A Goat Story

I’ve al­ways wondered why hu­mans keep sheep around their homes. They’re gregari­ous and pla­cid, al­ways look­ing down when graz­ing. Why they do that, I can’t un­der­stand. There is so much to see all around, why spend all day eat­ing un­sor­ted grass when there are so many choices in the bushes, in the trees, in the ve­get­able garden?

The wooden gate be­hind the house has a loose hinge that the mas­ter fails to re­pair each time his wife re­minds him of it, curs­ing at the kids that rav­age her cab­bage crop each even­ing when he tries to herd them to the stable. And why wouldn’t they? Why pass by and ig­nore this vari­ety of nu­tri­ents, when the hu­mans neg­lect the safety of their en­clos­ures as if we were all ig­nor­ant sheep?

Purple cab­bage is the best, as well as beet­root leaves, but in­ex­per­i­enced kids some­times get fooled by the bright yel­low dan­deli­ons along the fence and it’s al­ways a funny sight to see them tak­ing a bit­ter mouth­ful of them. 

“Jack, fix the bloody hinge! The kids have opened the gate again and are chew­ing at my cab­bage sprouts! Shooo, shooo away, you devils!”

“Mama Doe, look, look, I’ve got two cab­bage leaves!” The kid’s light yel­low eyes are big with ex­cite­ment while she’s bleat­ing her way out tri­umphantly out of the garden, still chew­ing. “Good for you! What about your brother?” “The only thing he’s got is a shoe from the mis­tress! It fell bal­list­ic­ally between his eyes while he was try­ing to fol­low me through the gate. I told him he’s too slow!” “Serves him right!” 

“You’ll only get your kids faster on the Easter table, en­cour­aging them like that!” The ram takes the lead, as al­ways, passing his sheep’s wis­dom to me. “Is there a way to get them there slower?” No an­swer, of course. 

“I would worry more about master’s pref­er­ence for mut­ton, you know he’s got ten friends over for a bar­be­cue this Sunday? Hey! Now you’re in a hurry? Oh, go and count your sheep!”

Nev­er­the­less, sheep are good com­pan­ions and keep the master’s dog busy herd­ing them around all day. This way we can roam freely, es­pe­cially when the mas­ter takes us to the forest. There’s noth­ing bet­ter than bright green spring buds!

I don’t mind the food around the farm, either, but the master’s kids keep leav­ing their rub­bery toys scattered around the yard. The first time I chewed on the girl’s Bar­bie doll, tak­ing it for a pink cab­bage, I al­most choked. Billy doesn’t seem to be bothered, es­pe­cially when the mas­ter for­gets un­emp­tied bottles of beer next to a pole. One even­ing I heard the mis­tress talk­ing an­grily in­side the house and the mas­ter answered very de­fens­ively “I didn’t even get to fin­ish it! When I re­turned, Billy had already emp­tied the bottle, I swear!” These hu­mans, they al­ways put the blame on us!

Days are get­ting longer, it will soon be the time to join the big­ger flock that spends the sum­mer on the moun­tain. The ram is con­cerned about how many lambs will get to see the grass on the moun­tain and how many will be seasoned with the herbs from the ve­get­able garden. Well, there’s not much he can do about it. We are luck­ier be­cause the mas­ter prefers mut­ton and his kids play all day with our kids, but still, not all of us get to leave the farm to­gether with the flock. 

There’s al­ways the op­tion of run­ning away into the forest, the cats do it all the time and stay away for days. Some never re­turn, but those that do tell stor­ies of wild cats catch­ing birds and sleep­ing in hol­low tree trunks. We’ve got re­l­at­ives in the wild. I once saw some cous­ins on the wa­ter dam while we were graz­ing near the river bank, up in the moun­tain. They were look­ing at us from above, stand­ing on in­vis­ible cracks in the con­crete wall. If they can sur­vive, so could we. 

But we’ve been around the hu­mans for so long, now. Yes, they take our milk and some of the kids, but they keep us safe from wolves and stroke us on the head and talk to us when they give us bread or salt. And they’re funny be­ings too, al­ways on their two rear legs, try­ing to reach everything that’s above them!

Our kids get along so well, run­ning, jump­ing, push­ing all lim­its. Hu­mans like our com­pany and why wouldn’t they? We’re smart enough to open a gate each time someone is not guard­ing it and this is some­thing to be ad­mired for, even if it is not to their be­ne­fit. We like our com­pany, too. In fact, we wouldn’t sur­vive without it, de­pres­sion is the word for an isol­ated mem­ber of our flock, that is why get­ting lost on the moun­tain is some­thing to be feared, even more than pred­at­ors.  Our cous­ins from the dam might be free to roam both ho­ri­zont­ally and ver­tic­ally, but stay­ing with hu­mans makes life easier and better. 

Take this Sunday, for ex­ample. The mas­ter made the fire out­side and to­gether with his friends left a lot of bottles around the garden. I was wait­ing for some smart re­marks from the sheep’s side, but the ram was nowhere to be found and all the sheep looked un­in­ter­ested in the event, or just ig­nor­ant, I couldn’t tell. I could clearly see the mis­tress through the kit­chen win­dow put­ting some bones in a bowl for the dog, my only rival to the master’s af­fec­tion. He thinks I can­not see him wag­ging his tail at him be­hind my back, but I have eyes back there, too. 

Sum­mer has come, and Easter is far be­hind now, we’re go­ing to the moun­tain. Maybe this year I’ll visit my re­l­at­ives for a few days and then re­turn to my master. 

Lu­ana Marian