Under pressure!

There is a constant battle here at Rock HQ, one that must be won at all times, one that causes great pressure. Wits reading this may feel that the pressure is against my belt and the battle is the Battle of the Bulge over the top of my jeans but it is in fact the war that has daily skirmishes, that of man against goat.
The goat has one aim in life and that is to sample as many succulent foliage's as possible. The vegetable patch at Rock HQ might not exactly fit the bill but it does, or rather did, contain spring cabbage, purple sprouting, red cabbage and garlic which are obviously more tempting than hawthorn and nettles.

A six to eight foot fence surrounds the garden, so big its visible from space, however there is one slight flaw in the goat proofness. The lane side fence is the standard stock fence height. It did have a twenty foot high hawthorn hedge running wild in support but with the aid of JJ and Kay, Tracey and I took it down last year to allow much needed light onto the raised beds. This also ran the risk of allowing unwanted guests in but for months the weakness of the perimeter was not noticed, probably because the fence runs along the top of a stone wall giving the illusion of impregnability. And so man and goat existed in peaceful harmony and all was well.

The goats have recently found a way into whats laughingly known as the flower garden and orchard, a section of the hill that has a reasonable collection of flowering shrubs, flowers and an assortment of fruit trees that the storms have spared. They seem to have enjoyed sampling the greenery amongst the most impressive rockery of any garden worldwide, some of the rocks contained within are over forty tons and "appear" every now and then courtesy of the cliff at the back of the cottage. Rocks this size can have a dramatic effect on the flora, and fauna for that matter if they are not quick, bringing down trees, crushing flower beds and rearranging fencing.
We have tolerated the presence of the goats in the garden as at the moment they are not doing too much damage (until the fruit trees bud up that is) and there are, as ever far too many jobs that are higher on the list than stopping the beasts eating the spring flowers.
Three days ago as I was in the vegetable patch I could see disturbing signs that something a bit bigger than a snail had been having a go at the spring greens. Two days ago all the purple sprouting disappeared and yesterday Maggie was caught red hooved eating the remains of the cabbages.
She had found the weak spot and was exploiting it to her best advantage. Today with Tracey's help I fixed the problem, at least I think I have, by raising the height of the fence by two feet and installing a barbed wire strand to deter the goats acrobatic incursions. The size of the problem can be seen by the photos top and bottom, again I am not referring to my stomach, if it was against cats we we are onto a winner as the expression on Earl's face shows. However you can see as I am working on the fence one end Maggie is searching for weak spots further along, she is not even being subtle about it anymore! The bottom picture shows the new kids probing for weaknesses along the side of the cliff.
A never ending war which we must win but I think that the odds are stacked against us!