Goats are Popular!

Wow. We've been barraged with phone calls from people interested in our goats. This was the first time I've sold something through the newspaper, so I wasn't quite sure how to handle all these people. Things got complicated.

The first serious caller that I talked to was a man who was starting up a small goat dairy. He was only interested in Paprika and the free milking stand. This was quite the interesting fellow, because in the course of our conversation he told me of two other small businesses he owned/ran (a carpet cleaning service and gem/mineral store). He kept asking if I needed my carpets cleaned.

Strangeness aside, he seemed to be a serious caller, so we made plans for him to come look at the goats on Monday.

OK, now what do I do with all the other people calling in about Paprika and the milking stand? I didn't really want to make more appointments until after Mr. Entrepeneur came by, but I also didn't want to alienate potential buyers. So I took down names and numbers and promised to call back if the goats were still available after Monday.

Well, Mr. Entrepeneur never called on Monday. In fact, I haven't heard from him since our conversation last Sunday, so he's out. I had been playing phone tag with a woman who lived in our area, and I finally managed to connect with her on Tuesday. She was interested in all of the goats! She and her boyfriend came over to look at them that evening. She fell in love with the does, while he really liked Rhet. I have to admit, Rhet is a cute little guy:



They also want to buy the goats' houses, plus the fence panels for their pens. I have a deposit in hand, so they're definitely serious. They already have an Alpine and a few Nigerian dwarfs, so my three should fit in just fine. It's very cool to sell all of them in one pass.

Now we just need to find someone to buy our house.

Tiger's First Discipline

I've been told that this is a funny story and that I should post it. This happened a few weeks ago.

Tiger was in the habit of throwing her toys over the baby gate into the kitchen. She particularly did it when she was mad about something. I finally got tired of having to throw the toys back over every day when it was time to sweep. I figured that at 15 months, she was old enough to start learning some rules.

She watched me put her toys back over the gate and I told her that if she threw her toys over anymore, she would go to her room. I didn't think she would understand what I was saying, but I said it just in case. Of course, seconds after I told her this she threw a toy over.

"You threw a toy over the gate, so now you're going to your room," I said, and led her down the hall. She didn't protest, because she didn't know yet what was going on. I shut her in her room and set the kitchen timer for five minutes so that I couldn't forget her. She screamed at first, but by the time I went to let her out she was quiet.

I opened her door and she stood there with a wooden block in her hand. I told her she could come out, and she marched down the hall and threw the block over the gate, then looked at me defiantly. It was really hard to keep from laughing at her. I just turned her back around and put her back in her room.

The next time I let her out, she had gotten so mad that she cleaned up her room. Seriously. She had thrown all of the legos into their box and was busy putting the zoo animals in their bag. As soon as I opened the door she took the bag with her out into the living room and started picking up the animals out there.

I don't know why she thought that putting away her toys would be a good revenge. Too bad she won't continue to believe that when she gets older. At least my plan worked. She's only thrown a toy over the gate twice this week.

And we're live!

Our house went on the market on Wednesday night, so the last few days have been a frenzy of cleaning. Well, they would have been a frenzy except that I didn't feel well yesterday. I managed to plod along and keep things from going downhill, at the least. Luckily, there weren't any showings until this morning when I was already feeling better.

It seems like they didn't stay very long. When Corvus and I were looking at homes we generally looked very closely at them and spent quite a bit of time really considering them. The only times we did a cursory examination were when we knew right away that it wasn't a house we wanted. But I have no idea how typical we are in this regard.

I've also put an ad in the paper to sell our goats. Paprika (the alpine doe) will be the easiest to sell, Rhet (the Nigerian dwarf buck) will probably be the hardest. I'm hoping to sell Juliette (Paprika's wild daughter) with Paprika as a companion, because otherwise she'll be a tough sell. She has never been milked, so her yield is unknown, plus she's too wild to be a pet. So if I have to sell her separately it will almost certainly have to be for meat. At least it's the right time of year for it; I've heard that there is a demand for goat meat just before Easter.