How Goats Have Changed My Future Outlook

I'm a firm believer that everyone grows up carrying something with them they just never put down. Like magnets pulling at opposite poles, I think humans forever swing toward the things their hearts most call to.

For me, none too surprisingly, that thing has always been horses. I really never heard growing up from anyone that "All little girls love horses, you'll grow out of it." Maybe it was because I was so obsessively enamored, or that all my model horses had full show names and disciplines, or maybe it was because I had a little more knowledge than you would expect from the normal, weird, standard, horse girl of elementary school. I didn't get to start taking lessons or really getting my hands on horses regularly until I was about 10 years old, but when my feet hit the ground they hit the ground running.

"BRING ME A QUARTER WITH HASTE!" 

But as with all things there are also strata to my obsessions, and as I grew older it was clear that while horses were my primary love and focus point, beneath that was a whole slew of agricultural interests. My grandma would take me to the fair and sit with me for hours watching livestock shows, take me to smell Tobacco plants hanging, a foray through the hay to judge their quality and read forage analysis tags. We'd walk through the vegetables and fruits section and she'd quiz me on what each item was, and I'll never forget one of my proudest childhood memories when a 4H leader doing the same with his kids asked which county I was with. 

"I'm not with 4H. I go to school in Downtown Louisville." 

The shock and admiration he had made my heart swell. No I didn't live on a farm, but we did have a tomato plant in the front yard of our little German Town shotgun, and I could still go to the Horse Park for my birthday every year and ride trail horses for an entire day, or go to the Zoo and pet a goat, and in some ways that was enough. 

At some point I really got to wanting cows. I love cows. Dairy cows to be specific. Not that there's anything wrong with the beef varieties of course. There's just something about the big, brown, doe-eyed look a Jersey Cow has that lures you in and gives you memories you never made of sitting on the porch in summer time or smelling hay in the loft. Jersey Cows aren't the biggest milk breeds, they're a little more refined and feminine, but they have big eye lashes and big black wet noses and are just about the cutest, if not awkward, critters you'll ever see. 

So I started looking more into Jersey cows. They were lower producers than say Holsteins (Black and whites) but with a higher butterfat content to their milk, making it a bit richer and more full flavored. Because they were lower producers they were a little more simple for a small homestead to manage, and their quiet and not flighty dispositions made them a great option for beginners. 

She's beauty..She's grace... Her sandpaper tongue will lick your face. 

But man Cows are expensive... Like... No they're not horse expensive but they're still pretty expensive. They're big. They eat a lot. They produce a LOT. And there's no where in my relative area that can pasteurize or process milk where I can sell it for other people to enjoy. What, you think me and Max are going to drink two to three gallons of milk a day? And process it all on the stove?? Well I love Milk but that's a stretch even for me, and poor Max is lactose intolerant so.. Fat chance of that working on a large scale. 

But as the years went by I continued to be persistent.

"We can scale back from 12 and just start with one."

"I can home pasteurize."

"I can make milk products with the excess."

"We can feed off extra milk to a pig." 

"Okay, we can look into a Mini Jersey." 

Not that those weren't still options, but they weren't options that satisfied the need I was truly trying to fulfill, which was that of having a self-sufficient, money making, homestead and agribusiness. I like efficiency. I enjoy the task of trimming the fat from every corner to make any and everything as stream lined and seamless as possible. If I was going to have production animals, they were going to produce and, at the very least, have the courtesy to cover their own feed bill. 

 And then going back to horses... Well somewhere in my growing up I think I just subconsciously realized that a long term career with horses probably wasn't going to work out. Something about mixing business and pleasure. Horses are something that are almost too near and dear to my heart, as if to get a job at say the Horse Park or something similar would draw back the curtain on my childlike wonderment, and that wasn't something I was quite willing to risk.

On top of that, the horse market is always in an interesting place. I say always because it's never still, like the swing of pendulum it lulls back and forth, and no matter at which end it seems to rest it's never quite financially comfortable. The horse economy isn't like the world economy, and it's an outlier from the standard agricultural market. Horses don't outright make money on their own, unlike say a cow or a chicken, or a goat. They provide a service, oftentimes a service that either on it's own doesn't pay anything or begs to have a large investment gambled to get there. Whether that service be as a pet and companion, a show animal, a race horse, a work horse-- whatever else; the income drought is long, and the shower is short, and sometimes the shower just doesn't come at all. There's a saying that comes to mind whenever I think about this and it goes something like "The only way to make a million in horses is to start with a billion." 

