Big Barn on Espy Ranch, 1930s

An early morning email brought a request from Greg:  “Any old pictures from Oysterville that have goat in them?”

My initial reaction was twofold.  “No, no such photographs that I remember” and “I don’t think that, in the days of farms in Oysterville, anyone had time for anything as frivolous as goats.”

That second thought is probably quite biased and I hope it doesn’t offend any of my goat-owning friends.  However, I do think that in the first hundred years or so of Oysterville’s history, say from its founding in 1854 to the close of World War II in 1945, goats would have required more care per capita (can you use that term regarding animals?) than cows and would not produce sufficient products for time invested.  Plus, I don’t think allergies to cow’s milk were as prevalent.  (I was going to say “as popular” but that, again, probably shows some bias on my part.)

The H.A. Espy Children on Danny c. 1914

Nevertheless, I looked for a picture.  Having come up empty, I searched some of the family correspondence for a goat reference and came up with a wonderful description of my grandfather’s dairy farm (always called “the ranch” by the family).  It was written in the 1960s by my Uncle Edwin – his remembrances about his childhood in the 1910s and ‘20s when he was his father’s “right hand man” on the ranch.

            In terms of the property involved, the ranch consisted or several interrelated elements that were scattered over about six hundred acres in an unconventional configuration.  There were other properties of a different kind, chiefly marshland and a wooded hillside to the south that overlooked the bay.  The land as a whole was principally of three types:

• The bay-front property, mostly meadow with some smaller wooded areas
• The “town” property, for nearby grazing, for two of the barns and for a garden
• The marsh, an extensive area of swamp and other low ground, heavily wooded or otherwise overgrown with shrubbery but providing succulent grazing for the cattle.

H.A. Espy Across From The House c. 1930

• Barns:  Number 1 (the Big Barn) a half mile away; Number 2, the larger of two in town, and Number 3, right across the street from our dwelling
• An abandoned store building, used for a milk-separator operated by hand (the cream was sent to Astoria, most of the skimmed milk was for the calves and pigs; the family had whole milk and a minimum of cream)
• The Ranch House across from Barn Number 1 where, periodically Papa housed a ranch foreman
• The home itself, the repository of farm clothing, some of the tools and the milk pails, et cetera, which were washed in the kitchen

The animals:

• About fifty cattle, chiefly milk cows, but some beef stock cattle
• Sixteen horses at the maximum
• Pigs
• Chickens
• Dogs
• (Periodically a goat for the children)

Aha!  There is was!  A goat for the children!  That last entry on Ed’s list underscored my “frivolous” thought and has sent me on a new search through the family albums.  Maybe somewhere there’s one of those nostalgic pictures of kids and a goat cart…