Robin's Outdoors

Originally written August 10, 2007

I’ve worked outside all week because of beautiful weather. Most of my work has been at the back of the garden preparing it for the new greenhouse. The goats were starting the week off well. They spent most of the time standing in the pasture side door of the barn watching me. Early in the afternoon they went back out to pasture, ate a little and slept in the sun. Buddy moved easier than he had in days. Brekke looked content. Tuesday was much the same.

Janet called from the vet’s office Tuesday to confirm our 9 a.m. Wednesday appointment. Tuesday evening I did the chores by myself and said my goodbyes. Buddy was eight years old. He’d had a catheter because of urinary calculi (I helped with the surgery, performed in the backyard.) for seven years. Most male goats don’t live nearly as long. It’s a sad fact of life that they serve little purpose other than packing and pets. He’d lost his muscle mass and his overall health was poor. He didn’t feel good, and some days he was in pain. His joints creaked and he groaned when getting up. It was time to have him put to sleep. When I scootched down in front of Buddy he gave me his usual goat kisses, this time kissing tears off my cheeks. He leaned against me, his chest against the front of my shoulder, and leaned so hard I had to grab a beam to keep from falling over. He relaxed against me and let me scratch him. We stayed that way a long time.

Brekke was always nervous. They were the last of the livestock. Leaving her alone, in her constantly frantic state near people and without Buddy, would be cruel. She was very attached to Taylor’s pony and to our cow, more so than the other 14 dairy goats we had. Along with Buddy, they were her herd. Andy died of very old age four years ago and Brekke became a little more nervous. Last fall the cow was sent to the butcher because she was temperamental and getting harder to handle. Brekke quickly became a nervous wreck. She never left Buddy’s side after that. She was always as close to him as she is in this picture. She wouldn’t come to me and ran in circles around the box stall when I tried to go to her. I went to the garden and pulled a few cornstalks and picked crab apples on the way back to the barn. She and Buddy ate the cornstalks quickly. Brekke wanted crab apples enough to carefully take them from my finger tips. Eventually she let me pet her for a few seconds. It was the first time she’d let me touch her since we caught her to trim her feet in April. Trimming took two of us; she screamed and fought us the whole time. She didn’t like people and that’s all there was to it. I said my goodbyes, walked to the pond and cried for a long time. They weren’t just goats. They were special.

I left at 8:50 a.m. Wednesday to go to Done Roving Farm for my work day in the artisan gallery. Steve offered to do everything for me. I kind of feel like a jerk for leaving but it really was more than I could handle without making the whole thing worse. Steve made arrangements for someone to dig the hole. He said he put them together carefully before he covered them. I haven’t been out there yet. I’ll go today so that I can put down grass seed.

Thursday was weird. I was working at the back of the field again and kept looking for my goats. I looked at the barn door but they weren’t watching me. They weren’t sleeping in the pasture. They weren’t eating dropped crab apples from the ancient tree beside the pasture gate. I opened that pasture gate so that I could drive the Hauler in and didn’t close it behind me. There’s no need to close the gate again. The ducks live in the barn too. They were “off” yestereday. I opened the doors to let them out for the day but they didn’t go anywhere. Two mallards and a runner always come to the back of the field to look for bugs. They stop to watch me for a minute, tipping their heads at birds flying overhead, quietly quacking when they go back to work. They didn’t yesterday. I thought hunger would drive them out of the open pen but it didn’t. I brought layer pellets to them at mid afternoon, something I never do in summer. Unless they have ducklings they have to find their own food all summer.

I’m sure I’ll catch myself looking toward the barn door today, and probably for a while. Buddy has always been here. He came here a month or two after I moved here. For the first time in 13 years I don’t have any livestock. No pigs, cows and horses, and no Brekke and Buddy.