This of course doesn't also take into consideration so many other factors. I can't train a horse if my life depended on it. Dogs? Yeah okay. Horses? Nope. Maybe I just have too much of a predatory mindset. I can't break down a horses thought process like I can a dog. Or maybe it's because in general many horses are just flat out smarter than I am. That's a fair bet to make. 

I've done a little tiny bit of teaching and coaching, and it's fun, but not something I'm interested enough/talented enough/trained enough to actually attempt to do as a career. Teaching riding lessons is hard and I am constantly amazed by those that I know who manage to do it so well. 

So there are a number of reasons an Equine Industry career doesn't fit me. Just because you are the most passionate about one thing doesn't mean you have to dedicate your career to that particular topic. I get the most enjoyment out of taking my professional equine knowledge and experiences and applying it to Dexter in my own time. 

Oh and there is a conversation of money and horses and how those two words somehow are interwoven like the unbreakable threads of an heirloom quilt, but I'm not even going to get into that here. 

I mean, really Barn Friend's are just people who share similar amounts of back pain and financial stress 

So where do GOATS come into any of this??? What do goats have to do with careers? Or life? Or anything? 

Enterprise that's where!!!

I like telling people I went to Goat School because it just sounds so damn funny. It took me a long time to be able to really confidently talk about "Goat Stuff," because honestly when you say it out loud it just comes across as being so.. Strange, and random. And not in a "underwater basket weaving" kind of way either. So the question I get all the time these days that I love answering... 

"So tell me what's going on with Goats??"

A LOT AS IT TURNS OUT, THAT'S WHAT. 

I fell into this world of Small Ruminant's (which is the official term FYI, encompassing sheep and goats or small mammals with four chambered stomachs) completely randomly, as is the way most of the best things in my life seem to happen. I was at the Fair with Grammie and glanced at shirts being sold by the KY Sheep and Goat Development Office.  Whenever I go to the fair I like to purchase things from local AG organizations as a show of support, random as they may be. While looking at the shirts being sold a very engaging and energetic woman happily explained each goat breed pictured on the shirts they were selling, and got me caught up in an unexpected conversation before I even realized I was having it. 

"Do you own any goats?"

"I don't! Just a horse, haha.."

"Would you like to own goats in the future?"

"I think I might actually... Maybe one day? Maybe like a couple dairy goats--"

"--Have you heard of the Small Ruminant Profit School we host?!"

"....No....???"

Little did I know, this amazing woman was actually the president of the Kentucky Goat Producers Association at the time. She gave me a leaflet with the basic info about the class, when it started, how to register, etc. When Grammie and I went to lunch I looked at it and thought it could be kind of interesting... Primarily because the very first class was on my birthday. I was always wanting to learn more about different aspects of livestock and agriculture.. And it STARTED on my BIRTHDAY. In the words of The Decemberists " Oh what providence, what Divine intelligence.."

And now I regularly get mail like this.

So what's the appeal of Goats in particular? Originally for this post I had an idea to write all these detailed information about the market for goat meat in the US, and a bunch of statistics with cited references behind them... But then I realized this whole post has kind of rambled on a bit and I kind of doubt you want to hear the entire economical breakdown of the caprine market place. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'll talk goats all day long if you want, but I promise to only subject those who are truly interested to that long talk. 

In brief, the Goat Market is booming. Not only is it booming, but it's growing, to be specific. Goat meat is the most popularly consumed red meat in the world, something that probably comes as a surprise to most of us in the West. But think about it... Goats as a species aren't as abundant domestically as say, cattle, whereas in other counties they are abundant and thriving. Goats aren't pasture grazers by nature like sheep and cattle, they are brush browsers. What many farmers consider to be relatively trash land, that is, hilly, brush ridden, wooded and filled with weeds, is a goats paradise. So what does this mean to a starting farmer such as myself? It means getting productive acreage at a premium. As a goat producer I have an advantage over someone who runs cattle because I can buy property that can't grow crops and can't run large ungulates and throw my goats on it and let them be happy as little clams. Scrub land is cheaper than pasture, but that doesn't mean it's useless (Enterprise!). 

Goat meat is also far leaner than beef, with the relative caloric and fat content of chicken, making it a fantastic option for those not wanting to cut high iron, high protein food items from their diet but looking to cut calories. While not particularly well known or popular with Western populations, Goat meat is most consumed by Ethnic populations, such as Hispanics, Muslims, and Pacific Islanders, which when taking into consideration Goats eating habits makes perfect sense, geographically. Demand for Goat meat in the US is so great that we still import roughly 40% of consumed goat meat from other counties such as New Zealand and those in South Africa. That means there's a 40% growth potential within the market just waiting for new producers to step up to. 

