I am a woman with a gun

I am a woman with a gun. Am I wrong? Am I right? Am I paranoid? Should anyone have a gun?

What are the answers to these simple, yet incredibly complex questions?

Let's start with the very first statement. I am a woman with a gun. Yes, yes I am.  I buy  from my local sporting goods store.  I, at times, carry my Ruger P95 9mm with a 3.9 inch- stainless steel barrel, black polymer grip with  a standard 15 round magazine, plus one in the chamber.  Other times I carry my Smith and Wesson model 65 revolver which can hold 6 rounds in either .357 caliber or .38 special. 

What does all of that mean? First of all, it means...I am not a criminal. I went through the criminal background check, through a licensed firearm dealer as per federal regulations. Second, I Open Carry my sidearm...meaning that I wear it on my hip, openly, secured in it's holster. Were I a criminal, I most likely would hide it in the waist band of my jeans. Third, my magazine capacity of holding 15 rounds....is NOT a high capacity magazine...it is simply a standard size. 

Am I wrong? Well, that depends. Am I wrong for knowing and understanding that there truly is evil in the world? That evil really does exist?Am I wrong for noticing one small thing everyone else seems to overlook? Take a few moments one day and go to youtube and watch news videos of reporters interviewing people who have either survived a tragic incident, witnessed a tragic incident or are simply nearby when one occurs. What is the first thing they say? Usually one of three things will ALWAYS occur. As I say to my children...look for the pattern.

They all will say 

1.  I never thought "that" (whatever tragic occurrence they are discussing) could happen here!

OR 2.  Things like that don't happen around here, they happen somewhere else!

OR 3.  It can't really be happening.

Am I one of those people? While I may in fact encounter some horrible occurrence and wish it hadn't happened someday, I will know why it happened. It happened because no matter where we live, or how much money we make, or what we drive, where we work, how we behave, how much we are loved or how much we love...bad things can and do happen. People who are morally corrupt, who lack compassion or empathy...or just simple love and respect for their fellow beings on planet Earth also exist. They are, thankfully not common, but they are around...they simply exist. Fortunately, those who would see ALL life as precious and worth saving far outweigh the number of the aforementioned people. 

The simple fact is, evil does exist. Am I wrong to know this? Am I wrong to know that I could be called upon to help save a person, help save people, help save a child, my family or myself. I don't think I am wrong. 

Am I right? That also depends. Am I right for knowing the above? I do believe that I am. I am right in believing that should, heaven forbid I ever need too, I have a God given right to protect myself. Do I ever want to be in a situation where I am forced into an age old battle of "right vs wrong"? Absolutely not. Carrying my gun does not make me want to kill. It does not make me want to commit robbery. It does not make me want to randomly shoot people. What it does make me however, is at least a little safer.

The bottom line is that my sidearm is nothing but a tool. It sits on my belt. It does nothing. It sits there. That is all. Were I a carpenter, and my sidearm a hammer...it still would do nothing. If I needed to pound a nail, I would grab my hammer, use it...and put it away. If I have an accident I would pull my insurance card out and put a call into the agency.  If I NEEDED to use my sidearm to protect me or others...I would grab it and hopefully just the sight of it would stop a would be assassin....and then I would put it away and give my statements to the police when they arrive between 2 and 20 minutes later. 

Am I paranoid? To some the answer would be a unanimous YES!! Maybe even to you. But what is the line between common sense, personal responsibility and liberty and paranoia? I consider the line for paranoia far from where I sit right now. I do not look for trouble, nor do I cause it. I do not WANT anything bad to happen. I do not look around with the eyes of a cornered rabbit expecting imminent demise around every corner.

I DO however, take a second when I step outside from wal-mart. I don't just aim at my car and walk into oncoming traffic as you know you have seen countless others do. I also DO take those few moments to look around me when I walk in a dark parking lot. As a woman, if I have to park in a dark parking lot, I try to be close to the door, close to lights.

That does not make me paranoid, it simply makes me a safer woman. I don't make sure that EVERY time I sit in a restaurant or tavern my back "is to the wall". But I do remain aware of the goings on and the people around me. It behooves every person to be aware. It is simple common sense.

Finally, should anyone have a gun? ABSOLUTELY not...Some people should not own a butter knife, much less a gun.  There are people among us who are a few crayons short of a box, who are a few cards short, lacking in the common sense department, lacking in the morals department, in empathy, in compassion...etc.

