The Lord Keeps On Giving

Life with the goats has become routine now that their home is basically finished.  Unlike the garden where they were hanging out, their new enclosure has plenty of weeds for grazing (and I planted some Bermuda grass) so I no longer have to buy hay for them anymore.   I also have been counting the days tell Midnight, my little Black Spanish buck is weaned.
     

We still have a few tasks to do but since the main purpose of AOCCCI is people, not ranching, our focus has changed to other urgent tasks.  This week we have been clearing land of Cedar trees so an electric pole can be installed for the cabins that eventually will be built.   We spend our mornings out working in the heat and our afternoons inside working and resting where it is cool. 

   

We were in the middle of our lunch, looking forward to resting from the exhausting work, when the phone call came.  When I answered the phone my friend simply said, “Do you want another kid?”  I looked across the table and asked Rick, “He wants to know if we want another kid?”  Rick jokingly asked me “whose kid?”  Rick’s attitude was “If God is going to supply we should accept”.  So I told our friend yes, and an hour later he arrived with the newest addition to our little goat family.   One look and I knew we had a Boar goat.  Upon further investigation it appears we have another boy, a buck.  Rick wants to name him Spot because it appears he has some spots on him, and it will confuse people since Spot is usually a dog’s name. 

His first feeding.

He was born this morning.

Feeding Time

New Digs

Today marks a mile stone here at The Ranch.  Today the goats were moved into their new digs.  There is still some work left to do such as painting the fence posts, finishing up the loafing shelter for the goats and building them some toys to climb and play on.  But the fence is complete and so this morning we moved their things into the new goat enclosure.  I can already tell the goats are much happier in their new digs.  They went from the garden which has no shade and nothing left to eat in it to a quarter acre enclosure with trees for shade, plenty of weeds and grass to munch on, room to run around in, and space to just be by one self if desired. 

God Thinks Of Everything

I admit it, I am basically lazy.  I hate house cleaning; I hate weeding; in fact I hate doing a lot of things that just must be done.  So last year as I looked out in my vegetable garden at all the weeds and dying vegetable plants, I dreaded the chore a head.  But heck, this is goat country.  There are thousands of goats, along with sheep and cows that live in the area.  Why not borrow a few goats and let them do all the work.  That is when I started fantasying on borrowing a few goats and looking for an opportunity.  God though had a totally different plan. 
    
It was the middle of November that a Boer doe wandered into my yard.  Shocked, I ran out and led her into the garden to start doing that dreaded chore for me.  After failing to find her owner, I prayed and sensed the Lord telling me she is mine.  At the urging of a friend I decided to name her Lawn Mower.

   

I grew up with cats and dogs, and even a parakeet, but never goats.  So I started talking to the ranchers at church, found a vet and asked questions.  I also found a great site, The Goat Spot, where I could ask questions and read others posts.  One of the first things I was told is it would be good to get her a companion.  Goats are social animals and do better in groups.  So I started praying for a friend for Lawn Mower.

       

I will admit I was jealous when I learned a friend from church had found a baby goat in the middle of the road while driving home one evening.  There were no other goats in the area and guessing the little girl was only days old, my friend put her on the passenger side seat and took her home.  My friend’s teenage daughter named her Bambi and made it very clear she fully intended to keep the goat.

   

That was back in February.  This same family was given another newborn goat two months later in April.  The daughter was delighted but her father was not.  The daughter talked about showing one or both of the goats in 4-H shows, but was never home to provide any care for either of the goats.  Her father, who is retired, was forced to bottle feed both goats as no one else was ever home to do it.  

   

The second goat was just a little over 2 weeks old when I got the call.  The daughter finally agreed to give the little guy up.  I hopped into the car and drove the 16 miles to their home to get him.  A solid black Spanish buck greeted me in the yard. 

   

It was the end of April when I brought him home and named him Midnight. About a month later, nearing the end of May I got the second call. The father was fed up and I could have Bambi too. Once again I hopped into my car and drove the 16 miles to pick her up. Now my goat family was complete.

One look at Lawn Mower and everyone knew she is a Boer goat.  No question what so ever. All I had to do was describe her to folks and they would say she sounded like a Boer.  When I brought Midnight home a neighbor rancher was picking up his mail so I stopped and showed him my new goat.  He told me I had a little Spanish boy, after checking to see the gender.  But Bambi was a mystery.  My friends were clueless as to what kind of goat she is.  The few people who came by and looked at her also did not know.  I did not know either.  So I took some pictures, went over to The Goat Spot, and asked other goat experts.  That is when I found out Bambi is Nubian/Alpine/ and ???.  Basically she is a dairy goat.  Boer and Spanish goats are raised for meat.  Nubian and Alpine’s are dairy goats. 
   

I am learning other things about these breeds too.  Boer goats are popular meat goats and any kid with Boer in it is worth a lot of money.  They are big strong goats that were developed in South Africa.  My Boer is a doe (female). 