All this being said, my personal goals don't end at the direct meat market or the auction floor. Ultimately, with enough time and effort, I would like to be able to produce quality breeding, show and replacement stock. Replacement animals refer to those that are sold from a herd, to producers in order to enhance the quality of the buyer's herd. Good show goats can range in price anywhere from a few hundred dollars a head to $25,00+ for breeding bucks. Well known and successful livestock groups, such as Hummel Livestock, even sell wether's (castrated males, often shown by youth showmen) for anywhere from $3,500-$16,000 and up. Taking into account that a goat's gestation period is 5 months, and that a good doe will have twins, triplets or quads every cycle after her first, that's a lot of potential money out there waiting to be made. 

"Sold at Newton Farms Dispersal Sale for $25,000"

 So maybe goats seem a little weird at the outset. Maybe so, but then again, I've never made to try and convince anyone I'm anything but. Maybe this can give people some idea's though about "Why goats." After a lifetime of longing to be a farmer it's been so inspiring to find an angle of the livestock industry in Kentucky that I feel like I have a pretty good chance at getting on without a lot of capital to throw around to get there. 

I can't say enough for how friendly all the people in this industry have been to me so far. I haven't met or spoken to a single person who hasn't been happy to take their time answering my questions or going out of the way to explain how things work to me. I'm even ecstatic to say that I'm lucky enough to have some opportunities lined up at the end of this month and October to "intern" for a farm in TN who will be showing in the nearby area. I'm so incredibly lucky to be able to have these opportunities and I look forward to getting some first hand experience with showing and showmanship. I can't say enough how proud and excited I am. 

Hopefully this long winded post has enlightened and at least half-halfheartedly entertained some. If Small Ruminant production is something you think you may be interested in or are wanting to know more about, I would encourage you to message me on Facebook or Comment any questions on this post! I'll also leave some links below where you can get more fantastic information on this incredible industry. 

In Memory of Tim Capps

So I wanted to say a couple words about Tim Capps as we start to move into this Derby week, a time that's always been so important and close to the hearts of the students in the EIP.

I wasn't as close to Tim Capps as many, in fact I only had one class under his instruction and he wasn't even the full time professor of the class, but that hardly means I'm without amazing memories of him.

When I started at UofL I was extremely intimidated. I had come from Brown School, which had been the size of a Match box, to JCTC, the size of a shoe box, to suddenly UofL; a comparative outlet store whose maps were in a different language. When I transitioned into the Equine Business program from Biology I started to finally settle in. I was surrounded by more like minded people, who remained contained in their own little culture away from the school. 

Even in the Equine Business program there's a certain roughness that's carried in on the tattered sleeves and the boots of the students who enroll therein. Farmer tans covered up by tucked in button downs and shavings littered in the bottom of brief cases. There's a glint in their eyes that comes less from wading with the sharks and more from biting the dust and getting back up maybe one more time than was entirely healthy. It's eager tenacity to succeed and do and apply under the weight of long nights, aching muscles, and never enough sleep. 

When I first saw Tim Capps it was during my first day of class at UofL, in my first Equine class. He was dressed ready for business head to toe, polished shoes, jacket and tie, belt properly adjusted. He was well groomed and well postured and the lines of his face drew taught in a way that reinforced the intensity of his gaze. I remember feeling a bit nervous, a thought I laugh about often now, worrying while looking up at this professor that maybe I wasn't cut quite clean enough, or maybe I wasn't quite stitched in the same places I needed to be to  reflect this major. He was the head of the department, tailored and groomed and I was patchwork and purple hair and oversized, dirty, boots.

But as I spent time in the department I realized Tim Capps was the essence of who we were. He was clever and witty, humerus, engaging and amicable, but sill with a bit of sharpness that underneath it all radiated ability, work ethic, and skill. He was so, so very funny, and he could exchange sarcasm and quips without a seconds hesitation. He always had something witty to say, some way to turn a lifetime of experience and admirability into something that we could all relate to and hold like a personal gift. Tim Capps was the kind of man that would sit in a room with tired twenty and teen something's, who were hungry and poor and cranky and he'd make every single one of them smile and laugh and trudge to the next class a little lighter and a little more determined than they had been before.

What I most loved about Capps was how he interacted with us. With me, with my friends, with the faculty. I have friends who did so much more, who he was so supportive and proud of, and listening to them talk about his aid always made me envious. 