Those people as we have discussed, already exist, and the current background check system can and DOES weed those people out. Criminals as well should not have a firearm. I'm not talking a criminal who stole $40 bucks from his mom and got turned in, or who was 17 and his girlfriend was 16 1/2  and got turned in...I'm not even talking about the guy that got caught with a personal bag of weed. 

I'm talking about the criminals who walk free among us, committing the same crimes over and over. The criminals who don't really give a damn who they hurt...and still they are let free by a flawed judicial system. Those kind of people NEED to be incarcerated. 

I am a woman, I own a gun. I am still a woman, I simply have a tool. I am still a woman, and at night I want to snuggle into my man's arms and sleep. I am still a woman and I want to watch my babies grow up and laugh with them. I am still a woman, I want to sleep late on Sunday's, eat cereal and watch cartoons on Saturday with the kids. I want to drink Pabst Blue Ribbon with my man on Friday night.

I don't want to hurt anyone. I don't want to be hurt by anyone. I don't want to have to make a decision that will impact mine and others lives forever. I also am NOT now and will not be a victim. I will not stand idly by and make my self puke to 'gross someone out' so they will leave me alone. I will not stand there and shit myself for the same reason.

What I will do, as the woman that I am is stand my ground and say NO! I am NOT your victim. I will not stand idly by when a sexual offender is breaking into my home bent on hurting one of my beautiful and precious children. I will not stand idly by when you are being attacked by a thug on a street corner. I will not stand idly by when one of the officers who are sworn to protect us is on  the losing side of a fight with a 'bad guy'. I will not stand idly by while 'heathens' would try to pull your beautiful wife or girlfriend into an alley...and you have been attacked.

I am a woman. A woman of empathy, of compassion, of love. A woman of peace. A woman. A mother. A sister. A friend. A lover. I am a woman, not a victim. Does my gun assure me of this, that I will NEVER be a victim. NO of course not. But it goes a long way to helping, for being a simple tool made of steel and plastic. 

Top 30 Reasons Why a Gun is Better Than a Man

While we have kept it light and humorous...we have actually been talking about some pretty heavy stuff. Just to break from that for a few moments and laugh out loud (how long has it been since you saw that spelled out?). Here then are our Top Thirty reasons for why a gun is better than a man.

30.  It’s only requirement is that you feed it and clean it. If you don’t feed it for a while, it doesn’t complain.

29.  It won’t ever get jealous, no matter how many guns you have

28.  It only clings to you if you put it there

27.  You can discipline the kids and it won’t run over and un-discipline them

26.  It won’t spend hours in the bathroom or hog the remote

25.  The only mess it leaves behind is spent shell casings,  It doesn’t get drunk and puke on the floor.

24.  It’s always fun to play with,It always looks good at your hip and It could care less about the hot chick ahead of you in line

23.  It won't question everything you say and do… If you run into an old friend at the store, it just sits there and waits

22.  It does exactly and ONLY what you tell it to.

21.  No matter what you do, it won’t get mad at you. You don't have to explain yourself to it. You can cuddle with it, if you wanted to...and it will never expect more.

20.  If it does something for you, it doesn't beg for anything in return. It won't demand attention

19.  When you leave it at home It won't get mad at you. And it won't text you every five minutes

18.  You can count on it to be there when you need it most; It won't run away when you cry OR  run and hide behind you when confronted with a 300# thug.

17.  It is ready the instant you are…every time. It’s always hard and it will wait patiently as you warm up

16. You can take it home to Mom. Dad will be proud..and no one will care what color it is.

15.  You can always depend on it to put food on the table

14.  You can borrow it to your best friend and not worry about it

13.  You can check out other guns and it won't cry about it.

12.  It WILL take No for an answer

11.  If it misfires/fails to fire, you don't have to spend hours stroking it’s ego.

10.  If you own a Mosin Nagant, you can use it as a boat oar and it won't cry when you throw it in the water butt first.

9.  You would be extremely proud, if someone put it in a glass case for others to see.

8.  When you get bored with it, you can trade/upgrade it without guilt OR  you can sell it and get your money back…usually more!

7.  If it flies off the handle, it’s because you actually DID do something wrong.

6.  You can take it anywhere and not be embarrassed.

5.  The gas and smoke it expels actually smells good.

4.   A gun will only go off early if you do something wrong.

3.  It’s still going to be just as handsome at 70 as it was at 20.

2.  There are actually legitimate reasons why you shouldn't play with it while you are drinking.

1.  You can put a silencer on it.

Your family can eat like royalty during a shtf

Eat like a king? Like...the King of MRE's? Eating mystery chicken something or other? Whatever.

