Happy Friday, Gentle Readers,
I pray this missive finds you well.
So, earlier this week, I was perusing X because I am a glutton for punishment. Whilst scrolling, I happened upon this video by The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh about his travails with his family purchasing goats.
Meet our newest family member pic.twitter.com/pPiSZitAiV
— The Matt Walsh Show (@MattWalshShow) March 24, 2025
Oh, please, Walsh. That’s not a goat story. THIS is a goat story:
Not long into our marriage, my wife saw me puzzling over the backyard of our brand-new house. It was so new that there was no landscaping, and fighting encroaching weeds in a high-desert climate is enough to make Navy Seals quit their day jobs to become TikTok influencers. I was having trouble finding a landscaper to put in sod (we did try our hand at xeriscaping, but xeriscaping and dogs do not mix).
Mrs. Brown suggested that we get some goats to eat the weeds. She knew a guy who raised them and would sell us a pair at a more-than-reasonable price. Fair enough. We had a substantial amount of property, and we could certainly accommodate two measly goats.
Heh.
I set about goat-proofing the back half of the property, shoring up the barbed wire, and putting in 2x12s to keep the goats from bolting into the surrounding pasture. I even put on my favorite Justin Roper straw Stetson and sidled over to the local farm and ranch store to buy goat feed, a range block, and a watering trough. When Goat Day dawned, I was more than confident I could care for our herd of two. When the goats arrived that evening, I promptly deposited them in the back pasture, and Mrs. Brown headed off to work. About an hour later, I went to check on our herd of two. There was no herd of two. There wasn’t even a herd of one. The little monsters had made a break for it.
I asked the neighbors if they had seen any loose goats. One neighbor told another, who told another, who told another. To my neighborhood’s everlasting credit, what started as one man’s quest to find his missing goats turned into an epic saga worthy of “The Fellowship of the Ring.” I had an entire posse of people helping me scour the surrounding countryside for the wayward livestock. This included a charming young woman who was on the rodeo circuit and happened to be extraordinarily handy with a lasso – good to have on a goat-recovery expedition.
Two excruciating hours later, we found them holed up under a cluster of juniper trees. They could not be caught; they could not be grabbed or otherwise apprehended. Goats are unbelievably agile and skilled at avoiding capture. Even the rodeo queen could not rope them. Eventually, a sort of dragnet was formed, and the goats were taken into custody. We fashioned some leads out of the lasso. But as it turns out, you can’t lead goats anywhere they are not interested in going. As soon as I would try to pull them back home, they would bleat pitifully, throw themselves on the ground, and play dead. This went on for about ten yards before I realized that this plan was in vain.
The upshot of this was I had to carry two goats back home for a glorious mile and a half. Two screaming, peeing, pooping and slobbering goats. Somehow, I managed to accomplish this Sisyphean task and deposited them in the portion of the yard protected by an eight-foot fence. The goats were now raising an unholy racket in the backyard. Just settling in, I suppose.
I was bruised, sore, bloody from branches and brambles, and covered in sweat, goat feces, urine, and spit. And I was exhausted. Then the phone rang. It was Mrs. Brown. The cheery voice on the other end asked, “So, how are the goats?”
“How are the goats? How are the goats? Let me tell you about the @#$%& goats.”
This past Christmas, I wrote about how our obnoxious Christmas display one year necessitated me buying cases of beer for the entire neighborhood, even the Mormons. This was the second time I had to do that.
One would have thought that ensconcing the goats behind a fence would be the end of the story. Far from it. We had the goats, but there was no change in the status of the weeds. People in the know had told us that it was a good idea to hand-feed the goats treats to get them accustomed to interacting with people. So we tried bananas, which they absolutely loved. Of course, that explained why they weren’t eating the weeds. Obviously, they liked bananas better than weeds. Then again, who wouldn’t?
So when it came to the goats, the household motto was “Yes, we have no bananas.” Sans bananas, the goats took to the weeds. But they only ate the leaves, and so we had a hearty crop of stems in the backyard.
I wish that was the worst of it, but it was not. We had a dog house, which had suddenly gone missing. I found it in a corner of the yard. The beasts had pushed it against the fence to use as a makeshift ladder in an escape attempt. If they got bored, they would come at you full force to make their ennui known. No man likes getting hit in the posterior by a goat, but I speak from miserable experience when I say that it beats the alternative.
We were not even safe under the cover of night. If we turned on a light in the bedroom, we would hear the thunk of front hooves hitting the bedroom window and behold a pair of goats peering at us from the gloom. If we needed to use the bathroom, we had to roll out of bed, bellycrawl to the can, and do our business in the dark, lest a light from behind the curtains alert the demon spawn that had commandeered our backyard.
Things came to a head when I came home from work, and a neighbor said I should check on the goats more often. “Why?” I asked. They had food, water, shade, shelter, and plenty of stems. She informed me that in our absence, the goats were taking turns ramming the back door of the house, which had a large glass pane. I immediately had visions of what two goats would do left unsupervised in a family home. And what my insurance agent would say if I tried to file a claim. We called the man who sold us the goats.
“Come get your goats.”
“What?”
“Come get your goats.”
“I’m not giving you your money ba…”
“Don’t care. Come get your goats.”
He did, and it sounded like cries of the damned at the Last Judgment as he rounded them up. But we finally got a decent night’s sleep. And I found a landscaper.
So, Walsh, you know nothing, and I mean nothing of the terror that comes with owning goats. But you will, sir, you will.
Wine Recommendation
Because just recalling the ordeal makes me want to reach for a drink.
This time around, I found something on the clearance rack, which turned out to be a nice surprise. It was nothing particularly mind-blowing, but it yielded up a nice glass or two. Meet the Ondalán Tempranillo.
This wine will cost, on average, $13 to $15. As you would expect from a Tempranillo, it leans heavily to the dry side and is a tad aggressive, but not so much so as to overwhelm the palate. As typical, it runs to high tannins and a strong acidity. There is a healthy amount of spiciness to it, along with a good dose of cherry, a little bit of blackberry, and a pleasant presence of oak. It also finishes exceptionally well, with a little bit of smoke in the flavor.
Pair it up with a good red meat dish. You can enjoy it on its own, but it really works best as a table wine.
That’s it for me. Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you next time.
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