Perhaps you recall the story from last year where one of our goats escaped while on the way home from being bred with a buck. It had been a final straw for Rachel, who spent an hour looking for Lily in the dark far from home.

“I don’t care what it takes. Next year, we’re getting our own buck.”

You see, the job of taxiing lovesick goats back and forth from a farm with a buck largely fell on her. Heat cycles can’t be scheduled, and as she’s the one that is home more often than I it just sort of fell on her. Notice I didn’t say it was easier for her than I, because oh no, I assure you there was no semblance of easy in anything that came with the job. Ultimately, getting the goat there and back was a minimum of a 2-4 hour project, and it had to be completed with 4 kids in tow. So, I’m sure you all understand why she put her foot down on this matter.

Meet Colonel Mustard, our new buck.

His pedigreed name is Firewater, but that just didn’t seem to fit with our plant theme. Many names were suggested and thrown around, and ultimately we settled on Colonel Mustard. Mustard is a plant, after all.

The few weeks of lead-up to bringing him home has had both of us slightly high strung, as we couldn’t help but wonder whether or not we were getting ourselves in over our heads on this one. You’d think that by now we’d be used to that feeling, but, y’know.

Bucks aren’t just stinky, they can also be aggressive when in rut. And when they’re over 200 pounds, well, that can require some skillful homesteading management. We certainly weren’t worried for no reason. As it would turn out, we had nothing to worry about. He’s not yet full grown (in fact he’s smaller than our does), and he’s more clownish than aggressive. In fact, he’s a pretty friendly guy that I can’t help but like. He does smell, but it’s not overpowering, and you can’t really smell him unless you’re actually in the barn with him. Outside in the pen and it’s only somewhat noticeable. From within our house, which is next to the goat pen? Not at all. There’s been a big sigh of relief around here.

Part of what excites me most about this purchase is that we were able to buy him with the money from selling last year’s kids. Next year, I’m hopeful that selling the Colonel’s kids will be enough to buy all of the hay we’ll need. If that be the case our home dairy will be solidly in the black. At the moment when our does are milking we’re in a sort-of-break-even-but-not-exactly state. After 3 years, we just might be tipping ourselves into the ‘ahead’ column.

We’ll keep you updated! The lady that sold him to us assured me that he would reach 250 pounds. I doubt he’s 100 pounds at the moment, so I’m guessing he’ll be more like 150. Time will tell. Time will also tell what his kids will look like in the Spring. I’m particularly excited to see what comes from him and Black-Eyed Susan!