No really. You can.  With a little planning that is. We've talked about a cache spot in your bug out locations. Did you know you can dry can flour? You put it in a mason jar, throw it in the oven for a while and put your lids on...and they will seal, keeping out any bugs or vermin?

Cool idea. It works good too. Simple bread is...well, simple to make. A little flour, sugar, salt, yeast is about all you need. You'll be surprised, but I actually AM going to tell you how to do that. I know, wonders never cease. I use a cool guy on youtube's recipe. I actually use it for everything. Bread, Fry bread, biscuits, pizza crust, donuts.

The only thing's I do a little different than him, is I  add sugar and I place the bread to rise in the pan I am going to cook it in. I only let it rise once and bake it.  Play around with the recipe, see what flavors you like. If you add garlic powder and italian seasoning in...and form into breadsticks...you have some kick butt breadsticks.  Like grilled cheese? Wow, does the cheese and butter ever sink into the bread for the BEST grilled cheese sammich around, cooked in a cast iron skillet!

Here is the video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLD2953E8E25270A25&feature=player_embedded&v=PUPLC-sRx-c

I LOVE this bread, and it is simple, simple to make. Best recipe around that I have found. Right now I raise the bread up for just about half an hour...but I put it right behind the warm air vent behind my PS3. Obviously, in a shtf, I won't be doing that...but I will probably place it near the woodstove. Word of advice, make sure you go and put GREASED cling wrap over the top of your bowl. Trust me on that one!

In your cache you should have lots of flour, sugar, salt, yeast, baking powder, baking soda. Remember, just in the last century, all households used to buy hundreds of pounds of these staple items! You should to. And yes, you can still purchase 100# bags of flour. Plan ahead and buy several for each location if you can. Can those to keep out bugs, water...and everything else that can ruin your cache.

If you can't afford mason jars, just use that food bagging thingy that your Mom bought ten years ago and used one time. In fact, just go out and buy your own and a BUNCH of rolls of plastic for it.

Pack your flour, and even pack up the entire bread recipe and seal it closed. You won't have to measure anything but just add in your warm water when you are ready to make it.

The food sealer is also just as good for sealing up spare clothes, socks, hygiene items you will want like toilet paper and tampons, Q-tips, cotton balls, your medicinal trove of gauze and padding.

Guess what? You can also seal up bullets! And even your gun. I haven't tried sealing up a Mosin Nagant rifle/canoe paddle/pole vault stick/rifle taller than I am...but it is possible to do so. Clean it up nice, oil it good and seal her up. When you open it up in a shtf, she's ready to rock.

We're getting a bit off topic though. Back to the eating like a king, pack all of your essentials. Yes, pack your canned goods of course...but don't forget these. When everyone else who failed to pack/plan is out there foraging for acorns, you can just pull out a bag of bread, add water, let rise and bake it.

If you have kept goats, you will have cheese to put on it and butter to slather on. What a nice pick me up in a post shtf world!  If you kept chickens, you can have eggs and toast cooked over a fire for breakfast....as opposed to digging around to find protein....like bugs and stuff. Eww....They might be good sources of protein...but not something I want to watch my little kidlets eat. I want to see my kids eating eggs and toast for breakfast and smiling.

While you are doing your packing, add in some trade items. You will come across some people, and you guys may want to trade. Obviously, your safety is paramount, so I wouldn't rush out screaming, "I have stuff to trade!" From every straggler walking past, but we will delve into that in a later article.  That being said however, you will have opportunities to trade. Trade some bread, trade some salt...well, you get the idea.

While you are packing up your gear, pack up this too. Pack 2/3 cup flour, 1 1/3 cup oatmeal, 2/3 to 1 cup brown sugar, some cinnamon and some nutmeg-toss a little bit of allspice in there too. It will make two little square pans of apple crisp topping. Cut your apples, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, (that you made sure to have in your cache) add one stick of butter (that you made from the raw milk from the goats you kept) then just cook that until the apples are tender and the topping is getting crispy.

Now imagine sending the older kid out to shoot a pheasant, grilling that over an open fire with a lot of spices, fresh tater's from your 'secret garden' we talked about in an earlier article, chicken gravy from scratch, (with the cornstarch, flour, butter and chicken bouillon you made sure to pack), then picking up the last bits of gravy with the simple bread recipe and washing it all down with hot coffee you packed as you eat a dessert of fresh made from scratch apple crisp. YUM! < Holy run on sentence batman!

