# TiltingWindmillsFarm Journal (Part 2)  -   GONE GOAT - When Bad Farming Happens to Good People



## TiltingWindmillsFarm (Apr 23, 2022)

***TRIGGER WARNINGS***





By the time you finish reading my whole story, I most likely will be in jail.

Not a very auspicious ending to my legal career – and even more surprising when you learn my criminal actions stem from Backyard goat farming.

I have been told that I could face close to a decade in prison. In case you are curious, other crimes that carry a 10-year sentence include burglary, assaults with firearms, and certain acts of terrorism.


I wanted to make soap




There is an overabundance of heart-warming farming and homesteading stories out there. If you are reading this, you are probably the type of person who already know many of them. My favorite has to be a farming documentary called The First Season (2012 - by director Rudd Simmons). It can be a bit tricky to find. I bought it on Amazon Prime but here is a link to its free trailer on YouTube if you want to get the flavor (



). I also loved Chicken People 2016 (currently free on the app Pluto TV) and The Biggest Little Farm 2018 (Currently on Hulu).



Unfortunately, my farming story is very, very different.



As with almost everything in life, when it comes to farming, not everyone gets the same result. Not everyone has a positive experience. Not everyone is a success.
 And, even if you only have a backyard hobby farm like me, not everyone has neighbors excited about chickens and goats living next door.



While it is easy to find the positive stories about farming, I thought it was important to share what happens when things do not go the way anyone expected. It is actually BECAUSE of these unexpected results incidents, in part, that makes my story so important.





I currently refer to my story Gone Goat 🐐 inspired the mystery /thriller Gone Girl.  Like that book (and movie!) my story has suspense, anxiety, betrayal and villains.
For years I referred to my story as "Farmageddon", an apocalyptic tale of farming….My therapist thinks the title Gone Goat implies a decrease in threat level…. I guess that means I am making progress.





During the pandemic shutdown, I think a lot of families realized they were exhausted and disconnected. People used this time to take stock in what was important to them. 
Sure, at first working from home provided some hilarious results - but eventually we all learned an important lessons such as always wearing one's pants during Zoom meetings.


As the pandemic ebbed  however, the majority of employees did not want to go back to "business as usual". In what is now being called "The Great Resignation" workers chose to quit their jobs rather than to return to the status quo. Others are demanding more flexible work options, many choosing to work from home, staying close to their families and the people (and pets) they loved the most.



I use the pandemic example here as a yardstick with which to measure my story. Back in 2017, 3 years before the Covid outbreak, my family was already exhausted and disconnected. At the time, my idea of being DONE with the "daily grind" sounded slightly insane.


In 2016, my husband and I were both successful attorneys who worked and commuted up to 12 hour days. Our kids went to "before school" care and "after school" care, yet we still had to hire a nanny because we could never make the 6 pm pick-up deadline. Our weeknight family interaction was dinner, TV, and bed. Often, we were so tired that we ate dinner in bed while watching TV. This made things easier but left little in terms of family connection. Saturdays were spent at soccer practice and swimming lessons. We did our banking and picked up prescriptions, we bought last minute gifts classmate birthdays. Every other Saturday was reserved for dinner with my in-laws. Sundays were for pancake breakfasts at the local dinner, washing baskets piled high with laundry and finishing the weekly grocery shop – all before fighting about homework.


By 2017, my in-laws had moved out of state leaving our family very much alone I think I was even more heartbroken than my kids (or even my husband) when their house sold and moved out of state. Two visits a month quickly plummeted to two visits a year.

I started to wonder what exactly we were doing. Day in and Day out my family was living a life that we did not really like and never seeing each other.


One day my husband made a comment about his boss. I do not remember the exact context, but the general idea was that, in my husband’s life, his boss was the person he spent the most time with.



That concept gnawed at me for weeks.



Were we spending time with who we wanted to be with? 
Doing what we wanted to do?



I needed to slow down and take stock of my life.


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