Electrifying Events

It may seem extrordinary but it is amazing what lengths one will go to to protect something they don't have anymore. Call it the ultimate spirit of optimism or perhaps a refusal to accept the obvious but it is hard to admit to failure. Or is it just that one feels foolish being out witted by a goat.


With wanted posters publicly advertising our failure and the goats still at large we set about securing the paddocks against their anticipated return. The first step in this plan was to purchase the materials for an electric fence. Sounds easy. Buy the bits, instal in a day and be ready for news of the fugitives.


Buying an electric fence proved to be more of a challenge than anticipated. First problem was dealing with choice. Should we go solar or mains powered? How much power do you need to zap sense into a goat who sees the other side of the fence as a challenge in much the same way that a mountain climber views the summit of Mt Everest.? How many insulators does it take to carry a wire across the undulations of our irregular fields? Having made some decisions on what to use and how to go about it, the next problem was actually getting the components. It seems that our local rural supply only kept enough stock to tantalise the prospective buyer and then keep them returning for the next three weeks as they eke out a few more at a time. As it was, our estimate of requirements was woefully inadequate and salesmen rubbed their hands with glee whenever they saw us returning for more.


We also discovered one of the fascinating things about rural supply. Nothing has a price tag and though there is obviously a secret threshold that cannot be crossed, what you pay one day will not necessarily be what you pay the next. Despite these small set backs we did come away armed with a box of goodies and a resolute purpose. We would fortify our borders and create a secure habitat from which no goat would want to or be able to stray. The whole thing was a bit like a border protection policy but completely inside out. Our asylum seekers weren't seeking asylum and our borders were not designed to keep out the undesirable but to contain a population that obviously didn't know what was best for them.


The one day installation timetable stretched to several weeks before we had the pulse of power throbbing through our carefully constructed goat barrier. In the meantime, the goats had been sighted, rounded up and herded back home. This latter event was a great relief to one who had begun to lose faith in the superiority of human ingenuity over the manifestly inferior primal instinct of the goat. Our happiness was of almost biblical proportions, akin to the shepherd who finds his lost sheep or even the celebrations that followed the return of the prodigal son. We didn't dwell on the prodigal son analogy for too long as the requirement of killing the fatted calf was an ironic counterpoint to our reason for keeping the goats in the first place.

We spread the news; 'the goats are back!' Down came the wanted posters and we once again set about trying to temp our way would friends with little treats to show that they were wanted and appreciated. The treats weren't overly successful and it was only a matter of days before Toffee was looking for a way out and getting her head stuck in the fence in the process. In hind sight we should have left her there as, no sooner than she was free, she led another, more successful escape attempt. We came home that afternoon to find that we were once again goat less and the score was very much in favour of the escapees.