For those of you who don’t know, I entered this picture of Teasel (she’s telling sheep jokes: “Hey, did you hear the one about the six-legged ewe from Albuquerque?”) in the goat photo contest Marna Kazmaier hosted at her Working Goats Website (http://www.workinggoats.com/). It was judged on the number of votes each picture received during the entire month of July. The prize: one of Marna’s neat goat wagon harnesses.I asked my family and friends to vote and it snowballed until about a million people were voting for Teasel’s picture every day. However, Diane in Kentucky (if you’re reading this, Diane, I’m sorry—I don’t know your last name) had an enormous following too. Our pictures battled it out all month long. As the contest closed, Diane’s cute picture of two packgoat kids crossing a wooden bridge captured 13% of the votes and Teasel, 12%. I didn’t win the harness.
So imagine my surprise when, two days later, Marna e-mailed to tell me an anonymous benefactor purchased a harness for me! I have no idea who it was but I’m very grateful (if you see this, again, thank you very much!).
So, the harness came today and it’s exactly like the prize in the photo contest: red with black trim. And such nice workmanship! Unlike my leather driving harness, it’s lightweight and beautifully stitched—perfect for a goat hitched to a utility wagon.Tomorrow, book deadline or no, I’m going to take time to try it on one of my goats. Since it’s a standard-size harness and my Boer-Nubian wethers, Salem and Shiloh, are behemoths, I think I’ll fit it to a heretofore untrained goat. I’m thinking Uzzi would like to learn to pull a wagon and eventually, Kes, our Boer herd queen.
And, (yippee!) it’s the perfect size for Mopple when he's all grown up—and won’t red look splendid against his black and white coat!
When my next check comes, we’re off to TSC in Batesville to buy a wagon. I plan to convert one exactly like the setup in the picture below (the picture is compliments of Marna Kazmaier).
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