The beginning

This is where it all starts. I am creating this space for several reasons: 1) to document my own journey into livestock, 2) to give the woman I am learning from a place to see my progress and 3) somewhere that other potential affiliated can come and see my journey from a no-nothing to a serious something!

I have been doing Social Work for 20 years and I am only in my early 40s. I got my MSW in '95 but have been working in edge of the mainstream jobs since before graduating college. Currently I have been doing social work with injection drug users in Seattle through the public health department. It has been by far the most stable and best paying job I have ever had. For the first few years I was convinced that I would never leave this job. I love working with the homeless, mentally ill, disenfranchised drug users. The systems are what have been dragging me down. And the cumulative effect of witnessing the trauma on people's lives. I have lost several people that meant a lot to me in my personal life as well as some clients, and after finally getting another SW to work beside me - she had to take off 6 months for a pregnancy and with all of the drama of funding cuts etc.; I was completely drained by the time she came back in June of 2010. But decisions were already stewing by that time.

I have not been so good at managing my own self-care and at some point late last year or early this year I can recall saying to myself that all I really wanted to do was to hang out with goats all day. I believe I had already "friended" Rent-A-Ruminant on Facebook. In March, a conversation with my boss enlightened me that my current job was never going to significantly change from what it was at this time and I realized that although I was perfectly competent, I no longer wanted to do this job in this way and knew that changes had to be made.

I started setting goals - like to have some decision made by the end of 2010 re: the job. I started looking for a job/life coach. I talked to people I knew about my frustration and started writing some things down...never mentioning goats. In late May there was a post on the R-A-R page about a new venture to have Affiliates. It was as if a freakin' light bulb went off in my head! What? Someone will train me to hang out with goats? Seriously? So I emailed for more info. I read it and thought about it. Why do I have to pay money to start my own business? Oh yeah...training and a link to a respected person in the business. Duh. Like going back to school for a certificate in something or another. Ok but I have no savings at all, debt from a life of Social Work, and I live in the city. So off I go to hang out with Tammy - Chief Goat Wrangler - and pick her brain about all this. She's on a job and only half-there due to some medical issues with a couple goats who found some poisonous rhododendren that she hadn't seen. But we talked a bit and I got to hang out and pet healthy goats. It was a calm I haven't felt in a long time.

She moves the goats to another site and a friend from out of town is visiting and I want another opinion on the whole thing and she has time so we head out on a weekday and visit again. Some more chatting with Tammy - more answers to questions. Lyn gets a good feel from her (as do I) so that is encouraging. I send Tammy more questions by email, which she answers. And a week or so later my father is in town so I bring him by yet another site - a smaller site. He gets to see the goats in action and meet Tammy and ask questions. He knows I am thinking about this venture but he doesn't know how serious I am. I am also prepping him because I know that he would get a kick out of this business idea and he wants me out of my current job badly so I am softening him up to possibly get a loan from him at some point.

I think at this point I am about to start with the coach - someone from NY who has worked with a friend of mine and even though I am moving closer to this goat rental affiliate business idea - I still haven't committed anything yet. This is the beginning of July. Every time I see the goats I get a huge grin on my face. They crack me up. My family had a goat when we lived in New Hampshire and I was very young. All my cousins in one family raised goats for 4-H. It is not unheard of in my family to love livestock. One of these same cousins works for a barn that houses racing horses for folks in western PA.

Mere weeks later I once again find Tammy and her goats under the viaduct by the Pike Place Market in Seattle. It is Tuesday. I tell her that I am done stalking her and I want in on this thing. For real. I am hooked. I have no idea how I am going to pull this off but I want to very badly. I can't stop thinking about the damn goats. But I need some financial information to move forward. She needs to get it together for others as well and will get in touch with her small business guy who works through SCORE and it is a FREE service! She will also find out is he will work with me as well. She lets me inside the electric fence and once again I am overwhelmed with the goat love!

Friday that same week. My dear friend Juliet meets me after work and I bring her along to see the goats there on the urban hillside. I am amazed at how much work they have gotten done in just a few days. There has been a lot of press about them as well. Tammy isn't there at first but shows up as we are leaving...so we stay a while. Then the SCORE guy shows up with his wife and son. Tammy is regaling us with tales from previous jobs. I am so sure that this is what I want but I also know that I will not be leaving my current job soon - I need the security and health insurance. But Tammy keeps saying that it's possible to do part-time. I still don't have the financial information from Tammy but shortly after this I am invited to a meeting she has with Ed (SCORE guy) and that helps get some perspective.

Where tha hell am I gonna keep 15 goats? How much will it cost? Am I crazy? Am I going to look to rent a place to live that has enough room for goats? How do you search for that on Craigslist? What about boarding goats like people do for horses? Goats are sneaky though. Will I be able to find a place that's close enough to the city so that working isn't a humongous commute? A woman from college I re-connected with at our 20th reunion is doing a similar chnge of life around horses and she is getting a degree in FL as I write this. We are talking about the crazy shit we think about - saving the world through farm animals! Really. I'm not kidding. We are both doing it for our own mental health and to make the world a better place.

I have my own meeting with Ed. I need to get more info from Tammy. She still doesn't have anything "official" for me - I am the guinea pig for the Affiliate program she is still developing. I have gotten "Raising Goats for Dummies" from Amazon; I take Goats 101 through New Moon Goat Rescue and Sanctuary and provide an initial link for Tammy and Ellen. I am also hearing from others at the class about the bad reputations of other rental goat grazing outfits - official businesses - not just random people on Craigslist. I should mention that in this process I have also called Craig of Healing Hooves out of eastern WA. He is often in the papers with Tammy on big jobs and seems to have a good reputation as well. He also gives negative feedback on the other outfits and positive to Tammy. I keep feeling more confident that going with Tammy is the right decision. What Tammy tells me concurs with the book concurs with Ellen. And a thumbs up from Craig. That is a good sign.

I go to Vashon in early Sept. to meet up with Tammy so I can get some stuff done for Ed. She still doesn't have anything official for me but I give her a small check as a token of my intention to keep the ball rolling. It's all very fluid at this point which is good but also a little frustrating because I feel like I am not "all in." We haven't signed anything and we don't really have a payment plan going on for real yet. I know she doesn't have some stuff done and I don't have the money to pay her yet but....I want to be moving on it. Tammy's sister is excited and thinks we should do something about the whole "becoming an affiliate" using me. I just want to go see the goats. She does take me to her herd. I get to hang with the goats and again am filled with the peace that comes from animals nuzzling and munching and playing. 120 of them.

I have volunteered out at New Moon and gotten a suggestion for how to find land. My father has offered to be an investor and we are now working out how much and what involvement he will have. I may have a line on another possible place to keep the goats. And I am further working on stuff for Ed. It's challenging to keep on top of all this while working full-time but I do believe it's what is keeping me at all sane at work. Knowing that in about 6 months I will be taking my own goats out to clear brush and get paid for it. It is surprising to me that it really only took me a little over 2 months to get sure about doing this when prior to the post about the Affiliate program I was fishing around with no thoughts of goats. For me I usually think about stuff way more before jumping in (which is what this feels like), and my only explanation is that I have been working on getting to this place for about 2 years and had finally opened my myself up for seeing what appeared in front of me. And my gut tells me it's right.