Dennis, a carpenter/contractor by trade did have a few years when he was very young exposed to farm life and as he became older it was trips to relatives farms to help out as needed. He did have some rabbits and that was it when we met. Fishing and hunting "are my life" he would declare! The goats have come in between some of that although he has become very fond of the goats too! He is a wonderful herdsman and yes, still gets to fish and hunt although not quite as much.
I grew up in the country with lots of wildlife. My father was a mechanical engineer and had a machine shop. He built a 40 acre "pond" stocked with fish surrounded many acres of heavy woods. A wildlife sanctuary....No farm animal though! He disliked farm animals having grown up on a farm on the prairies of Saskatchewan and neither my mother who also grew up on a farm in the same area in Canada, were not allowed anything other than chickens to butcher! I could tell the difference between machines and tooling but hardly knew where an udder on a cow was. I became a nurse later on.
I enjoyed visits to the neighbors farms but never understood how friends of mine as school could get so attached to any animal they had. Well, now I do! Sometimes we feel like "kids" again, getting to know these fascinating animals!
After being married a few years and having children plus mom moving in we needed more room. We purchased a place on 40 acres so Dennis could hunt, and yes, he still gets to. We had continued commuting 2 hrs one way to the Mpls/St.Paul metro area to work. One day while having a casual conversation with my employer, who is Nigerian, asked what we were doing with that land we were on. I simply said, "what do you mean?" He replied, "why don't you raise some goats?" My response was, "why would we want to do that?" Evans informed me then, "we eat them!" Needless to say, I had never heard to this except in old testament Bible stories.....unbelievable! After reaserching we have found that 80% on the world eats "Chevon" and a growing number of northern european desendants that have not eaten goat before are now because of people looking for healthier diets.
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