In the Land of Milk and Honey

Dearly Beloved, we are riding out the last day of the year with a wee hour insomniac session and wish to memorialize 2011 as the year of the goats. It was actually the last year and a half, but I will generalize.

I am learning to say the goats instead of my goats. For an aspiring Buddhist, I use the word my entirely too much. And the goats no longer live here on my land with me. There is the word my again.  The land we co-inhabited is now minus the two goats who once stayed in the back yard. 

The darlings are happier now - I believe I can say this with certainty. They were born in North Carolina on a magical goat farm. My family packed them up from a scenic wonderland and brought them to Juliette where there were no peacocks strutting around or seventy or so more goats to herd around with.

They weren't my goats in the beginning anyway, but still the idea of them gave me a sly goat grin. My Capricorn heritage prepared me to compare myself to goatiness long before the goat girls ever graced my presence. I became responsible for the girls because I have legs which work. Because they had needs which needed to be met - twice daily feeding,  browsing in the woods, hoofs to trim and water to fetch. If there is a possessive pronoun to be used, perhaps the operative phrase would be: I became their human.

When I visited them at Salamander Springs last week four days into their new living arrangement; I discovered the goats are not loyal like dogs. They already had adopted a new person to be their human. They were in goat heaven with acres of honey-suckled bottomland to graze and a farm full of humans, dogs, chickens and ducks.

And then again, six days later I visited them and they had been bad goats; escaping their acres of  fenced land and meddling in human areas. This landed them in the chicken coop, a virtual Hawaii vacation compared to my over browsed back yard. Their sly goat grins still hung in the air with a Cheshire quality as they lounged with Bantams. To these goats, a banishment into the chicken coop is like throwing them in the briar patch. In my yard, they often sat outside the chicken coop watching all the chicken drama as if this was the finest entertainment on the planet. 

I miss the girls, but I am glad they have gone to a real homesteading and teaching farm. Wwoofers come and go there - young people who will always fall in love with the goat girls' beauty and charm. These goats are with good  and responsible people, earth dwellers like the goats themselves.