Huge Goats and Pill Bugs

Yesterday, Kevin and I had quite the adventure. We scheduled with some ladies in our ward (congregation) to go visiting teaching (which is basically  where you go and visit them, sometimes with a brief spiritual thought, with the intent of seeing how they are doing and if they need any help).

Grig had the car at work, and so Kevin and I were going to be picked up by another lady in the ward who is assigned to go with me. However, as we were waiting for her to show up, she called me and told me that the morning had just gone crazy and she wouldn't be able to come.

I quickly assured her that I wasn't upset and that those things happen. The two women I was visiting were easily in walking distance, so Kevin and I decided to go by ourselves. He would be my companion for the day. Kevin set the pace and we began to walk.

Three captured pill bugs later (though he had to drop one in order to pick up a stick), we really hadn't made it very far down the sidewalk.

Luckily, the first sister I had intended to see was not answering her phone, so we had a few extra minutes to get to the second sister, which worked out great since she was closer anyway.

Eventually, after Kevin squashed an ant and a may-fly, we made it to her home. We enjoyed our visit, though she had a large robotic dinosaur that half frightened and half fascinated Kevin. 

After that visit we walked a few more blocks to see the second lady. We had a good chat with her as well, and Kevin enjoyed himself with playing with her toys. 

At that point, he was starting to act tired, and so we decided to head home. However, we passed another friend's home, and they invited us to come play for a minute. Kevin was looking eager, and I decided it sounded like fun. 

We stayed there for a while, while he enjoyed playing with the children and I enjoyed chatting to the mother. After not too long, however, he started telling me he was getting tired. So, we decided to head home again.

However, as we walked past another home, I followed an impulse and went and knocked on the door. This particular home was actually also a goat farm. When our ward helps people financially, it often will ask them to come and help milk the goats as a way to earn the money. I have kind of wanted to go just for fun. 

I vaguely knew the people, but not very well. Anyway, the man opened the door and we asked if Kevin could see his goats. He couldn't hear me at first, so I had to speak up a bit louder. After he could hear me, he invited us in and sent us through the house and out the back door. He also told us that if we stuck around for a while, we could watch him feed the goats, because it was almost feeding time.

We followed the trail that led from the backdoor to some sheds and were greeted by cute little baby nubian goats. Kevin was a little nervous at first, but eventually, he was brave enough to approach the gate and touch them. As we stroked the little ones though, I was shocked to see a humongous animal behind them. I realized it was the father, and it was huge!

I have never seen a goat this big. It was the size of a small horse or a large great dane!  

This isn't actually the goat, I think the one I saw was a little bigger than this, but I wanted to let you see that goats do grow this big! Click on the picture to follow the link to its original source. 

The females were only about half the size of the male. They were all very sweet and tame. We stayed long enough to watch him bottle feed the youngest goats, and then we headed home. 

After a long drink, Kevin quickly fell asleep. He was wiped out, but he'd had a great time. It had ended up being a three-hour trip. 

I really enjoyed myself as well. It's nice to get out every once in a while.