Goats are People Too

The light of my life

Fall is the time for harvesting, duh. 

Prior to living in a heavily agrarian place, this fact was more conceptual than practical -- my only real notions of a harvest had to do with faux farmy "harvest" festivals, harvest-themed menus and menu items at precious "farm-to-table" restaurants and an autumnal-hued bounty at the Union Square farmer's market. And while not strictly harvest-related, the onslaught of pumpkin spiced everything was a not so subtle harbinger that this straight COZY time of year was upon us.

Now that I'm on the other side of the looking glass as it were, I understand the literal meaning of harvest from the farmer side. Aside from the very occasional gardening I attempt in the farm's little plot -- digging potatoes is like unearthing buried treasure and I effing love it!-- I'm not as hands on with harvesting as someone on your average organic veggie farm may be. But it's definitely a reap what you sow type of time of year for everyone around here.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, we've officially begun our breeding season, which requires a whole new level of vigilance in the milking parlor to see who has been "serviced." This involves examining the goats' hoo-has for evidence of semen, or engorged or raw looking vulvas, or the scent of buck on her back or hind quarters. NOT TO PUT TOO FINE A POINT ON IT. And as previously described, Michael makes his first round of culls at this time, to identify who he won't bother trying to breed because they will not be kept for another season to contribute to the herd. Five girls were on the line for this early part of the process but because of divine providence or a maximum quota of goat related tears shed by yours truly, I've managed to find homes for all the ladies that would otherwise be shipped off to slaughter.

Deep. Exhale.

I was not so lucky when it came to saving Edison. Edison is one of the senior bucks, who actually came from Laini's farm and has been responsible for running interference with the other buck, Bwent, for servicing the herd. But according to Michael's fastidious record keeping, the doelings that have resulted from Edison's siring have been consistently low producers. Plain old genetics. Because he's no good to sell to someone else as a breeder, he's going to be "shipped" for meat. There are evidently some nice Jamaican fellows who work at the orchard down the road who have bought meat goats from us in the past, and it seems this will be Edison's fate as well. 

Old Burdock Beard (Edison)

Last week I arrived at the farm to find that he'd been sequestered in what had previously been the duck's enclosure all by himself to await pick up. He let out regular mournful bleats, confused and bummed out to be missing out on the fun and presumably lonesome to boot. Goats are social creatures after all. I'd been dimly aware that this was coming, but the reality of it socked me in the gut with that old familiar feeling -- that deep, visceral heartbreak feeling that lives in your stomach and the back of your throat. I'd been spared that feeling for most of my tenure at Twig, save my first few weeks when we culled Race and Hilda and Tally, and later when I thought Tracy was going. But for the better part of this last year I've been blissfully spared from the FEELINGS associated wtih the relatively routine death that happens on a farm.

A week later and Ed is still with us due to some scheduling issues with the fellows who want to buy him for meat. Luckily for everyone, he now has company in his enclosure, as we've moved Olympia and Tracy in there to try and get them bred, and Q-pert, one of our young bucklings, has been exiled there as punishment for having busted out of his paddock and is now experiencing what it's like to be on the bottom of the totem pole. Ed's been granted a temporary stay, but departure is looming, as are those of the little wethers we've been raising for meat since the spring. Needless to say I am a wreck.

It's all well and good to tell myself that they've lived good happy lives and that their deaths will be quick and hopefully painless, but all I can think about is the minutes or hours leading up to their slaughter, when they will be moved from their home to someplace unfamiliar, thrown into the back of a truck and handled by people they have never seen before. It is unavoidably traumatic for an animal to have to go through this even in the best of circumstances, and as far as I'm concerned, those steps leading up to their death all but undo the happy, carefree lives they've lived up to that point. #optimist

Because I'm morbid and need help, my brain takes me to a weird place now when I try to comfort myself about these impending deaths. I think of the poor people who have been killed by ISIS in truly gruesome ways -- public beheadings, immolations and the like -- and I think how immeasurably worse it would be to know something like that was coming and then to have to experience it. At the very least, these animals have no idea what's coming. 

It might seem super fucked up for me to be comparing the brutal murders of innocent people to the slaughter of some farm animals, and believe me I understand not everyone sees it this way. My penchant for anthropomorphizing these creatures has exposed  my little tender heart cockles in ways I never thought possible, and it certainly doesn't serve me when I am forced to confront their mortality. I simply don't know any other way to love them except to empathize with them as though they were humans. 

I'm scheduling a lobotomy for next week.

In other bew hew news, we sent our five culls packing today, and I was not prepared for how truly emotional I would be seeing them go. I'm beyond relieved that I was able to find a home for them, and a good one at that, but it was hard separating them from their goat friends (or in Gary's case, her tree stump friends) and then heaving them into the back of a truck to their utter confusion and displeasure. In all the commotion, I didn't really get to bid Garence a proper farewell, as I was too busy chasing Ellen around trying to staunch her ear tattoo-related wound (don't ask) and trying hard to catch up on a year's worth of gossip with Rebecca in a matter of three minutes. 

After they left, I went about my usual chores, but when I went out to the pasture to bring the girls in for milking, it hit me like a ton of bricks: my pal wasn't there. My favorite little light browed, be-waddled, tree-snuggling, apple loving, indifferent-to-my-affection-except-when-hormonally-altered boo was no where to be found. It was at that moment that I realized just how much each of my days on the farm were elevated just scanning the paddock for her darling face, how much unbridled joy I got when I pulled up the trap door in the milking parlor and saw her curious little mug behind it, how little I cared about staying an extra five or ten or fifteen minutes longer at work as long as I could kiss her snout and inhale the lovely, fresh, woody smell that always enveloped her head.

And for all that melancholy genuflecting, I know for certain I would be 100% INCONSOLABLE if the Gar had been leaving under difference circumstances -- circumstances that will, eventually, inevitably arise for her, however long she lives, wherever she winds up. I know I won't be able to "save" every goat I love, and recognizing this has sharpened my understanding of mortality in a weird and profound way. As Michael said, "They're all gonna go sometime." 

Fuck. We're all gonna go sometime. We may know it's coming, or not. We may live a decent life only to discover a malignancy that will slowly or quickly kill us. We may linger painfully or happily, get cut down unexpectedly before it makes any sense for us to be gone. It sounds so ridiculous to say that seeing the ebb and flow of life on a farm and the life-ending interventions that are made to keep things running has given me a more grounded understanding of my own life and eventual death, but FUCK IT it's true. It has taken my deep love of these beasts to start to come to terms with the truth of our lives and our deaths.

I wouldn't say I've acquired Peak Zen about any of this shit, and can all but guarantee that some minor trauma will send me reeling, like, tomorrow. Whenever I roll this crap over in my mind, I try hard to apply these lessons to some imagined future in which my loved ones die or I myself am staring down the ol' Grim Reaper. I doubt I'll be all resolved and clear-eyed about anything when the shit really hits the fan. But I think these are helpful things to contemplate once in a while, no matter that the catalysts happened to be a certain Gar type and her retinue.

I'd like to get to a place where I believe and accept that the end and its specific horrors don't undo the happiness and joy of a life. But I'm not there yet.