  

A friend told me Boer bucks (male) can be mean, even cruel towards does even if they are still nursing kids (baby goats).  She told me they use to have a Boer buck and he would force the does to the ground, forcefully breed, endangering her kids.  She made her husband get rid of the Boer buck and replace him with a Spanish buck.  My little buck is a Spanish goat.  Spanish goats are also meat goats.

   

Nubians and Alpines produce a lot of milk.  Of course only does produce the milk and I have a doe.  I guess I better purchase a book on Dairy goats and get ready to start learning how to milk a goat come spring or summer.

   

God just thinks of everything.  He provided AOCCCI with meat goats to raise and sell more meat goats.  He provided AOCCCI with a dairy goat so we could have goat’s milk and raise more dairy goats.  If you would have told me eight months ago I would soon be in the goat business I would not have believed you.  But here I am caring for free three goats and marveling at what God has provided.  He does think of everything.

Who is Rick Sanchez and Midnight?

Recently it occurred to me that I should share a little about Rick Sanchez since he is now living at The Ranch.  Rick was born in 1947 and spent his childhood in San Antonio, TX.  He attended Catholic school through the fifth grade and then attended public school.  He came of age during the Vietnam War, and since he didn’t know any Vietnamese decided he was not interested in going over to Vietnam to fight.  So he joined the Coast Guard where he served for four years.   On March 4, 1973 for the first time Rick heard and understood the gospel and turned his life over to Jesus.  His life has never been the same since.

         

During his lifetime Rick has worked in a variety of fields, everything from Commodities Trading, selling door to door, engineering, Real Estate sales, to construction.  He was ordained into the ministry in 1975 and served a senior chaplain in the jail system of Omaha Nebraska till 1983.  During that time he also pastured two churches.  After leaving Omaha he continued in ministry by preaching at parole offices, homeless missions, nursing homes, and anywhere the Lord opened up.
      

During the late 80’s Rick began working in situations that required him to travel to Mexico.  It was then that he first learned Spanish which has served him well ever since.  Around 1989 he moved to Mexico where he worked as a consultant helping many big companies solve their engineering problems.  It was with much remorse that he had to leave this very lucrative work, but a phone call from his father asking him to return to San Antonio to take care of ailing parents led Rick to do just that.  He would spend ten years of his life caring for his parents full time and working for himself as a handyman and remodeling contractor.  Rick’s mother passed away in 2006 and his father in 2011 at age 96.  Rick has three sons from different marriages, but no daughters.

      

I first met Rick at church in San Antonio.  At first he was just another person in my Sunday School class but circumstances caused us to start sitting together in church.  Slowly we got to know each other and soon were good friends.  Back in 2010 he helped me move all my belongings out here, driving the U-Hall truck and making several trips with me.  I will always be indebted for the help I received my first few months moving out here as he was able to help me with a number of problems I encountered such as water well repairs, turning on the electricity and propane tank, and a number of minor maintenance issues.  Several months after I moved out here his father’s health took a turn for the worst and Rick was unable to leave San Antonio again until after his father’s passing.

     

It was a Friday evening in November (2011) that I looked out my kitchen window and saw a goat.  That December Rick volunteered to come out and build me a goat enclosure.  Little did he know the job would be much tougher then he could imagine.  He has built lots of fences in San Antonio, all in soil.  There is very little soil here but lots of rock.  Rick assumed building me a fence would be a quick job until he got out here and started working.  Multiple trips out here later, Rick began feeling God was calling him to relocate to The Ranch and serve Him by helping me with a number of projects and ministering to others in Rocksprings.

        

Rick though is not the only new resident here.  Soon after I knew I was suppose to keep the goat that showed up in my yard last November, I named her Lawn Mower and started educating myself about goats and their care.  One of the first things I learned is they are herd animals and do best with other goats.  It didn’t take to many months before I knew Lawn Mower needed a friend.  God gave me one free goat; He could easily give me second goat for free, especially since this is goat country.  So Rick and I started praying for a second goat. 
     

Most ranchers breed their goats and sheep so they give birth sometime in the spring (February through April).  At times it has been tough to wait on God, especially as I have seen kids and lambs with their mother’s grazing in the fields and knew time was running out to find or be given an orphaned kid.  One day in mid April it occurred to me if I was to get a kid that very day I would have nothing to feed it.  So Rick and I drove to Kerrville and bought needed supplies at a Livestock feed store.  The Bible says faith without action is dead.  I had now put into action my faith that God would provide me a playmate for Lawn Mower. 

