Houston’s weather has always been a wild card, but I never expected a sentient cumulus cloud to drift over and gently request scritches upon entering the gates of a Fields Store, Texas, goat farm. Technically, this cloud is a Maremmano-Abruzzese Sheepdog named Octopus Moonshine (alternately, “Moon” or “Moonie”), but if she were to tell me that clear skies and mild temps were ahead, I’d believe her. And certainly welcome the news. If I’m to spend an afternoon with one hand holding a sangria and the other coaxing a small horned mammal with hyphen-shaped pupils to please remove his head from betwixt my knees so I can walk, then nothing could provide a more blissful atmosphere than an honest-to-God nice day outside.

Welcome to the new Beer Garden at Blue Heron Farm. It’s a small slice of Eden, with plenty of good eatin’.

Any cheese fan in the Houston area likely knows Blue Heron Farm, Lisa and Christian Seger’s 10.5-acre Waller County dairy where they raise goats and raise hell, not always in that order. For the uninitiated, the couple provides Houstonians and restaurants alike with sustainable and organic goat milk products, including feta cheese and multiple varieties of spreadable chèvre, cajeta, and yogurt. They take pride in their humanely raised herd, which they’ve owned and operated since 2006, offering tours to anyone hoping to meet the goats who make the milk possible.

The Beer Garden at Blue Heron Farm opened in October 2023, after many years of planning and brainstorming to find new ways to encourage people to better understand where their food comes from and the systems that keep everything running.

“People love coming to the farm,” Lisa says, adding that offering outdoor activities became even more important during the pandemic. “And then the last piece of it is, we’re just getting old and we’ve been making cheese and bringing it to farmers markets for 15 years. We were looking for a slow off-ramp from the cheese.”

The beer garden is also a chance to earn a living when milk production trickles. Petting the goats is free with any purchase; otherwise, there’s a $5 charge.

“We’re going to end up out of milk until the next babies are born. Usually we milk seasonally, but we managed to milk year-round, even if it’s just a little bit,” Lisa says. “This is the first year we’re ever going to be totally dry for like a month and a half. Which is a little scary, but at least we’re selling beer.”

As the Segers point out on their website, “beer garden” is something of a misnomer. The space takes more inspiration from a classic Texas icehouse, with a corrugated metal serving area, a dirt-floored patio, mismatched tables and chairs, and a bathroom housed inside a stylish Airstream—all contained within a fence flanked by blue banners promising opportunities to “Drink Beer” and “Pet Goats.”

Honestly, a good time doesn’t need more than those two elements, but there’s more to do at Blue Heron’s beer garden than that. You can also play cornhole (unfortunately, none of the goats can compete due to hoof-shaped circumstances), order snacks made right there on the farm (get the chèvre and crackers), drink sangria or nonalcoholic beverages…or bask in the overwhelming glory of Jeremy the tortoise. He’s only the coolest shelled reptile since a bunch of party dudes named after Renaissance painters crawled out of New York’s sewer system.

Let me back up a little here. Blue Heron is a goat farm, I assure you. Its main attraction has been goats since its inception. They even sell calendars starring fan favorites from the herd. Then the Segers adopted a rescue African spurred tortoise (also known as a sulcata tortoise) in March 2023, and their already lively Instagram and Twitter presence fell in love with everything about him.

“There was that tortoise at the Houston Zoo that had babies at age 90. And I saw the story, and I’m like, ‘This is so amazing! They have a tortoise that had babies at 90!’” Lisa says. “And I turned to Christian [and] I’m like, ‘We should have a tortoise.’”

The time between deciding to adopt a tortoise and bringing Jeremy home was only a matter of days. Such “a weird spur of the moment thing,” as Lisa calls it, opened up a new avenue of thought regarding what other shapes the farm could take. They already purchased a miniature cow solely for petting purposes. Why not add something a little more unexpected and unfamiliar to a pastoral setting, too?

