4/11/2015 – 12/31/2021

From the day he was born (not the night, but the day)

He was trouble (not Monopoly, but Trouble)

He was the thorn (not the rose, but the thorn)

In his owners’ side (not the back, but the side)

They tried in vain (not in artery, but in vein)

But it never caused him nothing but pain

They weren’t home the day he died

This is a song lyric only lightly edited; don’t think I’m trying to be poetic on my own. Eddie seemed a little slow even from birth. He was double-inbred. We were soon to discover he had problematic hooves. We tried all sorts of things but could not do anything to remedy the situation or make his walking less painful. The following year his sister Zowie was born with the same condition, so we stopped all inbreeding immediately.

He adopted an unusual gait and a habit of going down on his front knees, which gave him arthritis. He was also prone to wounds that wouldn’t heal and becoming disgustingly dirty even for a goat. His problem hooves had to be cared for twice as often as those of normal goats.

In short you can see we had here a child with a disability. It is so hard to know when to end an animal’s suffering. Last winter Eddie developed some problems getting up on his own, and I started voting to put him down; but it was a winter thing, and he went on to have a good summer. Unfortunately, it didn’t take very many cold winter days this year before he had had enough. And unfortunately, the going-down-and-not-getting up came on suddenly, severely, and while we were away. Keep goats long enough and eventually everything happens, including the worst – having your goat-sitter need to be the officiant over an end of life. I’m afraid we’ve permanently traumatized Penny.

My husband deserves to be very proud for how he cared for Eddie all these years. Every three weeks trimming and sanding those hooves, clipping disgusting hair, coming up with ingenious ways to keep bandages on wounds. Troubles are over for both of them.

Who’s a pretty little girl goat? Who’s got a cute little nosey? Who’s always got a mouthful of hay? Whose hair is growing back so fast? Who loves living with mommy and grandma and Uncle Eddie & Aunt Zowie? It’s Baby Ramona!!! “No, no, no, I’m not a baby anymore, I’m a big goat!”

So here is something nice that was said yesterday at my farewell lunch – nicer than all the boilerplate ‘we’re gonna miss you blah blah blah.’ My boss told me that I had inspired him on a personal level, “with all your hobbies – your raising goats, your knitting, your weaving”. When I took a week off for weaving school, people seemed fascinated – not with the weaving, but the idea that you could take time off and, like, just do something you want to do, not involving traveling somewhere. Honestly, people must really have no lives whatsoever, if they think I’m something to look up to. But he said he’d always dreamed of doing something like going to a woodworking school in Vermont, and that I’m inspiring him. That’s cool.

She’s under there somewhere. Shearing time is soon.

I call her Momo because she’s my little Goat Dumpling.

That’s right, Beatrice! She and her Mom are back to being two peas in a pod, like she never left.

Did you stay home today?  Yes, but X had to go to Lowe’s for a part for the heater.

What local business or charity did you support?   Gosh, I’m pooped tonight. I bought plenty of Lake Champlain chocolate yesterday.

What’s for dinner? Sausage & Pepper Pasta with Broccoli – my second foray into the NYT “5 Dishes to Cook This Week.” These dishes have been pretty pedestrian. I guess they never promised you “voila” fare. They are just trying to give you five reasonable things to cook in a week.

X is doing a kind of macrame project here. It’s something to hold up the goats’ salt brick. He can be very creative and patient when he’s not pissed or depressed.

Below we see a glimpse of Beatrice with her new boyfriend. I hear shortly after this picture was taken, she wasn’t so innocent-looking and stand-offish.

We visited another angora goat farm today in South Hero. This one looked a lot like Bennie.
Seeing other angora goats is always uncanny! They look just like ours but not quite! Which feels weird.

The subject line “Other Goats” is kind of an inside joke. Like 20 years ago there were attempts at what was then the Fair to have angora goat shows. And this one year, we were the only ones who showed up. So the judge had to award us the ‘prize’ but she indicated that she really thought we should get “other goats.” (She had some kind of accent.) We have laughed at that ever since because she didn’t say “better goats.” Merely “other goats” – ANY “other goats.” Because our goats were pretty pitiful; they weren’t even purebred.