Mr. Goat went on down the road.  ***Note to world:  Do not let your arm get between the horns of a goat with an attitude.  This is what they want to do and try to do.  All it takes is one quick head jerk/your arm is wedged in the middle/one more quick head twist/& Bob’s you Uncle……………….(?)……………….Bob get out of here!!!  You had nothing to do with this………………No, you have a severely damaged &/or broken arm.  And a grinning goat.

But once at the butchers and after a quick assessment and a generous offer from the butcher, we decided that he was going to be a tough, big, butt-head at 120 to 150 lbs.  So, to quote a good song;  “Take the money and run.”

Well, we didn’t run, but we did drive away with the money, no broken bones, one less butt-head on the farm and a good contact for future, surplus/non-producing  goats.  The butcher told us there is a big market for any type of goat meat in Tampa Bay’s ethnic melting-pot. Even this goat-guy with his size & toughness.  His meat would be sold with the skin on to one ethnicity.  When asked what he preferred, the butcher said——everything.  There’s a market for smaller/younger goats with more tender meat (me), some want castrated, some don’t………………………..now, don’t be put off and judgy———-remember this IS a farm blog…………………and besides, I’m just talking to myself & some wispy cloud anyway………………………….

I need to name this cloud-thing……………………I’ll give it some thought.

The butcher-guy said he would take just about any meat we could offer.  Turkeys, chickens, Tilapia, rabbits,……………….I even offered him some snake meat from our various encounters.  He wasn’t surprised. Apparently, I wasn’t the first to offer.  But he did decline.  He did want my contact for hide tanning though.

To that effect (in that I do most of the laundry here) when we got home, I had some hay moving to do and decided to do it in dirty Patrice rather than clean Patrice.  So instead of putting on another pair of over-alls………….buck-smelly Patrice and I went out to the tractor together to work.

Well, we were in a down-pour……………And, as you know, hot air rises.

Filthy, smelly, buck-rag Patrice got super soggy.  I was already sweaty, buck-nasty and dirty.  And ALL of “it” wafted up, hovered and permanently adhered around my face and nostrils while I sat on the tractor seat in the post-rain steam…………………………….my personage was enough to make ME retch.  Tolerant Patrice doesn’t judge.  Buck odor is hard to explain unless you’ve experienced it.  But it’s definitely barf-worthy.

So Patrice has now been washed once/soaked/& is about to be washed again. Vinegar and baking soda is a good thing.

Ah, moving buck goats———–especially those who don’t want to be moved, who want to break arms, and hopefully bend or at least dent a few titanium joints——if they are lucky enough, and if given half an opportunity.  But in all fairness to him (I don’t want to be), he had a couple (or at least one) very good reasons for not wanting to be loaded onto the truck……………………………..well, then he should have been nicer earlier, shouldn’t he have!?!

I would like to point out that there have been a number of animals I’ve driven to the butchers in the past and cried while doing so (bucks included).  It’s never an easy trip.  It never should be.  Meat doesn’t just appear in plastic wrap on styrofoam trays in a grocery store cooler.  It’s messy and a life is always given.

 

Don’t even get me started on veal……………………!!!!!!

 

Go on, ask my daughters and their friends what happens when meat is left uneaten on a plate at this house……………………………….I dare you…………………………..no really………………………………a detailed, graphic lecture always ensues.

But this dude……………………………………not a tough choice at all.  Dry eyes all around in that truck cab

This butcher shop did have some very, very unique things in their butchers meat case for sale…………………..really different…………………and I’ll eat most anything……………….but there were a couple new ones——even for me!!!  Definite double-takes!!!?!!!

I don’t judge.  There’s a palate for everyone…………………………..

But……………unique niblets just the same…………….

 

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