Goats in Love

Goats are always in love. They are also great fence breakers.  This is a bad combination.  I don’t know why Daddy kept goats. In theory, they’d eat brush and he’d have one to barbecue on Memorial Day, Fourth of July, or Labor Day.   The fact is, goats are not stupid.  They are born knowing flowers, grass, garden vegetables, and almost anything else is better than brush.  Only a starving goat would eat poison ivy or bitterweed.  Their main function was to get their heads stuck in fences, climb on everything and make passionate love.  Our first job after school was to count goats, then check the fence lines to get the dumb butts out.  If goat testosterone could be marketed, I’d invest.

Goats went thru our yard fence like ghosts go through walls.  Our house was enclosed by a wire fence.  The long drive leading up to the house was also fenced.  The pasture presented a third line of fence between the goats and the house.  None of this fencing got between  Daddy’s goats and their aim in life, copulating before as many onlookers as possible: ministers, prissy ladies, and small children, in that order.  The tiniest of window ledges presented no problem if the company was saintly enough.

Goats crashed my six-year-sister’s birthday party, indulging in a lurid love fest on the lawn, giving the kiddies an eye full till we got it broken up.  We had the preacher over to Sunday dinner when a randy Billy Goat brought his lady love to share an intimate moment on the dining room window ledge. When we chased them off the window ledge, they consummated their love on top of the pastor’s new car.  It caved in.  Miraculously, it popped back in place after they jumped off. Later, Billy Goat even cornered his lady friend on the hood of the school bus. He got phone calls from a couple of prissy mothers.   Thank goodness, that was enough to finally put an end to the goat herd.