Plump goat, a bulb of garlic and a lot of fresh olive leaf go perfectly together - for the first couple of bites. After that your vegetable garden doesn't stand a chance! At least not if the goats are as enthusiastic about herb gardens as mine are! For those of you wanting to butt my ideas - relax - my four legged kids would never tolerate being put in a slow cooker! Although with the amount of times they have managed to get into our gardens FarmerBuckaroo has threatened to make them a roast more times than I care to count. Good thing he loves me enough to overlook the damage wreaked. He also can't live without his morning coffee with fresh goats milk and cream cheese on hot sourdough bread.
When we moved onto our homestead a decade ago we had all sorts of romantic ideas about life in the country. How ignorant we were! And ignorance is not bliss!! Armed with plenty of self-sufficiency books we started to unpack. We imagined we would have plenty of free time to sip herbal tea and peruse books on goats and gardens, beekeeping and seed saving, rocket stoves and aquaponics, veld medicine and fermentation, chickens and ingrafting. But before the first box was unpacked my husband gave me Annabelle, my first goat. My obsession with all things goatie had begun. We enthusiastically began our raised beds for all the heirloom seeds we'd bought. Then the first chickens arrived along with 40 olive saplings and another 60 young fruit trees. Our beehives were filling up while we cut and baled lucerne for winter grazing. Then the chickens got into the new seedlings. The goats pruned the saplings and the old irrigation was springing leaks all over the homestead.
We were still setting up rain water tanks and laying new piping when I realized that the one goat had become a dozen. Before the solar was fully functional the dozen goats were dropping twins and the broody hens were sitting on eggs we intended to eat. The beehives needed to be supered up and the weeds were suffocating the new gardens. So my soap and cheese making adventures began. Reinforcements were called in so that the fences could be redone to keep animals apart from gardens and orchard. A small dairy had to be built for processing all that wonderful organic goats milk. And before we knew it we were working harder than we ever had in the city plus the money was disappearing like water instead of keeping us self-sufficient for the rest of our lives. Where had that perfect dream gone?!!
Necessity and a glut of milk created a perfect business opportunity - then two! We had some wiggle room. And then the flood came. With it the top soil was washed away and all those new fences and expensive irrigation. Plus we now had a load of illnesses. The gardens took strain and we started losing animals to bizarre illness. I was devastated. After burying the first dozen goats - which had become 60 strong - I tackled their health with fury.
I was not losing another goat. I began separating from the garden medicine for animals and food for humans. The goats devoured all the garlic, olive leaves and wormwood I could feed them. As fast as I chopped the bitter aloe ferox into all the water troughs the goats were fishing out the chunks while the chickens, sheep and calves drank the bitter water. The death stopped.
It took a while following the flood to realize there was no more rain! The drought lasted 7 years. Many farmers in the valley, and the greater area sold up. It was heartbreaking. We dug a deeper borehole. We sacrificed fields. I made the gut wrenching decision to sell most of my goats. Despite everything the two businesses continued.
Miraculously we survived; as did our animals - those few that we hadn't sold. How the animals self medicate has always amazed me. They will fast when they feel slightly under the weather. On the hottest summers day they will be catching their Vitamin D.
They will get a natural veld head massage to chase away those nasty biting critters. They do naturally what we have taken years to learn. Many of our gardens were dormant as we had been forced to disconnect the little water and carefully choose where the grey water went. There was still enough for what we needed and we learned to rely far less on the shops.
We continued to work extremely long hours for our survival and that of our beloved home and animals. We boosted our immune systems along with the animals. Selective gardening kept us going. We learned basic new skills. Then the rain came - HalleluYAH!! It took a year but the drought was broken. Slowly life is returning and it is wonderful to see what has survived - although much has been lost.
My goats have taught me a lot. Are they naughty? Absolutely. Even the most doting mother has to acknowledge mischief in her kids. But they are part of our homesteading life and happiness. In the last 18 months, as with most people, in the city or in the country, in SA or international, we have been affected by world events so much so that both businesses have closed. Does it cause concern? I would be lying if I said no. But like the goats we take a day at a time knowing in Whose Hands we are. Our ultimate goal was self-sufficiency and this is part of that journey.
We have never cried so many tears or had more reason for celebration. We have never worked harder or got by on so little sleep. We have never had more failures OR success! Would we change it? Never. Each moment, each step of the journey is part of who we now are. Our home is beyond what we could ever have imagined - and yes, more so than our wildest dreams. We work like slaves but we feast like kings.
It is a hard life but it is a good life!!
