High on the hill was a lonely Goatherd, yo di lay yo di lay......

As most of you reading this will know that I hanker for the 'Good Life'. I was brought up with potatoes, carrots, peas, strawberries and even gooseberries growing in the garden. I even think we had a grape vine growing over a trellis but I don't think it ever amounted to much. We kept chickens for a time on a fairly large scale in a back garden and I loved it!! I can even remember a time when we had no car and caught buses and trains or walked everywhere. We didn't have a lot of money but what I did have was a very full childhood with lots of different experiences. I don't think that I lacked anything but I did have tough times for different reasons, which I can only fully appreciate how tough they were now and what a lasting effect those things have had on me.

But on the whole I had a happy childhood. Living simply and making do. Re-use and recyle were second nature to us and we didn't know any different really. We appreciated things when they were given to us. We certainly didn't have the clutter problem that we all talk about so freely these days! We had paper rounds and Saturday jobs when we were older and learnt the value of money.

Now you are probably wondering where I am going with all of this when the title of this posting is a song from The Sound of Music. No, we're not going turn ourselves in to a modern day Von Trapp family! Nor am I about to go on Stars in their eyes as Julie Andrews!

No. It is simpler than that. Well, maybe.

We are thinking of getting a dairy goat!! (or 2 as they need company of some sort!)

I have always loved goats. In fact I love most creatures with possibly the exception of Turkeys and maybe geese!!

Now there will be some of you gasping in horror at our outlandish behaviour! And others who are oohing at the cute little kids we will have to bring up! ;-)

But we have chickens, successfully bred and hatched 'our own' eggs and are increasing the vegetable plot in the garden while I work out how to get my hands on an allotment! So why not a goat? We must go through 8 pints of milk a day!! The boys drink it like water, we make custard and yoghurt and cheese sauces and it costs us a fortune!!!

Why can't I be Barbara from The Good Life and have a goat called Geraldine and take it for walks to browse the hedgerows and grass verges? Well maybe not the walking it as there are regulations these days because of Blue tongue etc, but is it such a difficult animal to keep and milk twice a day and make butter and cheese and things from it?

So I started doing research on it in earnest, although I didn't have to try to convince my husband or any of the boys, as they are all as keen as me when it comes to my crazy schemes!!!

I started by reading the section in John Seymour's Self Sufficiency about goat keeping, the bit in Home Farm by Paul Heiney and then dug out my back isues of Country Smallholding which bizarely enough had an article about Keeping a goat in the town!!

Then I went on to the internet and looked at breeds. I have always had a soft spot for the ones with Roman noses and floppy ears. They are a dairy breed called Anglo Nubian. As luck would have it I found a website for a breeder near Stratford upon Avon and emailed her to ask if she would mind us coming to see her herd.

We all thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the Holdbrook Herd. Mel is lovely, and her son also spent the time wth us talking about the goats. They had lots of kids there to make a fuss of. She let them out from their stalls in to the barn so they could run around us...it was lovely. Even my littlest one was loving it!! Mel showed us how to trim their feet and gave up an hour of their time not to mention her knowledge. I was so interested in everything she had to say and so taken with the goats that I completely forgot to take any photos! So the 2 pictures here are ones from Mel's website by kind permission.

Aren't they just so adorable!!!! I want them!!!

But we will make an informed decision by visiting other breeds and herds before jumping in too quickly. We would have to get a holding number from Defra, but I don't think that is too difficult on such a small scale. Goats as pets not for business.

So are we mad? That remains to be seen. I think we are a little crazy but not certifiable....not yet!!