Strange things have been happening lately – we’ve called the police three times in the past few weeks! First, we had our boat for sale in the field, and someone cut the cables and stole the engine off the back. Then, a lamb was killed by who-knows-what-but-we-think-it-was-a-large-cat. And now, someone has vandalized the sign up at the top of the drive where we advertise hay and haylage for sale!

The worst bit is that we had finally gotten around to putting up a sign advertising Dexter (the goat) for sale. Dexter is the shiny, glossy black he-goat with horns who came along with Nessa when we bought her. Who’s Nessa? Well, it all started a few weeks ago when my friend Lynn called me from town. (She always gets me into trouble, that Lynn!)

“There’s a notice up for three goats for sale – and one of them is a registered Anglo Nubian!” she said. Well, we love Anglo Nubians. And we’re a sucker for goats. So we called the number listed on the card.

The lady on the other end explained that she had three goats that she wanted to sell for £150. One of them was a nanny who was ready to kid any moment. One was a castrated billy (male). And one was a registered Anglo Nubian, just one year old.

The Anglo Nubian alone would have been worth the £150, and we were excited by the thought of the nanny ready to kid. So we went to have a look.

When we walked into the yard, we saw a gorgeous Anglo Nubian nanny goat with fawn brown coloring, darker stripes along her back and dark boots, and long ears that looked as if they’d been dipped in cocoa. her ear tags looked like earrings, she was so elegant. I was immediately in love. And then we saw the other two goats. One glossy, jet black and horned…the other brown, horned and hugely pregnant, with a gammy leg.

I stared at the black goat. He was the exact twin of our …”Lola!” I said to Rich. “He looks the spitting image of Lola.”

“And the brown goat looks like….” he looked at me. “Nessa?”

Nessa was the mother of Lola, our stroppy but gorgeous Anglo-Nubian-ish mongrel goat. We had Nessa on the property for a while after we bought Lola as a kid, to do nursemaid duties. We returned her to her owner after she jumped over a stable wall and clattered down the barn aisle towards me and Benjamin, terrifying us both into fits. Nessa had been tempermental, ugly, horned and mean.

The goat that we were looking at was much calmer, more placid…and hugely pregnant. Could it be Nessa?

“It is!” Rich said in my ear. “I recognize the gammy leg!”

It was indeed, Nessa. She had been sold by her previous owner, these people had had her for three years, and now she was up for sale again. Calmed temporarily by pregnancy, but still stroppy. Nessa was obviously our destiny.

And the black boy? We worked out that according to our best guest, he was the son of our Buddug! He had been at foot when we bought her – glossy, spoiled and friendly. We hadn’t wanted him then – and we didn’t want him now. But here he was.

We talked it over on the way home. A huge risk, to buy two horned goats – we can’t keep them on the property with our de-horned lovelies, because the ones with horns bully the other ones. It was exciting to think about the kid – but what if she only had boys? Or a nanny that died?

In the end, of course, we had the whole lot. We drove the trailer down, loaded them all in, and brought them home. We cleared out the last empty stall in the barn, laid down hay and wrestled the new additions in.

Teazle, as the new Anglo Nubian is called, fitted right in. Docile, slightly shy but sweet by nature, she ended up bunking with the two Golden Guernsey twins, Milly and Molly, quite happily.

But Dexter, as we called the black billy, was another matter. Spoiled, loud and desperately attached to Nessa, he bellows piteously whenever she is out of his sight. He bolts whenever the door is opened, hogs all the food, jumps from the stable we put him back into the one where Nessa is, and generally makes a nuisance of himself.

So we wrote a sign, saying “Goat For Sale.” And that very night, someone vandalized the sign, and tore off the plywood piece where the words were written.

For what purpose? we wondered. Whoever it was ripped the deeply planted iron pipes of the sign out of the ground.

Was it Dexter himself? Who knows…