Welcome, New Residents!

Today around noon we went down to the Point Roberts marina to cheer on the arrival of three brand new residents.  All ladies, all well-mannered, all reasonably happy to take their first look at their new home.  They are not new to the Pacific Northwest, since they all began their lives in the Blaine area, but they had never been here before and they had never before crossed over Boundary Bay in a small boat.  A very exciting day for three  pygmy-cross-angora and mohair goats.

The reason they'd never been here before (a sufficient reason, anyway) is because of their border crossing status.  Goats, it turns out, can't freely cross the border between the U.S. and Canada.  This is surely the result of some kind of Dept. of Agriculture rule, not the dealings of the Dept. of Homeland Security.  But, in its own way, it, too, is related to homeland security, just not the terrorist kind.  Beef, lamb, goat (and, presumably, parrot), none of that is going to come to be among us without some very involved border dealings.

My friends who brought them over today had tried all the standard options: talking to the border people, talking to the people who ship things through the double border with bonds (i.e., such business people are bonded in order to announce to the world their trustworthiness with respect to not letting their cargo out anywhere in Canada or picking up additional cargo in Canada that is not covered by the bond).  'No!' said they each, one and all.

We got involved when the idea was to bring them over in the helicopter.  But we didn't turn out to be much more useful than the border or bonding people.  It's a pretty small helicopter and it was clear that all three goats could not go at once; indeed, it seemed to involve three separate trips from Semiahmoo.  Which gets to be a little pricey in the helicopter rental world.

So, our friends ended up bringing them over in their boat, which is normally in Salt Spring.  That meant a boat trip from Salt Spring to Blaine; a simultaneous car trip from P.R. to Blaine to pick up the goats; then an overnight on the (small but covered) boat with the three goats keeping the two people nice and warm; followed by a car trip back to P.R. along with a boat trip from Blaine across Boundary Bay to the Marina.  On a couple of cloudy and rainy days with anything but a clear wind and a following sea.  A very large effort went into bringing these ladies over to be among us.

Although the goats had never had the opportunity for ocean travel before, they weathered it well, I am told, except for the rough parts on the boat which brought out some concern among them.  Baaaaaaa!   (They were traveling in large dog crates, offered up on loan, ever so kindly, by readers of Point Interface, where a request had been published a day or so ago.)  The boat driver took a longer, slower tack in order to reduce the goats' distress, and just as we arrived at the marina, there they were getting off, immigrants to a new life, apparently as happy as goats could possibly get.

Really cute ladies: all under a year; all as soft as down; all smelling a little goaty, but then what can you expect from a goat?  Friendly, lively, soft and kind of cuddly if you don't think too much about their hooves.    They'll be living down on the west side of the Point on the beach, so they can look out and remember their big adventure.

And the next step, the new owners report, is to find a llama to guard them from coyotes  So, if you know a responsible llama with a passport who's interested in travel and an adventurous life, get in touch.