Cashmere Calamity

While writing my About Me page, I got to thinking back on earlier years and thought of our experience with  Cashmere goats.  I can’t say that it was a pleasant experience, but an experience it was!

We were looking for another fiber to compliment our wool.  Through his research, Perry had become interested in Cashmere goats.  After some discussion, we decided that cashmere would be a nice addititon for both spinning and blending.  After all, it’s a really nice fiber.  Calls were made, questions answered and it seemed the way to go.  All the necessary arrangments were made and Appy, Angel and Hope were on their way to us from Oregon… via Delta Airlines.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Only the best for our new critters.  We didn’t have a clue!

While anxiously awaiting their arrival, we received the phone call saying they would be a day late.  It seems they got stranded in Atlanta.  We had no way of knowing that goats could suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Until that fretful day, Perry had never found an animal that he couldn’t calm down.  This trio gave the word stress a whole new meaning.  It was days before we could get them cornered into the barn.  Our sheep had always been docile, attentive, sweet natured and calm; this trio would jump six foot fences, run like the wind and then stop and look back as if to say “Catch me if you can.”  Any pre-conceived notions of Appy being happy and Angel being angelic were soon shattered.  And as for Hope… well, let’s just say that all hope for a thriving cashmere business soon was gone.  But this was only the foreshadowing of things to come.

Sure, it’s true that cashmere is a wonderful fiber, but what the previous owner of our new goats had failed to tell us, you have to catch them to get the fiber.  And catch them we never could.  Oh sure, we would see an occasional tuft of soft down hanging from a low-lying limb in the woods or maybe some on the bottom of the fence from those times when they bored of jumping over it and decided to go under instead.  We provided them with lush pastures, but the neighbor’s apples proved to be too much of a temptation.  Can you imagine our horror to see them standing on their back legs staring into the neighbor’s kitchen window?

Our careful genetic selections of bred females and an unrelated male were to result in an exceptional herd… NOT !  After the first year, we had an additional 11 bucks (no does) …all wilder than their parents.

The final straw, though, was the day we saw our 90 year old neighbor, Mrs. Tipps, chasing all 14 of them down the road back to our place.  Something had to be done.

So how did our Cashmere experience end?  Well, we heard of a livestock auction for St. Jude Children’s Hospital.  My nephew, a cancer survivor, had been a patient there and we have a special place in our hearts for St. Jude.  So we donated.  As Perry was struggling with them, trying to get them into the arena, the auctioneer saw them coming and auctioned them off before they ever got through the gate.