I am a hero!!!

 Yesterday I became a hero!  The day started out as just another day, only I had a grandson with me.  He had spent the night so we had the whole day ahead of us.  We usually take a fairly long walk and that was how we started this day.  We walked up South Road toward 25th lane.  The ditch angles off across the country in a sort of south easterly direction.  Before we got to the ditch we passed the goat house.  It is really not a goat house, but a man lives there who has raised goats since I have lived out here lo onto 40+ years.

We noticed a small goat with his head through the fence munching on a weed.  We stopped to watch, but he just kept straining at the fence.  My grandson noticed that his head seemed to be stuck in the fence.  Crap!  What to do?  The gate to the yard where the owner had his house was locked.  I called out a couple times, but there was not any sign of life forthcoming.  All the rest of the herd was gathered to watch the small goat struggle.

I am not a animal person by nature.  Dogs and cats and an occasional bird does it for me, but it soon became apparent that I was the adult in this situation and if the little goat was going to be freed from the fence, it was going to be me doing the freeing.  I had a short conversation with God, wherein I asked if he could take care of this, but he did not answer.  Great!  I knelt on the ground and touched his horn.  Yep.  He was in there very solid.  He was not going any where anytime soon.  

Now when I find myself in a situation like this I always assume the one who got into the pickle was a male.  I being the alpha female needed to solve this some how.  With the grandson breathing down my neck I grasped the little guy with one hand on his nose, (in case a goat bites) and the other on the horn.  He was very calm as I raised his nose so I could manuver the tip of his horn through the fence.  That being accomplished the nose and other horn quickly slipped through the fence.  He looked at me with what I hoped was a look of gratitude, turned to his herd, kicked up his back feet and ran for the barn, followed by the rest of the herd.

It was at that point that my grandson declared I was a hero!  I had saved the goat!  I must say, I did have a very warm feeling at that moment.  It is kinda nice to have a kid think I am  a hero, even if it was sheer luck that it worked out so well!  The owner of the goat will never know what transpired while he slept, but my grandson and I know.  I just talked to my son and my grandson never mentioned it to him, but that is alright.

For just a little while I was a hero and my grandson looked at me as something more than a cookie machine.  The little goat has probably forgotten his predicament.  He will no doubt grow up to be dinner on someone's plate.  

It is called the circle of life!

Peace!

Stupid or eternally optimistic?

My mother always told me that one sign of stupidity was doing the same thing over and over in the same way and expecting a different result.  I would like to go on record as saying she may have been right about that.  Now I do not like the word "stupidity", but I do not know a better word for that action.  Oh, I know!  I can call it "eternally optimistic!"  That sounds a whole lot better, now doesn't it?

My neighbors goats are eternally optimistic.  They are the ones  that will not stay home and like to come graze on my bushes.  Every morning they are in my yard, usually in the car port.  I hit the panic button on the car and all four of them go into a dead panic trying to run over each other getting away from the car.  They then stand in the drive way looking dumbfounded and wondering where that sound came from .  Seeing nothing, they then wander into another neighbors yard to graze on her grass.

Soon the eternally optimistic neighbors (now awakened by my car alarm blasting) wander out to herd the goats back into the pen.  They actually have 3 different pens, none of which will hold an animal prisoner.  And yet each time they close the gate, they think the goats are secured.  I have actually watched them stand in the middle of the pen and look around.  Were I so inclined I could go over and show them the gaping holes they walk through, but I am not.  It is easier for me to honk the horn, knowing that the goats will never figure it out.

I suppose that in my journey from puberty to old age I have done a few stupid things, but rest assured there was only one real stupid thing that I did over and over in the same way expecting different results.  That was my habit of marrying men who were addicted to alcohol and expecting them to work and take care of me.  It was not until I met Kenny that I realized I really had something to offer a man besides my paycheck.  And we lived happily ever after.

Now I realize I probably could go buy a roll of fencing, take it over next door and show them how to build a fence, but I am not going to do that.  If I still had the nice lawn I had years ago and the beautiful rose bushes I took such good care of, it might be different, but I don't.  So I will set here and hit the panic button and watch the eternally optimistic goats wonder what is going on and the eternally optimistic neighbors herd them back into the semblance of a pen.

Life sucks.

Well, good morning you big fat goats! Hello, sheriff!

Most of you know that I have spent the last 40 years of my life out here in the county living on a back acre.  I love the seclusion.  I love that I have to give anyone headed out here a detailed drawing and description of how to find my actual driveway.  My Garmin ends with my car setting in the middle of the road and the words "You have arrived!", but you have not.  But that is just for the humans who do not listen.  Animals are another story.

One of my first encounters with the wild animals out here involved my Tulip bed.  I planted all different colors across the border in front of my lawn.  I was very excited to see them poke their little spikey heads up and waited for the buds to show.  Sadly, I went out one morning and the Tulips were gone!  I knew where they were and when I looked down into the ground I could see the colors alright.  Something had come in the night and eaten them!  I could see the yellow and red flower buds below the ground.  How sad that made me.  I could also see a couple piles of cow droppings (I use the term droppings instead of "piles of cow shit!).  We did not have a cow, but the man behind us and over on the next lane did.  This was my first encounter with wild animals.  I do consider that any animal that runs loose is a wild animal.

I would learn over the years that Foxes would eat my ducks and geese.  Also, that a horse would sometimes trot across my property and leap over my back fence.  Sometimes when I would return at dusk I would find skunks playing in the yard of the house in front of me.  Once a big owl was in the tree right out side my back porch and my cat disappeared that night, never to be seen again. 

When the Harveys moved in across the way, they were animal lovers.  He worked on the ditch and she at the Animal Welfare.  They brought home many animals in the form of dogs, cats, birds, and goats.  Never once did their animals  invade my space.  It was peace on earth.  No problems, although one day her blind dog ate her pet chicken.  The chicken would squat down to be picked up and when it squatted in front of the dog, the dog just ate it!  That was sad.

Fast forward to new neighbors and more goats.  Sadly by this time the fences were falling into rack and ruin and goats do not respect anything.  They do not understand property lines.  While they are meant to "keep the weeds down" it rarely works that way.  And so it went.

It became my lot in life to put them back in their pen if I did not want them in my yard.  Bear in mind that I am an old woman and if I wanted goats, I would have bought them.  I do not and I did not.  One morning in utter frustration I put the goats in their pen 3 times before 7:00 AM.  I lost my temper with the girl who owned the goats and I explained to her how her goats were ruining my life and my yard.  She actually kept them in for 3 days.  But then here they came again.

I called the sheriff.  It was then that I learned that Colorado is a free range state.  If I do not want their goats in my yard it is my responsibility to fence them out!  Now understand that I have a full acre here and I park my car in a carport out front.  A fence around this place would cost $4,000.  It would also entail opening and shutting a gate every time I wanted to leave.  I do not have that kind of money laying around and if I did there are many things I could do with it.  I like the openness of the front yard.  I do not like the goats.

So here I set with the original problem still unsolved.  I can not shoot the goats.  That is illegal.  The fences that could not hold the goats last week are still not repaired.  Momma always used to say "Good fences make good neighbors."  I understand that.  I just wish they did.

In the meantime life goes on here on my little acre.  Every day I get a day older and deeper in debt.  When the goats figure out a way to get out, (and they will )  I may just wander on down to the bank and apply for that loan. I would love to have new floors, but looks like a new fence may be what I have to have and then the other neighbors can just do the same.