Hard Day Bad Day

Friday June 6 starts earlier than usual. The herd needs to be milked and fed before 9:30, when the vet arrives for a herd check. The vet needs to be gone by 10:30 so that we can prepare for a group of kids to tour the farm at 11. And then all the other stuff.

6am: The vacuum pump motor for the milking machine fails. Without it, we can’t milk the goats, so all 35 of them stand outside the milking barn and begin to scream for their breakfast.

7:10: On the phone with the milk-equipment repair guy. Over the screams of hungry goats, I hear, “I’ll have to look around to see if there’s another motor here. It’s going to be a while.” 

9:20: The vet, Dr Barton, arrives. Takes blood from Luna, an older milker I suspect has liver-function issues. Checks out Victoria with her janky tongue, confirms it’s nerve damage sustained when her head got stuck in the feed trough while trying to steal her neighbor’s breakfast. Barton tries “acupuncture to stimulate nerve growth.” Really, she just jabs—repeatedly, randomly— at the bottom of Vicky’s tongue with a 20 gauge needle. I promise to make fun of her for that forever. We see Georgia, a yearling who’s not thriving. Barton’s guess is Inflammatory Bowel Disease, recommends a regiment of steroids. I say okay and give her the first shot.

11:00: 10 kids and their parents arrive, as does the man with the motor. That the milking goats are still screaming for their breakfast tickles the kids. Jack deals with them while I help with replacing the motor. It takes about an hour, then another hour to milk and feed the herd at last.

1pm: Finally, I can do all the other things that the day requires.

By Sunday morning, June 8, after two doses of steroids, Georgia begins to fail. She’s in the corner of her barn and does not want to move. When she does, she has trouble getting her legs under her. There is blood in her urine. The steroids are quickly worsening whatever is going on. She was born March 26, 2024. The other girls born that year average 100 pounds. Georgia hovers around 50. Over the last 5 months a vet has examined her four times. Several rounds of bloodwork, antibiotics, supplements, and a general change in management have not helped. 

I’ve known since winter that she would not be a milking goat. I’ve known since spring that she would not last another winter. Nonetheless, she could run with other goats, tussle over grain, and enjoy attention from us. Now I go to Bailey’s house and say, “I don’t think Georgia can be a goat anymore. If it hasn’t already, the suffering will start soon.” She agrees. I call June but can’t really speak. I manage “Georgia” and June knows. I interrupt Emily’s chores and tell her. She stays by my side. In the pasture with the milkers I find Hunter, the fifteen-year-old who’s volunteered with his father for years. He knows the goats about as well as anyone, has his own spreadsheets for them, texts me reminders of their birthdays.

​Once I take Georgia, her pen mate Virginia will be alone. I ask Emily and Hunter to move a couple yearlings in with Virginia once we’re gone. I call the vet and we make a plan to meet. When I hang up, a woman is in front of me with her hand out to shake. She’s in the middle of a sentence  “… so every year I tell all my friends because I have to come here and get the cheese and to get the soap which has saved my life because of the eczema you know and I was saying it just last night at Cúrate because the cheesecake is so good that we have to stop by….” I say that I am so glad, and that I’m really sorry but my allergies are just horrible, that my nose won’t stop running and my eyes are so itchy and that I really should find a tissue.  She leaves, and I  bring the car around. When I pick Georgia up, she’s cold to the touch. Once in the car, she doesn’t try to stand. At the first turn, she gives a soft complaint. She’s silent the rest of the drive.

​Dr Barton is kind and ready when we arrive. I climb in the backseat and put some of my weight on Georgia. With one hand, I hold her head up, and with the other I put a little pressure on the base of her neck to help Dr Barton find her jugular. Georgia does not struggle. Before I get back in the driver’s seat, Dr Barton gives me a hug. I’ll get a card from her in a couple days. At the farm again, I take Georgia to the big pasture, under the huge trees. The milkers roam here in the summer when the grass is high. Georgia had never been.