Luna's gift... X rated.

That first year that we had goats I tried to find a male goat, or buck, to come visit. I wanted to breed the girls so we could have kids in the spring and milk for the coming year.  Goats have a 5 month gestation period, and most types of goats only breed in the fall.  You can tell when a female comes into estrus because she become more vocal, more affectionate, and will wag her tail often and with great vigor.  I didn't have much luck finding a buck to borrow. My friend suggest I buy one, keep him until the girls were bred and then sell him.  I did just that. The local swap paper had a male Nubian goat from excellent bloodlines advertised.  We went to get him on a cold October day in my pick up truck.  He rode home in the back seat.

Now let me tell you a little something about male goats.  They smell bad. During the breeding season male goats are said to be in "rut." During this time the scent glands located near their horns produce a heavy musky scent.  Girl goats find this to be irresistibly attractive. And boy goats do something else to make them smell even more "alluring"... they urinate on their faces and beards. I had read about "buck stink," but I had no frame of reference to understand what all the fuss was about.  The day we went to pick up or new Lothario, I blithely popped him into the truck and hopped happily in the passengers seat.  I got a slight whiff of goat and said to my husband, "Oh, that is not so bad..." Then I glanced over at my patient man, behind the wheel. His eyes were watering.  "I feel like I've been maced."  It was then that the full strength of the scent hit me.  We rolled our windows down, and cranked up the heat. It was a long, cold, windy, smelly ride home.  So powerful was the odor that I had a pounding headache by the time we pulled into our driveway.  We never exited a vehicle any faster.

The girls found him to be enchanting.  What followed was two weeks of x rated activity in the pasture. Then I put an ad in the same paper I found him in and sent him off to a nice farm. It took a few weeks for the pasture to lose the stench of him. 

If anyone ever tells you that something "smells like a goat," you will know for certain that it is not a compliment.