While rockets and robots fill his time on campus, when he gets home it is a different story.  Rather than working with students, he spends his time with his chickens and goats. For engineering teacher Brian Lidington, home is a hobby farm that he tends to after school and on the weekends.

“We have a couple of goats that we milk, for our own consumption, we gather eggs from the chickens, and we have sheep that we sheer, but we don’t sheer enough to be able to sell,” Lidington said.

Taking care of farm animals is no easy task, however it can be useful for many reasons.

“We have chickens because they eat all the bugs around my house like spiders and ants which get really bad in the summer and spring,” junior Alissa Osornia said.

Farm animals are good to have around for practical reasons, but they also make great pets.

According to the FDA, “in an appropriate environment, goats can make excellent companion animals. They are noted to have highly individual personalities, and are capable of great affection and loyalty to their human caretakers.”

The animals that Lidington has are so gentle that the neighborhood kids come and play sometimes.

“We are kind of like a petting zoo, families come out with their kids and go off and play with the animals because they are all friendly,” Lidington said.

There is never a dull moment with owning farm animals; the goats are especially lively and fun.

“You don’t always expect how good of climbers they are, like if the goats are in the yard, they’ll get up on the porch and shed roofs,” Lidington said. “They love to do that, and when there are more than one they start to bud each other to try to knock the other one off. That’s kind of funny, but when they’re young they are very playful, they run and kick and play around.”

Lidington plans to add to his farm at some point in the future by possibly purchasing different types of animals.

“We were over at trade days, and we were looking at these 2 pigs,” Lidington said. “We never had pigs, but the miniature pot bellies were really cute, so we were possibly looking at those or some cows because we don’t have any cows.”