Goats In a Jeep

a short story on prosperity

Why would goats be in the back of a Jeep you ask? Hi, I’m Monique and you must be new here. I can be a clinical overthinker and quite unsystematic, yet somehow, I manage to have strong enough willpower and determination to achieve my dreams and to watch them blossom into reality. I’m not saying it is all exactly perfect, or that anything has come without challenges, hints the title of this article. What I would like to share today, is how I have found it useful to simplify my life by employing the resources that I have. By doing so to the best of my ability, I have been able to get to where I want to be, to be where I’ve envisioned being. Now, on this particular day my boyfriend Kyle was off to work. I finished setting up the electric net pasture for the goats and I did not feel confident to herd the flock up to this pasture because of its proximity to the road. We don’t have any perimeter fence on our property yet as we’ve just moved in three months ago.

Previously Kyle and I were living off grid in Northern California in a remote mountainous place. This is where we grew our small flock of sheep, goats and additionally raised rabbits and chickens for meat. We lived about 35 minutes up a rough mountain road and would walk the herd around on foot from there. There we would walk the herd of nine and our three guardian dogs freely along the trails and grew a natural understanding of shepherding as we roamed over 800 acres. This is where I fell in love with being a shepherd, this lifestyle felt ancestral and innately human. Despite the hardships we faced on that mountain and I felt a calling to continue to develop the skills to raise livestock for food, art, and sustenance and to pass this wisdom and freedom down to my children. When raising livestock, I’ve found that living alongside these creatures becomes medicine. These creatures become a kind of life blood, each day energy and intention is being exchanged between you and your herd. I now begin to document the lessons and medicine learned, starting with this story.

We have just moved to a rural 9 acre plot in middle of American no where. Deep in the Amish north country, with remnants of old industry that once thrived in the rural countryside in times of old. Times before the mass privatization and commercialization of food and products. In May, we drove nine days and over ninety hours, with six goats, three sheep, three dogs, and four rabbits all in a truck and trailer. It was definitely something like those old Beverly Hillbillies. We started the journey off with a miracle by making it down that rough mountain road where we lived back in California on the rainy morning we left. We ended up repacking, resituating and fixing broken parts of the load three or four times and even took one trip to the emergency room (for reasons to be explained later), delaying our original departure date three weeks. When it was really time to go it felt unreal. There was no practice run, we had to load it up and go. This was a serious road and a serious load and each day we spent not in route to our destination had a cost. We were working with a pretty limited budget, just about enough to keep us fed and get us there. We didn’t want to risk a practice run damaging a piece of the truck or trailer while hauling the load all the way back up that mountain just to do it again. After all, the rest of our trip would be on three thousand miles of highway. That being said, we did our best to distribute the weight of the load properly beforehand but had no idea how the weight was going to manage twisting down those steep mountain turnpikes. Kyle set the hitch of the trailer high to give us clearance from the rocks and ruts of the road and we quadruple checked the load before heading down, slightly holding our breath. The Northern California clay with its deep copper hue was as slick as oiled peanut butter, and we slid down the first hill. Kyle controlled the slide into a pull out to position us for the next turn. I was so nervous I began to run down the road in front of the truck to “scope the trail” but I was really just so nervous I could hardly sit in the truck. I was feeling too anxious, and I didn’t want to funk up Kyle’s focus with my jitters. Kyle assured me to get in, sit next to him and that all would be okay. “Just hold on to something” he says and that if we break loose, he will steer into the embankment rather than off the side of the cliff. I held on to our pup valley and whispered sweet words to her that I myself really needed to hear. Luckily, Kyle has his head on straight and has a cool hand plus lots of experience driving long and heavy loads on roads like these. He’s driven loads all over dangerous and rural California roads from picking up and loading scrap cars and machinery to loading and hauling all kinds of big old ugly metal. The initial decline seemed to be the most slick and bits of crushed rock and gravel gave us traction the rest of the way down. There was one incline of jagged rocks that we knew was going to be a challenge as parts of the road had been washed away, leaving extremely rough terrain. We accelerated as we approached the incline and steadily applied pressure to the throttle, the tires were chirping and the engine was working hard but we slowly crawled right over. Once we made it over that last rough patch, we knew something incredible was in store. After weeks of anticipation, challenges, packing and dreaming and despite the pouring rain on our way down that wet and wild path, we made it safely and in complete awe. We got to the end and stopped to check our load and the herd. Despite the absolute chaos of the rough road everyone was unbelievably laying down and practically asleep and the two dogs had their noses out the cracks excitedly sniffing the air. While Kyle was securing some break line wires that were ripped out during the decent, a neighbor approached who shared a piece of the driveway up the mountain. She had lived on that mountain road for over 40 years and we got to know her during the eight months we lived there. We got to telling her what we were up too, and inspired by our courage and youthful aspirations, she gave us lots of well wishes and as she gave our load one last look she says, “all your missing is the rocking chair on top”. That gave us a good laugh and uplifted our spirits. Making it down that mountain was one of the hardest parts of the journey and it was now behind us. Her remark stuck with me as an uplifting reminder that we were not the first of our kind to make a long and strenuous journey in hopes of a better life.

