Hazel with Annie, her very first goat
When I interviewed Vera Bennett in Show Low, Arizona, she recommended that I do an article about her friends, Wendy Woodward and her daughter, Hazel McGuffin at Witch Hazel Dairy in Snowflake. When I went to their website, I found that it had been entirely (and adorably) created by Hazel (click here). I contacted Hazel and she said she is in college now, but I should interview her mother.
Wendy officiating at the Pack Goat Competition, an event she has run for the last 2 years..
Wendy consented and I asked her my usual first question. Her answer was so interesting that I decided to share it with you now and continue the interview later… (Update: I posted the interview – (click here).
Hazel with her mom and dad
How did you end up raising goats?
The goats are entirely my daughter’s fault.
I grew up in Arizona, went to college in Arizona and then we moved to Missouri for eleven years.
After we had our daughter, Hazel, we decided to return to Arizona where both our parents reside. However, we wanted to live rural, so we ended up in Northeastern Arizona, near Show Low, where I got a job teaching high school and my husband worked doing computer support for a non-profit.
We befriended a neighbor who had Nubian goats, in a ‘trade-milk-for-eggs’ venture. When she wanted to purchase more goats, she asked me to haul them for her in our truck. Hazel accompanied us and we were at the breeder’s place for less than twenty minutes when Hazel shows up carrying a baby goat and begging to be allowed to buy it with all her allowances for the rest of her life.
We were not set up for goats, so it was arranged that the goat would live at the neighbor’s place, with her goats. We didn’t see Hazel much, that summer, because she was constantly over with her goat, Annie, or doing chores at the neighbors to help pay for Annie’s room and board. When Annie died unexpectedly of unknown causes, we had to decide if we were going to continue the goat thing.
Hazel has always been a willing and able worker. We were fencing.
As a high school teacher, I often see the consequences of good kids making the wrong decisions. My kid has always been a good kid, and while others might hope that their daughters grow up to be lovely and admired as a beauty, I have always wanted my kid to be smart and happy, and maybe a little…Homely. BECAUSE I HAVE SEEN THE TROUBLE some of these really wonderful beautiful gals can get into, when the boys come calling!
Fortunately, Hazel was smart, and she was VERY happy (with goats), but unfortunately, she was also shaping up to be a very attractive young lady. So, being the devious mother that I am, I reasoned that if Hazel had to get up and milk goats in the morning…She’d have that ‘earthy’ goat smell maybe lingering on her a bit and that might be a bit off-putting to guys… And then she’d ALSO have to milk in the evening, by a reasonable time, so that’d put the nix-nay on her staying out late…On dates or somesuch… And then there was the leverage of having a threat. The deal we made with Hazel was something like this:
Grades stay up, and we pay for whatever the goats need.
Drugs/Pregnancy/Trouble, and the goats go.
No dating until you are 16.
You do all the milking.
I had no idea what we were getting into.
The neighbor gal sold us two milkers to feed our new arrivals – a doeling from Marshall at M’s Sagebrush Acres, and a doeling and wether from Kathryn and David Heininger from Black Mesa Ranch. (Marshall, Kathryn and David have generously shared their knowledge, resources and expertise, and have done nothing but support and encourage Hazel in her goat-keeping, and have since become amazing friends).
Hazel and her Robin, the other baby we got after Annie died.
A few goats rapidly turn into a lot of goats. Our numbers have fluctuated and now when people ask me how many goats we have, I answer truthfully, ‘I don’t count anymore.’
Hazel, after she said she was going to ‘go clean the barn. ‘
And when people ask me why we keep goats (really, goats?! – this is not how I imagined my life turning out!), I answer that it has been an investment in our daughter. Other people pay for summer camp, music lessons, riding lessons, tutoring, cars, expensive clothes and in situations gone wrong, legal fees and drug counseling and fines.
My kid has learned so much from her goats; they have been the most influential developmental catalyst for her. With goats, Hazel learned responsibility – milking AM and PM, cleaning out barns and bucking hay. She has learned to deal with nasty situations without losing her calm: Goat midwifing, Goat CPR and first-aid rescuer, phlebotamist, abscess-lancer and wound-cleaner extraordinaire. And Hazel has also continued her growth: She joined 4H, become a certified milk inspector, paperwork-pusher, goat trimmer, farrier and show-woman.
Hazel giving her 4H demonstration talk on Fainting Goats.
Hazel running a Hoof Trimming workshop. Here she was teaching one of the moms – as well as the 4Hers – how to trim goat hooves.
Hazel teaching Yui, our Japanese 4H exchange student, and Jacob, our grandson, how to handle goats for the upcoming 4H prefair competition. Yui ended up showing our little buckling and she took 1st place. Since we’re not entirely sure how much she really understood, about what was going on, we sometimes wonder what stories she tells her family about the whole episode.
Hazel and Ruth. Ruth is the baby of the goat my husband is holding in the picture of the 3 of us.
I had really wanted my kid to be the Rodeo Queen type, roping and riding doing barrel racing, but that was my dream for her, not hers. Now she’s at her first year of college and we’re milking goats twice a day.
Such is life, right? 🙂
Witch Hazel Dairy
Purebred Nubian & LaMancha
witchhazeldairy@gmail.com
(928)358-6989
Hours: anytime after 3PM on week days and any time on weekends
