Day 12, July 21st 2025 - Day of the Goat

Day 12 of the French Adventure, Monday, July 21st, 2025 shall now and henceforth be known as “The Day of the Goat.” It started out as a normal day with scheduled visits on our calendar, and it ended with an unexpected visitor: a goat.

I was in the kitchen when I heard Eric calling me with a sense of urgency. I came outside and saw a goat on the field above our swimming pool. Eric thought the goat would be a temporary visitor and that I had to act fast or miss the sighting of this animal.

Heh, heh, heh. Little did he know. The goat likes it at our house.

I love animals, and I am respectful enough to know this isn’t an animal in a petting zoo. I tried offering the goat vegetables - a radish and some green beans. He wouldn’t take anything from me, wouldn’t eat what I tossed near him, nor would he allow me to get too close.

The goat at one point tried to get inside our cabane and wound up jumping into the pool. It surprised everyone to how good a swimmer he is. Check out the video.

Eric had a winemaker friend come and visit our vineyards. His vineyards are in the Medoc region north of Bordeaux. Jean Baptiste met with our winemaker, Denis, asked him many questions, toured our winemaking facilities and then we went for a drive around the area to visit some of our various fields of grapes.

Upon our return to the maison, we discovered that the goat was resting on our back patio, and had relieved himself all over the place. Having a goat hang around the house isn’t without some consequence, such as prevalent goat poo.

We named the goat “Échappé” (escape goat)

Eric called the village mairie (town hall) to see if they might know of someone missing a goat. A while later they called back with a phone number to call. The goat owner was an 85-year-old-man who lives 25 kilometers away. He has herds of sheep and goats that are moved around to graze different farmers’ fields.

Last night we went to bed with Échappé sleeping near one of the sliding doors by our driveway. This morning, when we first woke up we didn’t see him. Then later, he returned. Because he likes it here.

Day 13, the elderly man and his wife came to our maison, looked at the goat and proclaimed, “that’s not our goat.” The woman tried feeding the goat with bread and corn, but the goat wasn’t very interested in her food nor did it let her get close to him. They left without taking the goat.

Later another possible goat herder stopped by and looked at the goat before leaving him here as well.

We are now trying to figure out a way to get the goat to not hang out at our place since we will be leaving in a few days and don’t want to return months later with mounds of goat merde to move. And well, today, is Day 13 and he returned multiple times, so maybe it should be considered more than a single Day of the Goat.

Eric was at first trying to come up with barriers to keep Echappé from getting near our back patio or in our front yard. Except well, that little dude can climb walls and can wriggle between the bars in different gates. He is an escape artist and can also break into places he wants to be.

On Day 14, two goat herders came and tried to capture Échappé with a hook and a fence. Our little friend was not amused. He ran right through their flimsy fence and then he squeezed through the slats on our gate before running across the road into the woods. The goat herding dudes gave up and left. A short while later, our little goat friend reappeared.

Échappé had not made any sounds, but I talked to him and sang to him. I started to make goat sounds and then he started to respond to me. I think he tried telling me his life story, not that I understood what he was saying. Maybe I was the first human who was nice to him and he was telling me that he wanted to stay at our maison.

Ahhh, life in the French countryside. Who knew that I would make un petit bouc as a friend?