On November 15, when Pamela & Leslie arrived, I settled our larger milk goats in the round pen down in front, then sectioned off a smaller enclosure within that so that I could handle them. Catching them to load into the car had been quite the challenge—well, Pamela was initially caught with food, but when we went to load her sidekick into the car I managed to loosen my grip for just a moment, and that was all it took for her to escape. I’m guessing we pursued her for three-quarters of an hour before the owner suggested that I take Leslie instead of the spotted goat we’d been chasing. He generously offered me a discounted price to accept the exchange and I readily accepted. How could I not? And so, Leslie was wrestled into the back of the car with Pamela. (Of course, at the time they were simply the black goat with white ears and the brown goat with white ears; it took most of the drive home to settle on their names.)
When I cornered them at home, I knew the goats would not be happy with me, but I hoped to win them over in short order. Ha! Nothing doing. Indeed, by crouching down to their level to fasten collars, leads, and bells, I opened myself up for Leslie to treat me like a goat. She ducked her head, stepped forward, and wham! She butted me right between the eyes. I rolled over backwards with a yelp but declined to loosen my grip on the baling twine that held her. The experience was painful for me—I wondered if perhaps my nose had broken—and that was when I decided to let her bell just get knotted onto the dangling lead instead of trying to fix it properly to her collar.
When the next day I awoke to find I did not have two black eyes, I realized that I had been lucky. Leslie had let me off easily, after making sure I learned that she wasn’t to be trifled with. I learned; I learned.
The farm was good to me for about a week and a half, then JoJo the gander beat me over the head with his left wing that might as well have been a yardstick made of solid bone. (See “These Cats Rock!”) That was several days ago now, but the back of my head continues to be tender and sensitive to touch. When my sister-in-law commented that the wing bones of birds are hollow, I found it difficult to believe based upon my experience.
Then yesterday I made the mistake of leaning through a gate to clip a lead on Luther, our papa dog, when the area was roiling in puppies. I was unprepared when he became infected with the youngsters’ excitement and jumped up. He caught my face with a forepaw; that threw me for a loop. I felt his claws rake across my skin from my eye down my cheek and found it hard to believe that the only marks were a single cut above my eye and one scrape down my face. They hurt like the dickens when I cleaned them up later that evening, but they should heal neatly and in short order.
As if being blindsided with Luther’s paw wasn’t enough for one evening, when I went to feed the alpacas and the dwarf goats, BullyBob—our Nigerian Dwarf buck—assaulted me. Ducking his head, he full-on butted me in the knees and nearly knocked me down. Had I not been located where I could catch myself with a wall, I would have been on the ground in a flash. Angry, I knocked his head against the same wall that had saved me. Before I had a chance to feel bad for hitting back I found out that my response only excited him further. I cannot begin to describe how gross it feels to have a pee-brown-faced buck snorting and rushing up to get close to me. (See photo, above.) Ugh! In self defense, I pinned Bully to the wall with my hip while Spencer, the lone young alpaca male, ate in peace. A couple of times Bully slipped free and charged me again, but I was prepared for his foolishness after that first time when he took me unawares.
Finally, when I went to tuck the Tennessee Fainting goats in for the night, they crowded about my ankles, making it nearly impossible to get their feed into the waiting troughs and nearly knocking me down in the process. Luckily they do not take offense easily, for I believe I uttered a few choice epithets when I wanted them to move.
When I got inside last evening it was a relief to be out of harm’s way for a time. Who woulda thunk so many would get their licks in over the course of just one evening?
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