But despite not being one of his regular students that hardly meant we didn't get to have our own moments. There was something about Capps that always fueled the inner fire of my obtuseness. He always had a way of igniting that part of myself that was so true to who I really was, and who my friends were. Inquisitive, nosey, scandalous, loud, obscene, colorful and always involved in something, constantly bending the bar of "can they do that?" With little concern of whether or not it would break. Something in the way he spoke and carried himself always seemed to push you to be more of yourself, dared you to take all the little pieces of your person you kept swept under the rug and put them out on the shelf glorious display. Capps had a way of daring us all to be as much of ourselves as we could be, because he believed that's how we lived best-- truthfully. 

I remember at least one time I had nothing better to do and came to one of his smaller classes my other friends were in. It was more than halfway through the year, beyond a point where I'd even have an inkling of understanding of the material. But still I came and he teased me some and gave me the lecture notes, and happily taught the class with me there because what kind of teacher would he have been to deny someone a chance to learn? He had this fantastic way of letting people's personalities fill a room and press the walls to the point where it would drive others mad, with a supportive thumbs up and an appreciative nod of the head. 

Because Tim Capps knew that sometimes people with rough pasts, or rough presents, or pajama pants, or purple hair, or dirty boots, or obscene mouths could be smart, and capable, and beautiful, and driven. He took that roughness that sat in all of us and asked it to live uncaged, because he knew that even under all that mud, and dirt, and obscenity we were all so so capable, and it only pushed us to prove that point time and time again. He took the linear and seamless ties of the business world and dared us each to tear the paper apart, paint it chartreuse and create a beautiful piece of art from its remnants. 

"Are you causing trouble?" Was the question he always asked of me, no matter where we were or what the event. Less questioned and more pushed and pleaded, and when I'd easily reply I was managing to behave myself he might sigh or roll his eyes or admit "I was expecting you'd start dancing on the tables soon." I remember one time sitting in the Equine lab, exhausted, barely upright, narcoleptic as shit, and he suggested I use the conference room to spread out on the floor and sleep because it would be "a lot more comfortable" and I "wouldn't be bothered by anyone." Similarly there was a time where he managed to walk in on my friends and myself in that same conference room, my back turned to the door, hurling some unprofesssiknal non-Christian words, and just as easily as he came in without another word he nodded and quietly left. He was so beautifully, wonderfully human, and when we were with him the students felt that underneath all the stress and chaos of school, they were too. 

Tim Capps will forever live on in my memory as a shining beacon of possibility. I will always proudly carry with myself a sense of duty to be exactly who and what I am and to do so without a word of fear or apology because who I am will never ever dampen my ability. Tim Capps left with me the knowledge that a suit and a tie and being well groomed should never snuff the inner flame of mischievous, Wiley adventure. He taught us that being someone who can be in business and be successful and capeable will never be worth nor necessitate losing ourselves and becoming soulless. Had the EIP been a day care of exceptional children we were coloring on the blank desolate walls with crayons he had eagerly and willingly placed in our hands. 

So thank you, Tim Capps, for being a pusher of authenticity. Thank you for taking us, weird little misfits as we were, and proudly putting us in front of the world, backed by your name, to make us into more than we maybe ever thought we'd be capable of. 

And I promise, in your name, for years to come, I will never stop causing trouble. 

Thank you. 

 

A New New Year

As New Year rolls around I always seem to forget that New Years resolutions  are absolutely a thing. And each year I inevitably try at the last minute to think  of some goal I can reasonably attempt to achieve before  the end of my next full circle around the sun.

From what I've seen, there are two camps of thought to this concept. The first is the idea of total renewal, the whole "New Year, New Me" concept. This is the idea of rebirth, in the new year, a chance to shed off the negativity and weight of the previous year and have a chance to start anew and do better. From my experiences, this tends to follow with the more classical selection of resolutions--- eat healthier, lose weight, do ______ more or less, that sort of thing.

The second camp of thinking takes a bit more of a logical and factual approach. It's the idea that New Years is just a human concept anyway, each day, in the entirety of the universe, is just another normal day, and that change has nothing to do with the calendar, and there for can only come from within.

I find myself somewhere between these two ideas. I'm admittedly flaky, I'm horrible at finishing things and if I ever say with 100% certainty I'm going to get some kind of task accomplished, you can probably bet it's either  not going to happen or not on time. I really don't know why that is, but apparently my mind has some kind of mental block to any kind of structure or planning, I'm better off just doing things on the fly and giving myself a pat on the back later for taking initiative to get something done.

But with this being said, I have some arguments with the whole concept of "another day is just another day." I mean sure, that's true, but as humans we are  creatures of habit and creatures  of calendar and so without some higher order of organization our brains seem to struggle to be efficient. You never hear people brag that they've lost track of the date, it's always  "I don't even know what day it is!!!!"

