We heard the trumpet of war, the all-too-familiar roar of the challenge, the rattle of chains and breaking wood.
My beloved wife looked at me. She was busy tending one of my battle wounds, her own arm in a sling.
“The goat is out again,” she sighed.
Our big boy Bucky, the sweet baby goat who attended church and Christmas parties, who slept in the bed with us on a regular basis and cuddled on the couch, gets crazy every full moon. There are people who will say goats aren’t crazy, that it’s goatowners who are indeed certifiable, but I refuse to have such negativity in my life. They’re just jealous of my goats.
The soft bleating in the first light of dawn, the happy bouncing of babies just learning to walk, the affectionate rubbing when you go in the pen, the sweet smell of milk, the simple joy of brushing their long fur, and yes, even the raw earthy smell – I am surprised there aren’t more poems written about goats, or at least some warm, fuzzy, folk songs.
Of course, when it comes to Bucky, I would expect the music to be more like Viking death metal rock – loud, frightening, probably dangerous.
Maybe the Song of Goats is a version of my all-time favorite western song, Ghost Riders in the Sky, where the errant cowpoke gets a wakeup call from those condemned to eternally chase the Devil’s Herd across the broken sky.
Except in this case, I’m one of those accursed cowboys, and I’m chasing a red-eyed goat rather than a satanic steer.
I staggered in to work Monday morning relying on my walking stick even more than usual, since the high tides weren’t the only thing affected by the looming full moon. It had been a particularly challenging weekend on the farm. I was bruised, cut, and my arms were rashed from rope burns that would give a tall-ship sailor pause.
I keep hoping that one day, our miniature farm will more closely resemble those in the magazines about self-sustaining agriculture. You know the ones where people are always smiling, even in the midst of chores, the grass looks almost manicured, and the animals always look happy? Every morning, I get up hoping this will be the day my farm has magically transformed into the agricultural equivalent of Better Homes and Gardens.
Sadly, my hopes are usually dashed. The grass won’t take hold, the horseflies shrug off anything short of a 9mm slug, it looks there might be something living in the large water trough although it was just bleached and cleaned — and we have a hundred-pound demon with two-foot-horns that is often chasing cars.
Bucky has always been a magician when it comes to fences. I do not understand how the sweet, smiling little handful of a rejected bottle baby who came to live with us hours after birth can be such a jerk. He is not just an escape artist, but as the patriarch of our ruminant clan, he is something of a guerilla leader, organizing mass breakouts and mischief.
Ever since we expanded the goat pen, Bucky has been determined to up his breakout-and-fight game. Even the donkeys are afraid – and they can intimidate Satan and all his demons.
Miss Rhonda and I have a post-lunch sanity check telephone call every afternoon. It gives us a chance to say “I love you”, lets her get caught up with the news outside our gate and allows me to ensure she hasn’t started barking, growling, bleating or braying.
“Oops, I have to go,” she said the other day. “Bucky is out again.”
When I arrived home, Bucky was out yet again. He reared on his hind legs in the driveway and challenged the car to a death match. I wrangled him back into the pen, and made my way inside the house.
My beloved was wincing in pain, and holding one arm.
“That snot wouldn’t go in the pen,” she said. “I don’t know what I did to my arm.”
“That snot” became a common term for us over the next couple days, as the moon became full and my goat, who may actually be a werewolf, became crazier.
He broke out no fewer than five times on the following Saturday, even coming in the house two or three times after breaking in to the front yard fence. The dogs wisely chose to hide. The cats hissed from the treetops. Even the geese fled. One of those times, he managed to wrap me around a fence post and send me tumbling to the ground. After that, my walking stick became something of a shepherd’s staff as well as a mobility aid.
Sunday morning, as I went outside to greet the dawn, I was greeted by a baaaahing behemoth who was leading a flock of impressionable young minions who were enjoying the whole freedom thing. I resisted the urge to tell my pastor and fellow churchmembers that while the ox may not have been in the ditch, but the goat was assuredly in the yard. After putting him back in and repairing the fence a few more times Sunday morning and afternoon, I figured to try for Sunday night services at a friend’s church.
I had no sooner returned from a brief trip to town when Bucky leapt from the azaleas where he had been waiting in ambush and tried to stick his head through the car window. So much for Sunday night services. The thoughts I had, and the muttered imprecations I barely resisted vocalizing, would have required a trip to the altar. Instead I was pulling fence while a half-Boer Beelzebub caracoled and danced fanatically a few yards away. It took a couple nose-pinches, three or four taps with the tulip poplar and a couple more rope burns on my arms, but I got him back inside.
The evening fix seemed to work until Monday morning, when once again, he stood across the newly-reinforced front gate and mocked me with snorts, bleats and raspberries. Like an enthusiastic dog, he was all powered up to chase the car and make me late for work, but even demon-possessed anarchists are taken aback when I have my Monday warface on.
As I write these words, the moon is about to peak with its waxing, and I am sure that when I arrive home, I won’t be greeted by the joyous barks and bays of my hounds, the honks of my geese, or the braying of my donkeys. They have sense enough to stay away from bad influences.
Instead, Bucky will bleat and blat and bellow, I’ll grab my favorite rope, and like a warrior cowboy, struggle my way along as the full moon shines on the Goatrider in the sky.
