Last week, I became a goat-enlightened mother, thanks to my monk-farmer son, the Goat Guy. His topics of discussion included: birthing kids, contracted tendons, birthing placentas, desirable goat confirmation and personality, goat meat markets, udders, milking, cheese-making, grazing habits, herd behavior, goat weight, genetic arthritis and billy goat stink.
I am not making this up. Goat enlightenment is not a state I knew existed, nor one I ever aspired to achieve. But after twenty-six years as Allen’s mother, I shouldn’t be surprised to find him happy as a clam tending goats in a monastery in West Virginia.
Life with Allen has been an adventure since the day he was born (twenty-six years ago tomorrow) and he was flown from Rapid City to Omaha for surgery. God has a purpose for his life, and part of that purpose was to take us where few parents have gone before. Perhaps this explains his Star Trek fascination when he was a child.
So I shouldn’t have been surprised last week to find myself in a dark, musty goat shed, snapping goat glamour shots while a barn cat climbed my skirt. Hiram shouldn’t have been surprised to spend an afternoon in the pasture amongst frolicking goats.
We shouldn’t have been surprised, but we were. The biggest surprise was Allen’s attitude toward the critters. “They don’t care about me,” he said as filled the mangers with hay and goats flocked around him. “They only care about the food I bring. It’s a good thing to care for and love creatures who don’t love me back.”
Maybe my reaction to his words was more stunned than surprised. A delighted sort of stunned. A grateful sort of stunned. A “Hallelujah” sort of stunned.
If it took goats to mature our son, then I love goats. I love musty old goat barns. I love goat hay and goat facts and goat stink. But I draw the line at barn cats who ruin goat glamour shot sessions. The nerve of some animals!
