NATURE OF THE BEAST

   A farm is a wonderful thing. To let my life's work be the day to day running of one has been my dream since I was a 7 year old boy. When my Dad and Uncle announced they had bought a couple of acres and we were going to have a garden, I fell in love with it.

   Think about it. A place where you are allowed to get dirty and it's okay! You can run, and jump, and climb trees! For a small boy it's heaven. Then when I found out we would have chickens, and pigs, and a tractor, I went into sensory-overload.

   I loved every bit of it. My Uncle let me drive the tractor and plow the fields. We dug wells by hand and had the coolest water you ever tasted . My Dad let me pick out my own oak tree. It was mine! I learned to build a barn, plant crops, and take care of chickens & hogs.

   I grew to appreciate the changing seasons. Just like it says in the Bible there is a time and season for every thing, and I saw that in the day-to-day workings of our little farm. Now I have my own place. No, it's not a giant farm, but it is bigger than what I grew up working on. I have more room and more animals. I'm trying to make it, and us as self sustaining as possible.

   My dream is to one day raise every thing I need to feed my family for the entire year, every year. All the veggies, all the meat, eggs, everything except what I fish and hunt for. Eventually I would like to buy or rent some more land and have a few heads of cattle. Right now I'm working on my goats and chickens primarily.

   I recently had triplet baby goats on the farm. All girls. Last Spring we had twin boy goats. Yesterday I noticed one of the older billys try and ram one of the newborn kids. That couldn't go one. Plus, on down the road we don't want any in-breeding going on so it was time for the billys to go.

   I sold the young billys to a neighbor down the road from me who wanted some brush cutters for his place. When I delivered them his Grandchildren ran out and started playing with them. I know they went to a good place. We also discussed him buying my breeding male in a little while, to prevent the same problems.

   In the future I hope to have a new billy to go with several breeding does. I want to have butter, milk, and meat goats for sale. In order to achieve this the young billys had to go. It's the nature of the beast. You can't keep everyone.

   That's farming!

Jim Cobb Coleman.