Two heads are better than one.

Especially when one is a frizzy-frazzled head.  Last Saturday, on a day around 90+ degrees with about 99 percent humidity, I was doing some blitzkrieg weeding - five minutes of frantic weeding, followed by 20 minutes of cooling off inside - when I had the feeling I was being watched.  Closely watched.  I turned my head and there was...Chickie.  Apparently, since I was weeding the bean plants, he thought he should help.  Sage was a safe distance behind him.  She's still leery of me.  At least I've learned not to go into a total panic when they're loose.  I just slowly stood up and pulled the ever-present bag of goat treats out of my pocket.  Just that faint rustle of zip-locked plastic is enough to get their full attention.  We slowly walked back to their area and I put them back inside and re-bungeed the gate.  I went back to finish weeding the beans and....there's Chickie and his shy sidekick, right back by my side.  We went through the routine again and I checked the fence more closely.  Dagnabbit (not what I said, exactly...)!  Chickie had pushed, rubbed, pushed and rubbed some more until he had forced the fencing to release from its welds and had pushed a big hole through it!  May I state the obvious?  Goats are not easy.

Back they went, and this time I locked them in their barn.  And turned a deaf ear to the protests.  The barn is cooler than the outside, has plenty of ventilation, food and water.  They just take issue with not being in the center of the action (or BEING the center of the action).  I left them there for the night, as I was not up to fence repair in that oppressive atmosphere.

The next morning, bright and early and before the worst of the humidity, I dragged out every bit of my fencing supplies and created a major fence sandwich.  I wired chicken wire on the inside, then put heavy sheep/goat fencing on the outside and fastened the lot together.  But would it hold?  As I whined on the phone to my friend/neighbor, Kay, she said, "Why don't you just zip-tie some PVC pipe on the outside of the fence so they can't stretch it?"  Oh.  What a brilliant idea!  So that is what I did.  So far, it works beautifully and it has completely flummoxed the goats.  I may not be featured in Martha Stewart Living for my picture-perfect homestead, but the goats are enclosed!