With just a little bit of planning, you can feed your babies up good, even in a shtf scenario. Remember to seal up your cache good and hide it well, or someone else will be eating your food.

My Gripes With Doomsday Preppers

Here is my biggest gripe. I have many but will only cover a few and then onto what you should pack in a cache spot.

Gripe Number One: You are planning for a cataclysmic pole shift. So you make shelving for your food....and then place glass jars on it. Brilliant.

Grip Number Two: It doesn't matter what catastrophe you plan for, but you pack things like spaghetti o's. What in the hell kind of health food is canned spaghetti anyway? Totally, if you LOVE them...pack some, of course. Pack your normal comfort foods too, you will wish for them later (and after you eat them) But don't make your entire cache of food be all processed convenience food.

Yes, get MRE's if you can. I never liked them.

Yes, canned food is processed, and yes, clearly it doesn't have the nutrient value that fresh veggies will have, however in a spaghetti-o vs. canned green beans, I am sure you can figure which will be healthier.

In one of you cache spots you secretly have, pack into a metal trunk, pack it into a pvc pipe, pack it into anything you can...but pack and save beans, canned tuna, sardines, oysters, canned chicken, beef, pork as much protein as you can. Pack also fillers like rice, barley, lentils, wild rice and keep away from nutrient lacking instant rice.

If you can, buy dried soups. As I said, I am no expert at all, I probably wouldn't hold a candle to what I write...you probably shouldn't either, but I would think that dried veggies would be better than canned...but look it up. I probably will too, eventually.

Get grains, flaxseed, wheat germ...stuff like that too.  Stuff thats good for you and your body.

Back again to the processed foods. In a shtf scenario, the likelihood of you sitting around using a generator and playing your PS3 is virtually nil. Also, you will be expending a great many more calories than you do now. I mean, after all if your daily walk consists of walking to the refrigerator and back to the couch, plan that you will walk that same route a THOUSAND times a day instead of three, four...or even six times.

You are going to need food that will at least have some nutritional value. You know how when you eat tuna helper, and feel hungry again just a little while later? That's (most likely) because tuna helper doesn't have much in the way of good nutritional calories. Yes, I don't know the exact terms, but I know what I'm (mostly) talking about. Someone else will comment eventually and tell you exactly what I was probably trying to say.

So pack protein rich foods, pack vegetables, pack fruits. Pack flour, yeast, baking powder, epsom salts, iodized salt, table salt, pepper, baking soda, powdered vanilla, powdered eggs etc. Yes, they really do make powdered vanilla. It's not to bad either.

I will send out some simple simple bread and biscuit recipes as we get going along here. Bread and biscuits are not all that healthy, especially made with white flour, but if you crave a hot slice of bread fresh from the pan...it will be nice to have the stuff on hand, and know how to make it.

As I said in an earlier post, when you are making your canned food cache spot, make absolutely certain you are burying/hiding them BELOW the frost line. You don't want them freezing and going bad.

Saving seeds; making your bug out location thrive

First of all, don't buy genetically altered seeds. Buy Heirloom seeds. Those are non GMO seeds. They will produce more seeds for you. Looking back into the blog I wrote on Plan B, I mentioned a pvc pipe as a good way to hide you cache.

Make sure you include seeds in there as well. Get all of your usual seeds, and plan that in each cache spot you will be able to plant a garden of some sorts. In addition to your tomatoes, radishes, carrots, lettuce etc., go forth into the world and order some tobacco seeds.

Tobacco is kind of hard to grow, if you have never done it before, however in a shtf scenario...you will be able to trade your harvested tobacco.  Make sure you have some tobacco- and that you have learned HOW to grow it!

Also, we ALL know that one guy that is still a stoner from way back in the '60's, get some seeds from him and toss them in a cache spot. Many people who 'smoked their last' would trade many things to get their hands on some stress relieving herbs.

Speaking of herbs, do a little research and find out what herbs you can grow from seeds that you can use for both seasonings and as medicine.

Garlic, while you need to plant from a bulb is awesome for it's anti-biotic properties. You can go out and find a spot near your bug out location and plant some garlic. DON'T go out there and make a cute little garden spot with pink flamingo's and shit (metaphorically and literally). Just go to your bug out locations and go to the edge of an adjacent field, over by a hill, anywhere that's NOT a cute little garden plot that says to anyone passing by..."Hey...look someone planted food here".

Then just leave it be. Let it grow. It will grow, and IF you ever had to bug out to any of your bug out locations you will already have garlic, ginger, onions....all VERY good herbs for both spices and healing properties.

