Tales from WannaBea Farm

Once upon a time there was this little old lady from Texas that married a big old cowboy from Nebraska. They bought this beautiful property in Texas and settled into a happily ever after life. Every day they sat out on the porch discussing what they were going to do with all this land. The little old lady wanted chickens and a garden so the big old cowboy, wanting his bride to have whatever he could give her and also being extremely handy, built her a chicken house and dug her up a garden. A 50' X 50' garden, complete with sprinkler system and electric fence to keep out the varmits. Dumb little old lady thought she had to fill the whole area and soon was completely overwhelmed by weeds. But the tomatoes, squash, peppers and all the other things grew just like the weeds. Poor little old lady. Every day she would take her basket out to the garden and reach overhead to pick tomatoes. If she sat for a moment she thought she could actually see the squash vines growing, reaching out to her, calling her to please, come and pick more squash so that it could grow even more.

And several times while sitting in their rockers, watching the sunset, the little old lady said that she would really like to have a couple of goats to raise and butcher as she really loved cabrito, hav- ing picked up a taste for it in her childhood and again later in life in Mexico. Poor little old lady never did learn to keep her mouth shut.

A few days later the sweet old cowboy came home and sheepishly (goatishly?) told his wife that he knew he should have consulted with her first but he got a great deal on a herd of goats. Of course they didn't have any place to put them. Sure they had the land and it was all fenced and cross fenced, but with barbed wire. Try and keep a goat in that! But as I said, the old cowboy was handy and experienced with livestock so he put up goat fencing and built a small shed for the goats. The goats were all female so they had to buy a billy to breed the girls. Another expense. And still no cabrito on the table.

And then they started dying! Omigosh, what's wrong? The old cowboy didn't know. He had worked on cattle ranches and exotic animal ranches but had never worked with goats. But heck, everybody knew that goats could live on just about anything, just put them on the land and they will clear it. Easy to take care of. Yeah, sure!

That's right, but, only in dry arid country. In East Texas it is a whole new ball game. There is an evil entity just waiting to pounce on the East Texas goats. No, not the chupacabra but something much more insidious. Worms!

So now besides the vaccinations for the unpronounceable diseases, the old cowboy had to worm them. More expense and still no cabrito on the bbq pit!

The ones that lived started kidding and the kids were just so cute, like little 4 legged pogo sticks. And the kids died!

Back to the books, the internet, the extension service and other goat idiots, er ranchers. Seems like they not only have to be wormed but they must be rotated from pasture to pasture to keep from being reinfected. So the old cowboy went out again and cross fenced the pasture into three pastures so the darn things could be rotated.

And the billy died!

Still no cabrito on the table!

A borrowed billy, cross fencing, vaccinations and worming, things were looking up. They even had enough kids to take to the sale barn and made enough money to pay for the trip and a nice lunch. So far they had not made a dime of profit and actually were way in the hole and of course, still no cabrito in the oven.

Along came a friend that had two really nice billys so they bought one and when he was put with the girls he just fell in love with his little harem. He must have really worn himself out five months previously because now he is the proud papa to 12 little kids and he plays very tenderly with them.

But the little old lady is still waiting for her cabrito!