The Birthday Present

Life had settled into some sort of routine. Today we are goat herders, then the next we're not. The neighbours were very tolerant of our unauthorised agistment on their land (albeit in a paddock which the previous summer had been nothing but slender thistle) and must have smiled with amusement as we trudged over the same ground on one of our seemingly pointless round ups. The only saving grace in all this was the convenient fact that there was a gate on the boundary fence that made it relatively easy to move the goats from the wrong side to the right side of the fence. How we could have accomplished this otherwise was a problem that showed itself all too clearly when Toffee again made her escape.


We had done all the work. The western fence; the weakness in our defences, was now 30 cm higher with a electric wire on top. We felt optimistic that this might finally solve the problem that was taking most of our spare time to rectify. Having commissioned the wire and determined that it was live, we once again corralled the goats. Having some premonition perhaps of their final experience of freedom, they proved a little reluctant but by now they were attune to the sound of pellets rattling in the bucket and allowed themselves to be seduced by the lure of food, to give up their independence for the satiation of their appetites for exotic treats.

Toffee: First in sequence and audacity

There wasn't much more that we could do in the line of fencing so our main focus became that of making friends with the wayward girls in the grass. It was a Friday, Lyn went out for the evening so I decided to walk the perimeter, getting a bit of exercise and saying hello to the girls. I took a few treats as we had figured that this was the best way to bribe our lodgers into coming to us rather than running in the other direction. As expected, everyone was congregated in the remotest and least visible corner of the paddock. As I headed this way in the gathering dusk, the plaintive cry of a goat in distress was very evident and, sure enough, there was our Toffee, on the wrong side of the fence. Her bleating may have been a criticism of her mates who, when confronted by our new barrier had (for the moment at least) accepted that they were beaten and therefore were contentedly tearing the foliage off the prickly box and generally showing a complacent acceptance of their lot.


A little detective work showed that Toffee had used the same route to freedom that had served her well on many other occasions. She hadn't managed to leap higher but had squeezed between two strands of barb wire (leaving enough hair on both to allow even the least competent forensic investigation to determine her path to freedom). Her strident bleats and futile pacing on the other side of the fence went ignored by her colleagues and, to rub salt into the wound, I proceeded to reward the compliant goats with their now favoured treats.

Toffee was not a happy goat but there was little I could do to allow her to return to the fold with the fence now an effective barrier in both directions. I figured a night alone in the wilds might serve as a lesson and thus returned to the warmth of the house and left the goats to sort out their priorities.

Sugar & Polly stand sentinel

Morning came and with it, an opportunity to see if Toffee had learnt her lesson and was ready to come home and be a part of the flock and not a maverick, destined to forever roam on the wrong side of the law, enjoying her freedom but missing out on the companionship and rewards of being part of something greater than herself. The girls were much as I had left them the previous morning, Toffee was pacing the fence while her sisters quietly browsed the foliage and only occasionally showed awareness or concern for her plight. We spent a good hour trying to coax her along the path that she had obviously trodden many times before to get to the neighbour's paddock and thence through the gate to home but she was not in the mood to see that a temporary move away from her goal would achieve the outcome that by now both she and we, sought.

Polly the runt

We abandoned our efforts, once again rewarding the good girls and leaving the naughty Toffee to her own devices. The kids (our biological children) had come up for the week end to celebrate my birthday and we headed off to Launceston to have lunch at Joseph Chromy. Of course our way would ladies were a major topic of conversation as we caught up on Jessica's job search and Zoe's legal studies. Michael's inside knowledge of the machinations of government and Oliver's latest achievements in building the robots of the future were engrossing but it was the goats that took centre stage. Oh what a sad and empty existance we lead!!

Molly moulting

Lunch over, we headed home to continue our reunion in more leisurely fashion. As we drove up the hill to the house we looked into the paddock as was becoming our custom and were excited to see, not only the three 'good goats' but Toffee, on each side of the fence, right next to the boundary gate. With all haste, we marshalled Jess and Oli, grabbed a tin full of treats and headed into the paddock, hoping to persuade Toffee to come home. Toffee needed little encouragement. The twin enticements of food and the opportunity to rejoin her sisters, meant that she was more than willing to allow herself to be ushered through the gate and back into the home field. Our goats were once again united!!!!