Big thanks to Othello neighbor and urban farmer Catherine Burke who adopted two dairy goats earlier this year and has been kind enough to keep us posted on their progress:
I’ve recently become acquainted with a few folks right around here who produce lots of different kinds of food on their urban lot. The folks behind us just completely cleared the huge scrubby alley between our yards and planted eggplant and tomatoes! It’s really exciting to see people reclaiming the land in this way.
Our goats are simply wonderful! We adopted two kinder goats which are a mix of Nubian dairy breed and the small African pygmy goat. They are about 14-months old. Later this month we plan to take them up to a farm in Snohomish County for a “buck service”.
In the spring they will “freshen” with their first sets of kids, and then we will start milking and making cheese! Last week we sprinkled cedar chips in their outdoor area and trimmed their hooves to keep them healthy during the wet weather that is already on its way.
I used to think we got all our organizing traits from bands of hunting carnivores, but after hours of keen observation (and lots of coffee) I realized that our caprine friends reflect many of the more interdependent social aspects humans seem to thrive in. We are omnivores after all!
Related:
- Goats?! In the Rainier Valley?! (8/22/09)
- More Farm Animals on the Lam in the Rainier Valley; Is One Yours? (9/19/09)
Who to know, where to eat & what to do in one of America’s most diverse zip codes!
{ 4 comments }
Great idea! However, in my experience, goats — especially baby goats — are downright LOUD. They pierce the middle of the night with screams that sound like children screaming their lungs out. I used to live next door to a goat farm. Same goes for roosters. They like to wake everyone up at 4 am. Farming, as a way of life, is also extremely physically demanding. Not sure how the neighbors are going to love the choice of baby goats and roosters. If someone lived next to me in the city and did this, I would hate their guts.
It’s nice to see the “greens” jump on the bandwagon, but there’s a reason the farm animals are in the country, and not the city. There’s also a reason people don’t consider agriculture and husbandry as “moving up in the world,” since it’s very hard work and it will generally shorten your life span, because it is so demanding.
Just want to share this point of view, since all I really tend to see here is the romantic aspect of this type of work.
I, too, love goats; and i had them myself once upon a time. Country boy is right, they ARE noisy; I am interested in how this family is going to deal with that aspect of it. I’d have goats in a minute if I thought I could get away with it (and if they weren’t so noisy) they are wonderful entertaining animals.
I have two mini LaMancha goats and they are almost silent. I got them for their sweet disposition and their lack of noise. However, we have not bred them yet and may be in for a surprise!
You are right that doing urban farming is a lot of work and that it’s often really romanticized. In addition to the goats we also have chickens and a lot of raised beds. I usually get up pretty early and put in 1-2 hours each morning. It’s also kind of hard if you want to go away for a trip. Having said all this though I still am really enjoying it all and like feeling like I truly do know where my food is coming from.
For all the stress and weirdness of our current times we do seem to be living in a unique bubble in human history where we have multiple choices for how we feed ourselves. If your choice is the farmlet then go for it!
I like to know where my food is coming from, also. I support our local farms by buying direct from the farmer. I drive to the farm, as many cannot afford to sell through a local farmer’s market. Most local farms are slowly bleeding revenue and no longer generate profit. A lot of this has to do with big-agri lobbyists and the resulting govt favoritism, over many years.
If citizens focused more on getting rid of lobbyists, keeping lawyers in control, and ensuring our basic industries didn’t fall prey to corporate competition changing the laws, there would be no need for all of us to worry about where our food came from. Capitalism works fine as long as there are checks and balances to prevent elements of corruption, which appear in all systems of govt. Remove the checks and balances, and any system will cave in on itself and no longer make sense.
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