No One Asked Me But… (April 20, 2022)

By DR. LARRY MOSES

No one asked me but… When my neighbor and friends have to leave town, we babysit their dog and I feed their goats. This is a great arrangement as it gives us the companionship of a dog without the expenses thereof. As to feeding the goats, it has really not been much of an issue. I merely have to walk a short distance and pitch a fork full of hay over the fence. However, things got a little exciting last week.

When I went to feed the goats in the morning, one of the goats did not greet me as usual. It remained lying on the ground and did not look good. I pitched the hay and it did not respond as normal, remaining on the ground and not feeding. I returned home and reported to my wife that one of the goats appeared to be sick. We decided not to inform our neighbors since they were in Minnesota and could not do anything about it.

That afternoon when I went to give the goats their evening meal, I was startled to find a baby goat on the ground looking very content. Now this may not seem to be a major issue to you but you need to realize that I am a city boy and know little or nothing about animal husbandry. I immediately went into panic mode and rapidly headed for home to report this mystery to my wife. I placed a call that was unanswered to my neighbor. By the time I arrived home my neighbor had called on the land line. I explained that one of his goats was now a mother. He indicated that he didn’t even know she was expecting.

As my wife and I returned to the goat pen, I explained that I was sure I saw a baby goat but it will be embarrassing if that was not the case. However, when we got there the baby was standing by its mother. We again called our neighbor who said if there is one there is usually two. Sure enough, we found the second one that apparently was born while I was home rounding up my wife. We found it in small shed still wet from being born. It was much smaller than the first one.

This happened at the worst possible time. My Utah farm friend who spends the winter with us, and would have known what to do, had just gone home for the summer. To give you some idea how dumb I am about animals, the year we moved to Logandale, a rural Nevada community, I passed a pasture belonging to one my teachers where a horse was lying down on its side. I stopped and went to the door and informed him that one of his horses was sick because it was lying down. He explained to me his horse was merely sleeping. I explained that I thought horses slept standing up. When the cowboy quit laughing he explained they also sleep laying down.

When I became the principal of Moapa Valley High School I also became responsible for the last school farm in the State of Nevada. Fortunately, I also inherited a great farm manager. On the farm, we had a good herd of black angus cows. One morning a local farmer appeared in my office to explain that he had passed the farm three times that morning and there was a cow down and appeared to be having difficulty delivering a calf. He stated someone needed to “pull the calf”. Unfortunately, my great farm manager was in Reno with this FFA kids.

Not being sure what “pull the calf” meant, I rounded up my Wyoming cowboy, Marty Taggert, and explained that a gentleman had stopped to inform me that one of “my cows” need a “calf pulled”, whatever that means. He quickly explained it to me and offered to help me in the endeavor.

I explained I did not know anything about birthing no cows and from his description of the process I was not sure I was going to be any help. One of my young female students overheard the conversation and volunteered to go with Mr. Taggart to “pull the calf”. I quickly consented to that arrangement and asked for a report when the deed was successfully completed.

In my defense, you must remember that until I was eighteen I thought milk came from a truck and was delivered to our refrigerator every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We were a family of seven kids and the milk man lived across the street and he rotated our milk much like one would at a grocery store. When I became aware of the fact the milk came from a cow, I never much enjoyed milk again.

Just as a closing note I don’t believe Momma goat is going to get the Mother of Year Award. She seems to favor the first born, a male, over her second, a little female. She also seems to prefer the company of her sister to her children.

Her sister is certainly not a loving aunt. On the advice of “goat lady”, who came to our rescue, I separated the two as auntie goat tended to want to knock the littles ones around. I thought I would have to call Child Behavior Services but instead I separated the aunt from Momma and the newborns.
Momma did not seem at all happy about the separation so I explained that if she wanted to talk to her sister, she do as my wife and her sister do, they could text each other.

When I was a youngster to be called a GOAT was an insult. It meant that you caused a disaster of some kind. In this day and age, when that which is good is often considered bad and that which is bad is often considered good GOAT has come to mean the Greatest Of All Time. What once was a badge of disgrace has become a banner of pride.

Thought of the week…. There was this billy goat at a movie studio who found and ate a can of film. When a nanny asked him how he liked it, he said, “It was all right but I liked the book better.”
-Johnny Carson