Walking the Goats..

Xochi and I have been taking Dotty and Arthur on daily walks to the park.  

We have made so many friends...goats are real ice-breakers!

I wish I had my camera today when I went with the goats up to the park to pick Xochi up from her art class.  There was a basketball camp going on and all of the kids were on a lunch break.  They couldn't believe our little mobile petting zoo.  They were holding Arthur, petting Dotty and calling all of their friends over to see.  The coaches were just as excited.  They assured me that they would all be there on Thursday at the same time, so I will be sure to take some pictures of our time at the park.

Xochi is so proud of her pets and loves to hand over Arthur's leash to all of her little friends that she meets.  He loves to play with them.

Our Goats in the Performing Arts!!!

Arthur and Dotty were cast in a movie that I am making with some of my students!  We begin filming on Thursday, and I will be sure to post the film when it is finished in 2 weeks. 

My songwriting student, Ariana, has composed a song about goats which will be sure to be featured on the blog as soon as we get it on tape (tomorrow!)  It's Awsome.

Progress on the Goat Palace:

My parents came over today and made a super spiffy gate for the goats.  They also finished the walls, so now he just needs to put up some trim and then we can paint it and call it a palace!!

Dotty has a different relationship with roses than Arthur.  Arthur likes to pose with them, she thinks they are yummy! Coming soon...

"ME, THE SUBURBAN MILKMAID...trials and triumphs!"  And how milking a dwarf goat is kind of like milking a cat.

Our Front Yard Victory Garden...

We never "used" the front lawn for any sort of recreation.  We didn't particularly like the way it looked.  We want to grow and harvest and consume more home-grown food. Then we read Fritz Haegs's inspiring book:  EDIBLE ESTATES:  ATTACK ON THE FRONT LAWN

That is when we knew that there is a whole revolution of people tearing up the front lawns to grow food. We recommend that everyone buys and reads Fritz Haeg's book.  Here is a touch of it:

"OUR PLANET :   Most of us feel like we don't have any control over the direction in which our world is headed.  As always, the newspapers are full of daily evidence for concern.  Unlike the challenges of past generations, however, these struggles are no longer just localized or broadly regional, they are an interlaced web of planetary challenges.  How, then, do we respond in the face of the impossible scale of the issues such as global energy production, climate change, and the related political aggressions and instabilities that accompany them?  One of the things that we can do is act where we have influence, and in a capitalist society, that would be our private property.  Here we have the freedom to create in some small measure the world in which we want to live."

We desperately want to be a part of this movement.

Here are some photos of the ground-breaking of our Victory Garden!!!!  What could the world be like if we all grew food with the water that we use to keep the lawns green... 

After we got all of the grass and shrubs out, we were left with this brown heap of tired dirt.

We will then mix in a truck load of compost and try to create the garden that Johnny and I designed before he left for Croatia. It will include plums, pomegranate, kumquat, strawberries, artichoke, peas and beans, lots of chard, amaranth, sunflowers, peach, nectarine, leeks, squash, peppers, and more....yippppeeeee
imagine!!!!  

Building the Goat Palace

My Dad is working his butt off so that our Goat dreams can come true!!!!!!!!!
Arthur roamed around the garden without a leash most of the time the palace was being built. Because he is still bottle fed, he didn't do too much damage to the plants.  He did eat all of the low branches of the apricot tree, and most of the blueberries.  He also ate up a spiral geranium plant, but wouldn't touch the geraniums that I would like him to eat...that's ok though, because the cute factor is so high.
They built a fortress of a retraining wall.  The zucchini that I planted on the other side of the man-hole were started from seeds by my dad.  They managed to survive the construction.
The beginnings of the Palace!!!

When we decided to get goats, we knew that we would have to build a new retaining wall and terrace, a goat house, and a fence.  Johnny and my Dad (and our friend, Carlos) built the wall, but then Johhny had to leave for Croatia for 5 weeks.  My Dad is building the goat palace almost single-handedly.  Arthur was here to see it go up.  He spent his first nights in the house in a dog crate and then he moved outside as we realized that he was reverse-housebroken.  He would hold it in all day until we would let him in and then he would poop all over the floor.