Asparagus is another one to plant, it will take a year for it to grow and start producing more little asparagus's to eat...but it will already be at your bug out location.

Another thing to think about it honey. Honey is another of natures healing medicines.  Perhaps you know of a bee keeper and you can get an old beehive for cheap or free. Maybe you can make one.  It would be good to have a hive hidden by deadfall on the edge of the woods. Hide it good, hide it well, make it as discreet as you possibly can. Keep this top secret and just somewhere around your location. Keep in mind, that anything you do at your location you want it to look as though no one has been there. Keep your cool, keep all your secrets a secret, and keep your location looking as abandoned as you can.

It is in your families best interest to learn about herbs. Get an herb book, figure out what is what. Look up other blogs who have ALL of that information. I'm not here to look up all the information for you and tell you what to do, I'm just here to talk about a few of my thoughts on the various subjects.

Remember, in a shtf scenario, you are your kid's mom,dad...AND teacher, police officer, security guard,doctor, dentist, nutritionist, EMT and everything else that you currently rely on a bevy of professionals to do. YOU are going to be their whole entire world. Learn what the heck you need to learn and get to learning it, in case you ever need to use it.

Operation: Plan G, When Thing's Don't Work Out

The old adage, whatever it was...something about "even the best laid plans" is pretty accurate. More so in a SHTF scenario.

You have planned to bug out...to the perfect location in a hidden spot, on an old dead end road, with your hidden cache of weapons, food, clothes, TP, a bottle of whiskey and some trade goods. SHTF happens, you follow your exact route, and it works perfect! You made the best time yet, you avoided checkpoints, government interference, roving gangs and all of that! Hurray! You scurry over to your cache only to find someone else is already there...with your cache of goods, your arsenal and they aren't happy you are there.

What do you do? Well, you could get back into your truck, find a corner to cry in and jack off with your tears...OR....you could simply say to yourself, "Damn, good thing I have a Plan B!"

That is going to be essential in the kind of scenario we could be facing. Yes, have a spot....hell...have 10 spots, but all I am saying is NEVER place all of your eggs in one basket.

IF you are in the country, drive them old back roads around you, especially if you are planning to wait it out at your place. If you could have a crystal ball and see into the future, you would never have to have any other plan than simply Plan A! But, yeah....life is not so simple. We all know that, so let's move on, I am digressing.

Never, ever...have just one plan! EVER! That is either really ignorant, stupid or just completely naive. Also, in any spot that you find, Don't "secretly hide" all of your cache either.

Go forth into the area's you will bug out into. Do some re-con. Is there water? Food source? What do the neighbors seem like? Are you near a major highway? What's the property like? Is it in the bottom of a valley where you can be shot at? Are you on the top of a hill where you can see everything?

Consider all of these when you are making Plans A,B,C,D,E,F...and even G...

Now you have plan A. Go to a place where you can buy a 50# bag of flour. Dry can it. Put it in vermin proof containers. Get pickling salt, save it. Get spices, liquor, trade goods, bullets, etc.

Then move on to Plan B. Take a big PVC pipe...a BIG one. Seal one end up. Use the food vacume sealing thing in the kitchen you forgot the name of, and seal up bags of flour, salt, sugar, yeast, baking powder, powdered eggs, spices, canning/pickling/iodized salt, powdered vanilla, tylenol, bullets, a gun, a slingshot, and feel good items like a picture, toilet paper (when vacume packed forms a cool little package...that no one can guess what it is!) booze, chocolate, sewing supplies, underpants, socks...Stuff that BIG pvc pipe as full as you can get it. Then screw the other end on and put a bead of caulk around where the end cap and the pvc pipe meet.

Do that in several places. Hide it, bury it, cover it, shove it in an old stump, but keep it there. Word of warning: If you put booze in it...only use liquor that will not freeze, otherwise if you try to save beer, you will HAVE to bury it beneath the frostline in your local area...or it will freeze and smell up/contaminate your other gear.

Use the vacume sealer for clothes also. Buy a roll and put a change of your kids clothes into it...then seal it up and shove that into the pvc pipe also. You want to make sure you seal both the pvc and the individual bags is that you will be less likely to incur water damage. Above all, HIDE YOUR CACHE WELL!

IF you find an abandoned house, DO NOT hide your cache in the floor of the basement. What if someone bulldozes it. Now your cache is 15 feet deep and how will you ever find it?

