Bad Goat!

It does not matter how many times we think that we have things figured out, our pesky barn animals are always one step ahead of us.  Always.

Wouldn't you know, it has been less than a week since Ian completed the perimeter fence to keep the goats safely on our property and Martha has already found a way to sneak under a different part of the fence to get into the paddock with the ewes and their lambs.  Bad goat!  Very BAD GOAT!

For being such an exceptional mama herself, I am completely baffled by why she would think it was a good idea to go and harass the ewes and their babes.  Needless to say, the mama sheep were less than impressed with Martha and copiously head butted her away from their lambs.  I am not sure that Martha was actually interested stealing the lambs for herself (I really don't know what she was aiming for exactly - a grand adventure? to make Mellie jealous by securing some new barnyard BFFs?  to prove how easily she could thwart our attempts at keeping her confined?) but there was no explaining this to Violet and Molly.

This undesired doe-ewe interaction resulted in Molly with a bloody head from ramming Martha and Martha (the goat) locked in the sheep barn in Time Out for the afternoon.  Martha proceeded to express her indignation at her perceived injustice at being locked up in a foreign barn at the top of her goatie voice for the duration of her unlawful confinement.  After fixing the spot in the fence where Martha was squeezing herself under, Ian took pity on her and carried her back to her own paddock.  This was very kind of him as Martha is ridiculously heavy and there was no other way to to transport her.  The ewes would not have let her out of the barn unscathed; we had to lock them in the middle paddock to keep their wrath at bay.  There was also no way Martha could be let free to walk through the back yard back to her paddock since she would never have ignored my newly sprouted gardens full of delicious lettuce, broccoli and cabbage.  So, by virtue of necessity, Martha got the "deluxe treatment" and was lugged in Ian's arms and then dumped unceremoniously back in her own barn.

Whatever will they think up next?!  These animals are crazy!