Guerrilla Gardening

So it's not exactly goat related, but....what a great idea!!
This NYT article follows Richard Reynolds, author of "On Guerrilla Gardening" on one of his late night gardening excursions in London. Apparently this illegal movement is growing in popularity around the UK but it got it's start in NYC in the 1970s. I really admire the idea of cultivating a space, any space, especially if it's rundown, ugly and unused. Of course I'm also drawn to the subversive nature of the movement. It's illegal because you're gardening on someone else's land without permission.
There's a website with forums for people who are interested. If you're in the Columbus, Ohio area, look me up and let's get out there and garden!
Homepage and forums for gardeners

Fun Facts!

* Both male and female goats can have beards!
* Goats are intelligent, inquisitive and very playful!
* The vicious rumor is untrue; goats do not eat tin cans!
* Goats don't have any upper front teeth! They do have a tough toothless “dental pad”. Goats also have teeth on the top and bottom of their jaw further back in the mouth.

The following is from the current issue of the Dairy Goat Journal (link above)

"Llamas, donkeys and trained dogs can guard goats quite effectively."

"We keep two gelded male llamas to guard our
goats from coyotes and stray dogs. They are rescue
llamas from SELR, (South East Llama Rescue), and
they are happy to eat what the goats eat. That keeps our
costs down. Goat babies love them and play on them like 'llama mountains.'"

I was just having a conversation at work this week about the dangers of predators to a herd of goats. This is an issue I cannot fully appreciate since I've never lived on a farm or had to deal with it before. ...Well I do live in a house with both a ferocious kitty and a dwarf rabbit...we keep them on separate floors and so far they've never met. I plan to keep it that way.

"Goat berries and urine are pH neutral, beneficial to the environment, and suitable for composting or immediate application to the garden."

"This is very sandy soil with no rocks to be found. Few plants can survive in sandy soil, but the dairy goats and llamas have augmented this land tremendously, which makes it ready for a greater variety of plants. We use a snow shovel to collect loads of goat and llama berries to add to compost, moving it with a nifty little garden trailer that follows behind a lawn tractor."

Wrap up: National Goat Show

Russ and I attended Sunday evening and Monday of the goat show down in Louisville, KY. Got a chance to see and pet a lot of goats, talk to some of the owners and watch the Toggenburg competition.

It was great to see so many goats and talk to the owners. I was probably most surprised to learn that many farmers do not use the milk to make anything. Many just feed it to their pigs, dogs or kittens. I think I'm realizing that many goat keepers do it as a hobby...a very expensive and time-consuming hobby. This is a little discouraging to me because my ideal situation would be to work a part time job on the side in the beginning, and work towards full time farming and cheesemaking. I guess like anything else, it's a process and it takes patience, time and energy.


Currently I'm enjoying the Tomato Basil farmstead goat cheese from Split Creek Farm in S.C. Mmmm!!! Very good! I also met some goat farmers from southern Ohio. To my surprise, I fell in love with some Nigerian Dwarf goats from South Salem, Ohio. When I mentioned my hometown is Chillicothe, I was in. *grins* A woman whose name is Helen (i think?) was very encouraging and she showed us around and introduced us to a few other farmers including Evan Evans of Split Creek Farm.











Other than that, we watched a lot of Toggs be shown and judged. I had never seen a goat show before. It takes a long time and a lot of walking the goats around the ring to decide on a winner. When the judge announced the results from each group of goats, he or she would line them up and go down the line explaining why each goat placed above the one next to it. So it was very informative and very interesting to see them compared and judged side by side with such scrutiny.
Full results are posted at the ADGA website!!

Oh-Ky Nationals

This week I'm planning my trip to Louisville to attend the National Dairy Goat Show!! I will be there Sunday and Monday and ready to learn as much as I can soak up in 24 hours.

I'm sure I'll have a million questions when I get there, but there are several things I want to focus on at the show:
Breed standards and differences between the breeds
Physical aspects/makeup of a good dairy goat

There's a good mix of events on Sunday and Monday:
Sunday:
Toggenburg Junior Show
Recorded Grade Jr. Show
Monday:
Toggenburg Senior Show
Recorded Grade Senior Show
Oberhasli Milkout
Oberhasli Junior Show
Saanen Milkout
Saanen Junior Show

I'm hoping to learn a lot about these breeds. And this is a good mix of breeds to get familiar with. (From reading, I sometimes feel like Alpines and Nubians get all the dairy goat glory.)

Hopefully there will also be some good goat cheese to sample/purchase and lots of people to talk to and learn from. I'll have a full report next week along with some cheese recipes that I'm looking to try out!