In places near your cache spot, you can also put a secondary cache. This one will be buried more than six feet deep. It will ideally be a metal trunk but anything will work in a pinch.

Dig a hole about six feet deep...OR wherever the deepest frostline your area has ever had. Use a big rubber maid container, Trash can...whatever you can...and put it it, cans and cans of food! Imagine if you will a SHTF scenario. Do you have any idea how good a can of corned beef hash and peaches will be after you have been running for your life for a while? It will (almost literally) be a Godsend.

You get my drift now..have several spots you can go to, hide at, bug out to etc.USe them wisely. Cover your tracks, cover your dig spots good. Keep your mouth's shut.  Keep your eyes open and always BE SAFE. The world needs you. We need you. Plan on plan A not working, then work your way from there. IF we ever need too, I am sure we will see each other out there.

Best small livestock in a survival situation

Keeping livestock has been a fairly popular topic in certain social media sites. Questions such as, should I have cows or horses? Can I train an ox like they used to a long time ago? Several others are being raised as well.

I do not like goats. At all. They get into everything, they get on top of everything, they get out of everything, they poop everywhere...and overall I just don't like goats. That being said, however, Goats are probably the way to go, in a family survival situation for several reasons. Let's go into them.

1. They are a heck of a lot smaller than a cow or a horse. Easier to handle, less of a chance to be hurt by them. If they get startled and take off, the likelihood of you being trampled or injured or otherwise incapacitated is a lot less.

2. If you need to 'bug out'...you can just pick them up and toss them into your vehicle. Obvioulsy, this is a less than ideal travel companiong, yet a bonus, because you can take your goats anywhere. Yes, not ideal...but then a SHTF situation is always less than ideal at it's very best.

3.  Goats are edible. You can eat your goat if you have too, as a last resort. But ideally you can raise the baby goats, and they are ready to eat in six months. You can even let them 'hatch' in the spring and breed them in the fall to have milk by the following spring. Again, a less than ideal situation, especially for the young doe goat, but it is and has been done before.

4. Goats make milk. The same way cows do of course, but requiring less maintenance. You can have cheese! That will be a delicacy in a post shtf world. It may even be for me then, as I can't stand goat milk or cheese either.

5.  Goats can exist on very little. Not that you shouldn't feed them of course, just comparing a little goat to a Holstien or your standard grade horse. A lot less feed is required. They are also foragers and will eat what any self respecting heifer or horse would cast their nose at. This is quite helpful in a situation where you CAN'T just go out and buy a bale of hay.

6.  Goats are quiet. Disclaimer: IF they are together they are very very quiet. If they are separated you will hear them hollering miles and miles away.

7. Goats are hardy. While you cannot be lazy and let the goat carry your backpack everywhere you go, you can have them do light packing. NEVER overload a goat, they are just not meant for it...but as I said can do very light packing and can pull things as well.

8. They are very friendly. This kind of goes back to #1 there, but very friendly little creatures, as long as you are friendly to them. If you are a butt-head to them...they will certainly be the same way back to you, however we all should have learned that whole, "treat others the way you would want to be treated" thing by now. So be nice to your goat!

9. Some breeds are protective of other animals. I don't know what kind, and I don't feel like researching it while I am writing, but some breeds are protective, some give LOT'S of milk, Some do both and some give some kind of wool I read about a while back.

10. They can climb over anything. Literally. They can climb a ladder. I would suggest the old carrot on a stick routine to try and talk them into that...for they are greedy little things, but they can go where any horse or cow would (literally) roll their eyes at.

All that goat-goodness aside, there are the downside to goats as well. Once they actually do get sick, they go downhill very quickly. Sometimes the milk a doe gives her kids actually can kill them...I don't know what thats called either, but I read about it on a goat forum. I never had that happen, but I hear it can. You should probably look that up too, since you probably already know I am not going to do it for you by now.

Billy goats really do butt you, "bonk" you as my kids say. If they really don't like you, they bonk you really hard. But to keep getting kids every year it's good to have a buck around.

When you tie a goat out, no matter how you do it...they can get tangled around a blade of grass and hogtie themselves. Yes they are good animals to tie out...but you need to check them constantly...and if they are not  within eyesight of each other they will scream. Loudly. For a very long time, or until you place them next to each other, whichever happens first. Usually, their voices will outlast your ears.

All joking aside, Goats are a very ideal animal in a shtf scenario. Many other breeds of livestock will do very well, of course, but the goat is (in just my opinion) a very good animal to have on the go or in a lay low situation. Do your research, figure out what you need and start getting it. :)