        
Not long after that trip a friend was given a 2 day old black Spanish-mix kid.  I will admit I was jealous.  This friend already had a kid that they had found wandering in the road and now they had two.  All I could do was pray.  If God meant one of these kids to come live here it would happen.  If not, I knew at the right time the right kid would show up.  I just had to keep believing God would answer my prayer for another goat.  Last Monday, April 30, God answered that prayer when my friend  called me and said the family had made a decision and if I still wanted a goat I could have their little black kid.  I immediately jumped into my car and went picked him up.  The kid did not officially have a name yet, but one of the names he was being called was “Midnight”, which Rick and I both liked and decided to officially name him.  Today Midnight turned 3 weeks old.

   

So now The Ranch is home to six: Rick and I, Little Bit and Tiger (cats), and Lawn Mower and Midnight (goats).

Work Continues On The Goat Enclosure

According to the calendar it is still spring, but it already feels like summer.  Last week we finally gave up working in the afternoon due to the heat.  In case you missed the past few posts, we include Rick Sanchez and me.  After much prayer Rick decided God was leading him to move out here to help me with the many building projects that need to be accomplished and to minister to others in a variety of ways. 

        

Rick has been working on this first project for months now.  At first he thought installing a goat fence would be easy until he came out here and discovered soil is scarce but rock (including bedrock) is plentiful.  But after many months of work, talking to others in the area about local fence building techniques, and purchasing a lot of new tools, this week Rick finally dug his last hole.  He still has a few more support posts to weld and then he will be done with stage one of installing a fence for a goat enclosure. 

    

Up until this past week we were able to work outside most of the day, but our afternoon highs are now reaching into the 90’sF (32C and higher).  So starting this past week we have had to resort to indoor activities during the hot afternoons.  So our pattern has been to work all morning, come in for lunch and then rest and work inside until supper.  After supper the sun is no longer overhead and therefore not beating down on us, so we can resume working outdoors until dusk.

     

While Rick has been digging holes and then pouring concrete around pipe and t-posts, I have been scraping dirt off a slab of rock which will form the foundation of a goat shelter.  Once again this job proved easier said than done.  I purchased a flat shovel for scrapping up the dirt.  I would use a hoe to break up the dirt and then by hand push the dirt onto the shovel as roots and rocks often prevented me from sliding the shovel under all the dirt.  Due to abundance of rocks around here, roots are often very shallow and therefore make the project more difficult.  I also had to pick out anywhere from 10 to 30 rocks per each shovel-full of dirt.  That is no exaggeration.  The rocks ranged from large (requiring two hands to pick them up) to the size of a green pea.  Sometimes it feels like for every rock I picked out of the wheelbarrow, five more would spontaneously form.  

    

Stage one of building a goat shelter is to remove the dirt down to the bedrock and I too am nearing the completion of this stage.   I have a little over a foot more to go and then I too will be done with stage one.  Then Rick will anchor three 4 by 4’s to the bedrock.  Once he is done I will start hauling caliche to form the floor of the shelter as the floor must be elevated so when it rains the shelter will not flood. Goats do not like to get their hooves wet.  At first I thought about pouring cement to even out and raise the floor, but upon further study learned that cement is hard on goat hooves.  Caliche is dirt and rock made up of sodium nitrate and/or calcium-carbonate which occurs naturally in this part of the country and South America.  It packs down hard and is often used for shelter floors, dirt roads, and many other tasks.  For instance it was used to cover all the plumbing pipes to prevent freezes since it is impossible to bury pipes underground. 

    

We both are excited to see the completion of stage one of building a goat enclosure.  Stage one of both projects is the most time consuming part of the job.  The next stages should go much faster and in no time there should be a completed quarter acre goat enclosure for Lawn Mower to roam around in.  Once she is out of the garden, the plan is to head for Kerrville and buy vegetable plants.  If it was not for the goat I would have had a vegetable garden planted by March at the latest.  So I am eager to get one in the ground.

   

We may be spending a lot of our time outside working on the goat enclosure, feeding and taking care of the animals and other related tasks, but there is plenty to do inside during those hot afternoons that are now upon us.  Both Rick and I are busy studying various topics and preparing for the future.  We also have had lots of conversations concerning the future.  Alpha Omega Christian Communities For The Chemically Sensitive (AOCCCI) is about helping people, especially chronically ill homeless people.  In order to fulfill our purpose we need to build cabins and other structures; so many of our topics of conversation center on those topics.  This is a Christian ministry, so many of our topics of conversation center on God.  We have also been watching videos in the evening dealing with the topics of the brain, mind/body/spirit connection, and the occasional Christian movie.  We also read.  I just finished The Meat Goat Handbook; Raising goats for food, profit, and fun, by Yvonne Zweede-Tucker.  I enjoyed the book, especially the photos.  I did learn a lot about raising goats and can recommend this book to any novice interested in the topic.  I have another book on the topic of meat goats to read, but I think the next book I will read will be a Christian book.

      

This past week a potted  cactus and a prickly pear blessed us with beautiful flowers:

Texas Spring Wild Flowers