“For the history of the farm, we said we cannot have animals that don’t help make a living. There are no money pits to be had, because the margins are so thin on dairy. We never got ‘fun’ animals that were not also work animals. Goats are very fun, but they have a job,” Lisa says. “So when we did the beer garden and we knew we were gonna have a petting farm, I’m like, maybe we can add some animals that we couldn’t have before.”

On sunny days, visitors can watch Jeremy eat one of the famously colorful salads the Segers prepare for him, or give his shell some friendly pets… if he’s even at home. He has to wear an AirTag at all times now, due to some well-documented incidents of daring low-speed escapes to neighboring farms. Though sometimes he still finds a way to rip off his tag and wander off. Fans can now purchase “Fucking Jeremy” stickers both online and at the beer garden to commemorate their love for the free-wheeling miniature “dinosaur.”

Jeremy is the Keanu Reeves of tortoises, if Keanu Reeves was also the most consummate anarchist this side of Emma Goldman. Yet despite his internet darling status, he still can’t pull all the attention away from the true stars of Blue Heron Farm: the goats.

At present, the Segers raise about 25 goats of varying breeds, all of whom can be pet, hugged, and played with provided they welcome the interaction. Unlike many petting zoos, where the owners allow livestock to go just a little hungry to encourage them to get active with paying customers, they keep their herd well-fed. When the Segers’ animals wander up for socialization, they’re not asking for food—they genuinely want your attention. Most of them, anyway.

Sangria drinkers, be on the lookout for Electra, a black-and-white striped LaMancha doe (you can identify them by their itty-bitty ears) with an insatiable appetite for wine-soaked fruit. Goats can safely consume small quantities of alcohol, so it’s fine to give her some of your citrus as a treat, just make sure to ask the Segers first out of courtesy. Electra’s a persistent and persuasive gal with charm to spare, but being a gracious guest also means being a responsible steward of the farm’s ecology. What the goat wants may not be what the goat needs.

Different members of the herd are active on different days based on weather, their mood and health, and other factors. During my visit, I made the acquaintance of a Nigerian dwarf goat named Marble Rye, so called because the mottling of his fur resembles the bread in question. Lisa notes that Nigerian dwarf goats are only about two cans tall as actual babies, so at full size they easily get mistaken for baby goats of different breeds. Marble Rye’s short stature put his head at the exact level of my knees, and he spent most of my time in the field tenderly headbutting them so he could secure his head in between.

I’m not sure if I’m an especially thick-thighed Disney princess in the making or if he just likes the way the pressure of human legs feel on either side of his head. I’m not sure Marble Rye knows, either. It doesn’t much matter in the end, I guess, because we both got what we came for out of the encounter. He wanted some manner of human interaction, and I needed to wiggle out of Houston’s overdeveloped grasp for a while and reset myself with nature and open skies.

Most of the beer garden’s guests also come up from the city, which is 45 miles southeast. “It’s been a good mix. I would say maybe 30 percent local, 70 percent Houston. Maybe 40/60. We’re aiming for about 50/50, though,” Lisa says.

Part of it may be the novelty of the experience. Almost anyone in this corner of rural Texas can day drink with goats as the mood strikes. The other part may be that those of us who live in a constant haze of refinery smoke and the potent perfume of Eau de Ship Channel need more reminders that our dairy is more than just a series of bone white liquids, semisolids, soft spreadables, and creamy chunks. Not all of us are cut out to be like the Segers, able to sacrifice the creature comforts of urbanity for the creature care of farming. I know I’m not, and I won’t pretend otherwise.

As such, excursions to places like the beer garden at Blue Heron give us a tangible look at the interplay between the animal and human labor that nurture us. It’s not a full object lesson in food production and distribution—something like that only gets accomplished beyond the bounds of a boozy afternoon playtime—but it’s still an opportunity to explore the connective tissue between maker and consumer. Farmers like the Segers and livestock like their goats give us our daily bread, and in kind they are owed our appreciation. An offering of sangria fruit, some soothing scritches behind the ears, good-naturedly accepting a baffling demand for knee crushes… it’s the minimum we city dwellers can provide.

If nothing else, maybe our thirst for beer and bleats can purchase the inevitable new AirTag for Jeremy.