Goats What?

Good morning! After I had a nap yesterday morning, I felt much better although the headache didn’t go away completely until later. This morning I felt nauseous but I think that’s because I didn’t eat until almost 10:00 because Paul was bringing Chinese home because Cedric had Max over and Amena would have been the oldest one home and I just didn’t think that was a good idea. Remind me not to eat that late again.

I think I had all kinds of plans of things to say this morning but now I’m drawing a complete blank.

One thing is Cedric. Yesterday morning he didn’t want to eat breakfast. I could understand that because his class was having a Christmas party. Last night, he didn’t want to eat any supper. I could understand that as well, although for a different reason, because Max was here and had already eaten. This morning, he didn’t want to eat again. His reason this time? He doesn’t want to get fat. Are you kidding me? Anyone who knows my children knows that getting fat is not one of their worries. I don’t think any of them inherited my relatively slow metabolism. I’m kind of curious as to where the heck this is coming from because it isn’t from me.

Another thing is the goats. Did I mention the dream I had about them a couple of weeks ago? I don’t think I did and I’m too lazy to look. Actually, I don’t think lazy is the right word for that because it takes really no physical effort to look. In fact, I could just search for ‘goat’ or ‘goats’ or even ‘dream’ but I just don’t feel like it. Actually, in the amount of time it’s taken me to explain this, I could have found it but this has been much more entertaining.

So, this dream. We lived somewhere; not where we do now. More like the awesome house we lived in up Miner’s Creek in California. The house and the way it was situated was similar, but different. The kitchen was at the end of the house, there was a porch on the back, there was another level of house under the kitchen which meant the porch was several feet above ground. Behind the house instead of an orchard, there was a goat yard that came off the barn and to what would be the north if it was the house in CA, our vehicles were parked. One night we were all in bed but for some reason Paul and I had gotten up and were sitting at the table in the kitchen at something like 2:00 in the morning.

While we were sitting there, I heard this awful noise outside and of course, I had to go out to check. Well, something had gotten in with the goats and the three of them were in really bad shape. And I do mean really bad shape. I don’t remember which one was which but one of them was standing and had intestines hanging from her belly. One was on the ground and looked to be in about the same general shape as the one standing. The other was also on the ground but was really mutilated. Her back had been broken because her head and her tail were only about two feet apart and the bend wasn’t what you’d expect when they use their horns or teeth to scratch an itch. It looked like she’d been partly skinned and there was blood and bone and innards all over the place. I just stood there for a minute because there wasn’t anything I could do; the house may have been like the one we lived in in California but I knew we were still in Massachusetts and I didn’t have a permit to have a gun in the house so I was without means of putting my poor goats out of their misery. I turned to go back to the house and as I did, I noticed that there was another dead animal behind one of our vehicles. It looked dead but was really bloody and torn up and I didn’t have a clue as to what it was. I went in the house and woke up.

I decided that maybe this dream had a message and the message might be: get the permit. If something happens to the goats in the middle of the night, I have to be able to take care of them and right now, I can’t. You can’t just call people at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and say, “Um, yeah, something came and started butchering my goats. I need you to come put them down.” Yeah. I don’t think it would fly. Especially since I only personally know one person who has a gun. In Massachusetts. I told Paul about the dream and he gave me the money to go get the permit. Now I just have to go and do it which I keep managing to forget.

In the meantime, we’ve got these three goats. Snowflake, Goldilocks, and Princess. Princess is my favorite; she usually behaves and isn’t a pain in the whatever like goats can sometimes be. She also has something going on with her front knee joints. Maybe arthritis? Goldilocks is usually okay but has her moments. Snowflake is sometimes okay and has moments all the time. Actually, they all behave just fine right now because they have to stay in their pen due to the snow and we just go out and feed and water them and there isn’t much opportunity for them to misbehave. However, yesterday morning Snowflake started hollering. Cedric took out grain and kitchen scraps for them and they were quiet for a few minutes but then Snowflake started up again. I took out the clippings from the artichokes (I found four hiding in the back refrigerator) that I cooked for lunch and a pineapple that I cut up and they were okay again. But then Snowflake started up again. I took them hay, I checked their water, there wasn’t anything wrong or out of the ordinary but all day Snowflake was hollering.

This morning, I got up because Snowflake was hollering. I took them out grain and I filled their water bucket. I took them out hay, more than usual. And now, less than two hours later, Goldilocks is hollering. I don’t know what the deal is but that’s a sure way to attract predators and I can’t have a gun yet. Goats. One reason I really didn’t want part Nubian does. Unfortunately, they seem to be the most popular around here.

Have a spectacular day!