They’ll violate your personal space. They’ll kiss your face. They’ll pull your hair and try to eat it off your head. They’ll walk all over you if you let them.
But like most kids, they are a blissful gift, said self-professed Goat Mom Lani Jones. She and her husband, James, have operated the Goods and Goats Market in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., for the last five years, where their 1-acre farm and yoga studio have become a hit.
On a recent Sunday, soothing meditation music filled the air as instructor Peter Lin led participants in a series of heart, mind and physical exercises. Unfazed as baby goats jumped on and off his back, knocked over his coffee and nibbled on shoes next to his mat, his calming voice instructed, “Yoga is the act of making the unconscious conscious.”
As the class contorted into the “table top,” “cat” and “cow” poses, a blood-curdling scream sliced through the meditative air.
Jennie Rios of Irvine jumped to her feet. A goat named Violet had had an “accident” on her back.
“Congratulations,” Lani Jones yelled. “You get a lip balm,” one of several goat’s milk products she makes in her kitchen and sells in the farm’s market.
But the goats provided more than entertainment.
Having a goat “stand on your back and massage it provides physical benefits,” Lin said.
Sahory Aguilar of Santa Ana marveled after class, “The heaviness of the goats helped release tension in my back and neck.”
Taylor Castro of Newport Beach, who participated with two friends, said her stomach got a lot of exercise “from laughing so hard.”
A therapy goat
Before this goat yoga session, Jones explained her journey and thanked people for “helping me live my dream.”
Growing up a ranch girl, Jones got used to animals getting auctioned off and going away. But when her brother’s cow, Sammy Simmental, ended up as a leather spread on his bed, she was devastated.
“I freaked out, so my mom bought me a 2-week-old goat” for comfort, she said.
Since then, she has always had goats.
Tucked beneath a canyon and adjacent to a bike trail in northern San Juan Capistrano, the solar-powered farm is near where she grew up.
The property is now an ever-changing landscape of activities: There’s a zen garden, a fire pit, a paintball area, a worm composting bin, zip lines for children and lots of goat-milk products made in Jones’ kitchen.
And then there are the antiques.
“When we go on vacation, we come back looking like the Beverly Hillbillies,” Jones said of the family’s obsession with buying antiques.
A 3-foot-tall wooden statue of a Mangbetu fertility goddess from Congo greets yoga-goers at the open-air studio.
“Everything here is authentic,” Jones said.
Every bit of the farm seems to have a soothing sense of purpose — including the 42 goats.
“Their darlingness provides joy,” Jones said. She tells the yoga classes, “When you fill up with bliss from the farm, share it with someone who needs it.”
