False hope, goat swaps, more chickens, brutal cold

In one of those “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” moments, we were sent on a wild goose chase Friday night. Mama had spent the previous couple days in text and phone conversations with a potential seller of a very nice RV Victoria had found on Craigslist. It sounded legit based on the conversations Mama had had with the seller, so Mama put a $500 deposit on the purchase to hold the RV for us until we could drive over to do a visual inspection and, if it met our expectations, to pick it up. The trip took well over an hour in heavy traffic. I had some doubts about the purchase, but the seller had a Navy Federal Credit Union account to which Mama was easily able to transfer the cash, so this appeared to be the real deal. It was not until we got to the address provided by the seller that the con was evident.

The house at the address was a mansion in a very affluent area of Dallas. There was no RV in sight and no seller to meet as he had promised when we began our trek to meet him at the address. Mama called several times. She texted several times. No answer, so I knocked on the door of the house and was met by a couple young Chinese ladies who were housesitting for the owner. We got taken. It was a bitter pill to swallow, especially for Mama.

Victoria was not overly upset about the loss of the $500, but she was VERY disappointed. No camper for her – and she had had her hopes up that this would be the one. Everything seemed to be lining up perfectly, but it was all a scam. Mama is still devastated. It will take a while before the sting of tis deception wears off. The fact that the scammer kept up the dialogue until we arrived at the address he had given was totally unnecessary. He already had his money. We could not figure out why he carried us along with the scam until after we made the unnecessary drive and waster several hours of our time to pick up an RV he know would not be there. Maybe it was fun for him, but it was not so for us.

On a brighter note, we released the two does that had been with Midas for a couple months. Hopefully they are bred. We will not know for sure for several weeks. The owners were very pleased to get their does back. The mama of the little mariniere, Sarah, really loves her goats and had pined for them in their absence. These goats really are the perfect farm animal for those who like the friendlier sort of animal occupants in their collection. I unadvisedly took the young does through the paddock with the other two males to get them to the tailer brought to haul them home. Both of the bucks, who had been excluded from the breeding process, were anxious to mount the little does as we passed through and we had to fight them off while we got the does through the paddock. At one point, I was actually laid out on top of Julian as he struggled to catch up to the last doe we took through. Holding him back turned out to be a challenge. It was only after the fact that Mama reminded me that we could have taken the does through the shop to get them out to the trailer. Duh! For some reason it just did not dawn on me to do so.

Once that transfer was done, we got the little bucks from the pig building and moved them into the area that we had used for the breeding pen for Midas and the does. Additionally, we got the last two babies from the paddock the does are in to separate them from their mommy. So, all the little does are in the pig building and all the little bucks are in the small enclosure next to the mature bucks. The family picking up the bred does helped with the transfers, so all six of the little ones needing to be relocated were moved in just a few minutes. That saved me a lot of effort since I would have had to do the transfers one by one on my own.

They also brought Mama six relatively young chickens. I had recently asked Mama to refrain from purchasing any more chickens, but that request went unheeded. Not only did we get six young chickens from Sarah, but we went to Bowie to meet with Nancy, the widow of our Myotonic goat mentor, to pick up some Banty hens from her flock. Ostensibly, the chickens were being picked up for a friend at church, but Mama could not resist a couple of the more unusually colored hens.  So, we will be getting a couple of them as well. Fortunately, those hens purchased from Nancy are mature enough to lay. Those purchased from Sarah will not be laying for at least four months. I can not argue too much with the purchase since we have at least ten hens that are getting too old to lay and with the purchases, we are fairly certain to get hens since all the bird are old enough to tell their sex. 

This week we will be getting some brutally cold temperatures for a couple days. The forecast for Thursday is for the low to be 5° F overnight with twenty to thirty mile per hour winds. That will be very challenging to deal with – especially for our goats, chickens, ducks, and outside dogs. I will have all the freeze protections in place as well as I can, but we will have to take what we get and pray to make it through the cold snap without incident. Fortunately, it is only going to be dangerously cold for about 36 hours, warming to above freezing after that. Unfortunately, it only takes a few hours for a severe freeze to cause many problems.

Hopefully, we are prepared to avoid ending up with any freezing pipes or waterlines.