Get ready to deal with this struggle again for the next  six months  

But look at the difference you feel on a Saturday verses a Sunday, one definitely tends to be a little bit sweeter. The new  year is a  lot like the real world version  of a  new semester, if nothing else it's at the very least a good excuse for people to hit their own reset button. I think it's the refreshing feeling that comes with deciding to let go of bad decisions or regret, something I know I personally  struggle just doing on my own accord. While normally the turn of the year doesn't particularly bring any big changes for me, this year felt different. Probably because 2016 completely BLEW.

I'm not going to put either of us through the rigorous torture of recounting the many events that made the year a cumulative shit show, but I'm sure you have your list and I have mine, and if I had to venture a guess I would be willing to bet that a number of those things more than likely cross over on the "This Year Is Absolute Garbage" venn diagram. I guess we can all maybe take peace in the unity that seemed to unite everyone, the unity of commiseration. But 2016 had 365 days to beat the crap out of us, and so I'd rather not humor it anymore. This isn't to say that there weren't some really awesome things that happened this year, because there definitely were, but I'd be lying if I said that's the way I'm remembering the year as it casts its one-finger salute into the grave.

So where does that leave us in relation to resolutions and planning to do better? I will say that one thing I left the year with was a new sense of power and possibility. I feel like the struggles and also the joys of the previous year have done a great job exemplifying the fact that while sometimes things may go to crap, the cool thing is there['s still an infinite amount of excitement and possibility to reach on the other side. More importantly, those bad things happen and maybe it's just possibly possible to make it out on the other side.

Actual photo summation of 2016

So what are my plans for the new year? Not to make too many plans. As I get older I'm beginning to wonder how much stress I manage to cause myself by over planning some things and under planning for others. I'm not going to set any quantitative scale or quotient to meet because I know at the point I'm just setting myself up for failure. Instead, I have some ideas for the blueprint of what I'd like this next year to look like, and I'm going to share these things with you and hope maybe you will steal some of them for yourself. 

1.) See my horse more. 

Okay so maybe this is sort of quantitative, and for the majority of the year this wasn't an issue! Even when I broke my foot in January (should have known then...) I was still seeing my horse pretty regularly, boot and all. The problem came when I let stress get in the way, and then I felt guilt for not seeing him more, which made me feel guilt when I DID go see him, which made me make excuses to not go out. I felt like such a bad horse mom, and closing out my year this has been the hardest thing for me to admit. But, low and behold, today Brianna and I went out, spent time with the ponies, rode and I feel fantastic. So this year I'm not going to let me be my own enemy when it comes to doing things that make me happy. Which brings me too... 

2.) Not feeling bad for feeling bad.

Guess what? If you feel depressed, or have anxiety, or any other type of mental illness, you're allowed to feel shitty. Really. Like really, really. You're allowed to not want to leave the house sometimes, you're allowed to not always love everything, and you're allowed to feel miserable. That doesn't make you a bad student/parent/employee/human/etc. I plan this year to be better at addressing my own needs, and being honest when I'm struggling with things. It's okay to ask for help, and if you need it you should too! 

3.)  Keep my momentum for building the future (but not at the expense of losing the now).

As more posts come out of this blog I plan to talk quite a bit about the horses and the goats and my plan for the future and my path to agricultural bliss. In short, I have spent much of the end of this year studying, planning and working toward goals to make the future I want more obtainable and I want to keep on that. I finally have reached a point where the things I want aren't a distant impossibility, and that thirst to move closer drives me every day. There's nothing like feeling yourself put together the pieces of your future bit by bit. 

Things to be thankful for: An amazing man who has learned to love goats

4.) Reach out to friends more. 

I have a number of friends who will probably read this who have been with me through all of the major highs and lows of this past year and have been so undyingly supportive it's almost painful! They push me to do the things I love, they support the life I lead, and they let me be the very strange and eccentric person I am with no fear of rejection. From late night ice cream runs, to in-apartment dinners and everything in between, I couldn't be more thankful for them. They are the extending limb of my family and I look forward to all the great times in store for us in the next year. 

I thought about closing this out at a solid five but I think the even four just about cover it. It's funny... Making this blog post I went through my pictures of the year and realized a LOT of really great, amazing, incredible, life changing and important things happened in 2016. Funny how perception changes attitudes right? 

5.) Be thankful. Every single day. 

I hope you all have the very best and most wonderful years in 2017. Bad things will happen, sometimes stuff will suck, but I believe in you! Good things will happen to and they will be wonderful. So farewell 2016, and hello to a very shiny New Year!!!