a mile to the mailbox, I only pick it up a few times each week. Once back home I read the newspaper and then back to the computer.

Around 2:00pm for the first time today I noticed the sun shining through the window. I went checked to see the outside temperature and was pleased it finally warmed up to 40f. I normally prefer to go outside and work when the temperature is above 50f, but today I knew it was not going to get that warm. So I put on several coats and my orange knitted hat and ventured outdoors.

My first stop outdoors is to let Lawn Mower out to graze. I grabbed the 20 foot chain I attach to her collar and then headed for the garden. As soon as she saw me coming she ran up to the gate and started bleating. She always jumps on the gate but has learned to get down so I will open the gate. I then put her chain lease on, say okay, and off she runs to her favorite cedar tree to start eating.

By now both cats show up. I know they have been sleeping in the cabin all day, but when I am outside they like to be with me. I bend over and pet each of them quickly and then off to work. Right now I am working on three major projects.

1. Burning the many piles of dead cedar trees the previous owners left behind. A few days before Christmas the county finally lifted the burn ban and so like so many folks out here I have started setting those piles on fire to get rid of them. So far I have eliminated 5 piles, but there are many more to burn.
2. Collecting rocks for two major projects. One project is a raised garden bed inside the garden. The other project is a goat shelter I hope to build out of rocks/stones.
3. The third project is building a goat enclosure. That requires installing a fence and building the goat shelter.

Today I collect a few rocks and spend some time scraping dirt off a sheet of rock that will form the floor of the goat pen. Instead of laying down cement, nature has laid down a rock so large it can never be moved and will work great as a floor. I also take some time out to pet Tiger and Little Bit.

While I am working I keep an eye on Lawn Mower. She is just happy to be out and spends time running around and finding stuff to eat. Today she wants to be close to me so every time I walk to a different spot, such as to get a drink, she comes running. Then when she sees I am walking back to where I had been working a few minutes ago, she runs back to wherever it was she had been to continue eating. Lawn Mower clearly enjoys this cooler weather. But I don’t so after about an hour I put her back inside the garden. It is early but I know I won’t want to come back outside so I go ahead and feed Lawn Mower her afternoon pellets, which she gobbles down. I also give the cats a little bit more food and then I come inside the warm house.

When I come inside I smell the aroma of the turkey in the crock pot. I glance at the clock and know it is about done. I get the meat thermometer which confirms, dinner is done. I turn the crock pot off, but I am not hungry yet so I let the turkey just sit there.

Before going outside I had put the computer back on the dining room table where I normally keep it. Even though the sun had only been out for less than 30 minutes, I decide not to return to the bedroom but just work at the dining room table with a throw on my lap. I spent the rest of the day working on the computer, watching a few hours of TV, eating dinner, and reading.

Tomorrow is supposed to be even colder, so I have a feeling I will be spending some of the morning in my bedroom reading. Oh well, it won’t be long before the sun is up before I am done with breakfast and I am out the door before it gets too hot to be outside.

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.

How A Goat Challenged My Faith

Last March after spending $3000 to have an eight foot fence installed, I planted my first real garden. I have grown a few vegetables in pots over the years on apartment balconies, but I now had real space to grow food. So I planted lots of seeds and started watering daily. Due to the Texas heat and extreme drought, most of my vegetable crop never made it. Many seeds never germinated and others just failed to grow. My corn did well the first few months but when it came time to start producing ears, it simply got burned up in the hot sun. When my tomato plants failed to grow, I went to a nursery in Kerrville and purchased baby plants. At first they seemed to be doing well, but one day all the plants disappeared. One plant did have a stump sticking above the dirt, but another plant, roots and all, simply vanished. Later that month I watched in shock as a porcupine squeezed through the holes of the fence. My next winter project will be to wrap chicken wire around the bottom of the fence to keep small critters from getting inside and having lunch.

One of my goals with the garden was to share, which I was able to do. While most folk’s garden failed them this year, mine did not. Maybe the difference was that when I planted my garden I prayed over it, asking God to bless it so I could help those in need. That prayer was answered as I took bags of zucchini and cucumbers into town. I also made multiple loaves of zucchini bread which I shared with friends. I also harvested arugula, mesclun salad greens, and basil. So though it was not a roaring success as I had hoped for, I did have a pretty good crop, better than anyone else I know of out here.

I joked a lot about my best crop, which I did not plant. Since I had to hand water the garden every day, grass and other weeds started growing abundantly. By the time I was able to purchase some good weeding tools, I had 4 to 5 feet tall grass growing in and around the garden plot. Grass and weeds started growing elsewhere too. The task of removing all that grass seemed overwhelming. I did spend a few hours for several days trying to remove some of the grass but it quickly became clear it was going to take weeks to remove it all. I knew there was an easier way, goats.

Goats will eat anything down to the root and there are thousands of goats in Edwards Co. The problem was how to get a goat. The chances of a goat just wandering into my yard and following me into the garden was so unlikely that though I fantasize about it I did not expect it to ever happen. The nearest sheep (who are pickier eaters) live about a mile away, and goats are over 2 miles away. When the opportunity presented itself I did speak to someone who raises goats and so I knew there was a possibility she might bring over a goat or two, but first my garden needed to close shop for the winter.

So for the past few months I have had goats on my mind, especially when I see all that grass and weeds taking over the garden. I think about goats when I push the grass aside looking for cucumbers that are hiding or arugula needing to be picked. I wonder if I have waited too long to request a goat when I search for the basil among the tall grass.

Well, Friday evening my problem was solved when I looked outside my window and spotted a goat walking by. In shock, I threw my coat and shoes on and went outside to greet my very friendly visitor. At first she kept her distance, but within a few minutes she started following me everywhere I went, which was straight into the garden. My new female friend was very happy as long as I stayed in the garden with her. She was like a little puppy dog, following me everywhere, rubbing her head and horns against me, and eating my weeds.

I immediately called the authorities to report a lost goat. Then I started calling my friends and neighbors. Someone had to be missing a goat but I as I write this I have no idea who owns her. There is always the possibility the owner doesn’t even know she is missing.

It is now early Saturday morning and the sun has not even risen yet. The goat has spent the night in the garden; I am guessing curled up somewhere sleeping. My plans are to leave her there tell either I find the owner, or more likely—find someone with goats who is willing to take her until the owner is found or keep her permanently.

It is not going to take her very long to eat up all my vegetable plants, weeds, grass, etc. Once the garden is cleaned out, which depending on her appetite could be sometime today or tomorrow at the latest, she will be out of food and so she cannot remain in the garden. (I did provide her with a five gallon bucket of water.) Without any other way to secure her, she could wander off onto neighboring property all of which is owned by hunters. For her own safety I need to find better accommodations quickly.

I will share the rest of the story later, after it has happened. Let me just close with this—we should never underestimate God. I hoped for a goat to clean out my garden but I did not really pray about God sending me a goat because it seemed like pie in the sky wishful thinking. A goat just wandering into my yard was too improbable, and yet God provided me with a goat. Not only did God send me a goat, he sent me one that is affectionate and doesn’t want to leave my side, and thus was willing to follow me into the fenced garden. I thought I would have to solve the grass problem myself by seeking someone with goats willing to lend me one, but God had the last laugh.

(Matthew 14:31) “And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?’

(Matthew 17:20) “If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, Move from here to there. And it shall move. And nothing shall be impossible to you.”

(Mark 9:24b) “Lord, I Help my unbelief.”