Back to the goats in the Jeep, on a hot and holy July day in Upstate New York. I’m working a job in the kitchen of a university, and I get summers off. So, while Kyle is at work, I conduct all of the heavenly housewife duties rather clumsily but with great gusto. A usual day consists of tending to the animals and garden, hand washing the laundry; yes, hand washing, cleaning, scrubbing, scurrying about, having full conversations with myself, the animals and the hawthorn tree, and lately blogging and preparing medicinal herbs for the cupboard.

On this particular day, Kyle was running late and could not be there to help run the herd up into the pasture. Usually, one of us would lead with two dogs on leash and one would lie back to steer the herd with the last dog on leash. Since our dogs and herd are still young and new to this place, they need a considerable amount of control and guidance from us, especially when leaving the barn. Heading back to the barn from pasture is very straightforward and they have learned the path and place; since it has become a safe space that they enjoy. I felt quite unpleased with the image of me running behind a herd of goats and lambs with three huge livestock dogs on leash and had a hard time convincing myself that this situation would flow perfectly. These California goats have never seen so much green and lush vegetation and are still learning the paths and patterns of the new land. Often, they will just stop at the first alluring patch of bush they see and completely ignore my willpower to drive them.

The main issue here was that the one clear and obvious path would lead them directly to the road, and the pasture was right along this path. Ideally, I could have set up the electric fence wide enough to leave a chute like opening that would cross the path and completely block the way to the road exit and direct them into pasture. Unfortunately the shape of this pasture was avoiding large rocks and had a strange shape that wouldn’t allow the fence to stretch far enough to block the path. So, this idea couldn’t have been as effective as imagined and had too much room for error with me being alone.

With a list of tasks needing to be completed for the day, I decided to think smarter and not harder. I’ve found that if you can efficiently simplify a task within your day or routine especially as a farmer, you should take the opportunity to do so. The opportunity that presented itself to me was to put those darn goats in the back of that jeep and give them a first-class ride to pasture just for today. I started by backing the jeep down into the unfortunate gully where our house and barn was placed by the previous owner; a problem we will have to touch on later and backed as close as I could to load the herd in groups into the jeep. First came two retired bottle lambs who are the easiest and most social, Miss Hazel and Mister Yilly. I knew they would take the venture very well as they were the most trusting, fun loving and sociable of the bunch. Next was Red the lamb accompanied by the smallest goats, little buck Buckles and his favorite lass Bambi. This endeavor was going so well, that I decided to finish the deed with the largest load of all, four goats. All of them being mostly Nubian and quite a bit larger in size and louder in their opinions. Big Ol’ Mister Molasses was first, my shining black handsome stud. I could not lift him in, so I lifted his two hoofs and up he jumped as if he’s done this before. I followed this loading strategy with the next who followed being Lady Apples, loudmouth Lula, and ever so skittish Amanita. With everyone loaded, we jostled up the road. With not even a single goat dropping in the back of the Jeep, everyone hopped out with excitement and ease and was in the pasture.

I brought the dogs up last, Cria being the only one who made it into pasture initially. I made the mistake of not checking the tightness of the collars and the youngest Valley took off with the oldest and most uncontrollable Phera and off into the neighbor’s meadow they ran, only to mark their perimeter and return a few minutes later. Even though they were technically marking their scent around to ward off predators, they didn’t listen to or trust my command which is always more important and decided to run. They saw a chance and took it, and I can’t blame them. When things like this happen, I have or release my control and anger, take a breath and remember to do better the next time. Every moment can be a learning lesson with these dogs, and I always strive to form correct behaviors and habits with them but have to remind myself they are still adolescents in a new area and aren’t used to anyone living anywhere near us. Luckily our road is a rural farming community and is understanding of livestock guardians, who protect livestock and do not ever harm. Weve let nearby folks know about the big livestock dogs that might be seen crossing the edges of the fields and woods every now and again. Their youth combined with their genetically independent nature can get the best of them, and there is lots of room for improvement especially now since we are saving up for a perimeter fence. However, they are such good girls and escapes are rare. So finally, with all the dogs in place alas, they began to scope out the new area and wrestle about.

Despite the idea of goats in a jeep sounding pretty insane, it got me exactly where I needed to be for that day with minimal stress and thought. I wake up each morning and show up unapologetically. Each day in life especially while building a farm Kyle and I have to show up and do what it takes to get us to where we need to be. Regardless of the mood, excuse, finances, or the weather, we show up. Personally, having this level of accountability in my life has taught much wisdom and brings significant levels of growth mentally, physically and psychologically as I transition from my maiden stage and into motherhood. When life throws a curveball or when I’m feeling down or am overthinking absolutely everything or maybe got up on the wrong side of the bed, I still have to figure out how to make things work, and how to allow the lives I tend to, to prosper. Life will always work with you to find a way to prosper. As a farmer I am a steward of this prosperity, therefore my own sustenance is tethered to that prosperity. Ideally the wisdom of the land will become a part of my own and this prosperity will become so grand that it will reach beyond the farm and into the greater community and ecosystem. There is an immense power in the realization of our connection to this prosperous relationship and there is radical freedom in this way of life with nature. And there it is, the secret to how I have found it useful to simplify my life by employing the resources that I have. By doing so to the best of my ability, I have been able to get to where I want to be, to be where I’ve envisioned being. Initially all you have to do is show up each day and work toward prosperity one goat at a time, one plant at a time, one screw at a time: just show up and start with one piece at a time.

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