It all started for me when our middle child was born. Our first born came about a year and a half beforehand and we found that he was a little bit intolerant of milk. In any case, he was on the breast straight away so he never had to deal with it until later on in life when his tolerance of milk products had improved. But for our second boy Brad, things a bit complicated at the birth and my wife had to go on strong antibiotics for a week. During this time, Brad had to get that crazy cows-milk formula that so many people are convinced is good for you. He seemed to like it fine but he kept developing mucus and ear problems, as well as having a constantly-running nose and watering eyes. As soon as my wife was better again, he was back on the breast, but the day soon came when it was time for him to detach himself from his mother’s milk. We looked into it and it seemed that goats’ milk was the solution. We found, however, that goats’ milk was one of the most expensive things you could buy in NE California. We did some asking around and found that there was a pair of milking goats available for $150. At that point, we were spending more than that every month on goat’s milk so we just bought the damn goats. Well, you sure can become attached to animals and, three years on, the coterie of goats in our yard grew from two to twenty-two. I was selling a lot of goats’ milk. It turned out that a lot of other people are intolerant to dairy stuff and the market was clearly a seller’s one at that time. Around about five years into my life as a goat-herd/goat owner, the fly control issue became extremely severe. I don’t really know why: there are all sorts of theories from viral issues to global warming to over-use of pesticides. Whatever the reason, we had a real life fly infestation problem on our hands. I didn’t know how to get rid of flies. We had all kinds of fly species around, so there were flies and dogs and flies all over our poor goats. Every day in summer was a trial for them, with the flies boldly invading every surface and orifice on their bodies. In the end, I found out about organic pest control involving fly trap and fly predator. The predator is the best fly killer of them all and the best mosquito repellent turned out to be citronella. So peace returned once more to my goat herd and it has made me a happy goatherd.