At school whenever someone new finds out I grew up on "the farm" the first question I get is, "What kind of animals do you have?" I never really know how to answer that question because while I was growing up we didn't really have many animals, mostly our family harvested grain. However, a few years ago my family started to invest in more livestock. I've been away from home for most of our livestock days. My attitude towards livestock has alway been bad because I don't particularly like their smell and poo. Being away at school and living in Texas for 18 months has honestly been the best excuse to skip out on the usual farm-like chores.
This week I've been down in Blackfoot visiting my family again. I'm between semesters right now, so I had a full week to relax and hang out with my parents.. all stress free! Tonight I was getting ready to put in the new Chronicles of Narnia movie (Voyage of the Dawn Treader) and I was hearing a funny noise outside. With all the farm animals funny noises aren't uncommon, but I still become petrified with fear over it. My dad opened the door and heard a noise like an exotic bird screeching out by the corral. He decided to go out and investigate. I stood by the door and was making sure that the exotic bird wasn't going to eat my dad. The squawking continued for about 5 minutes. I yelled out the door and asked my dad what was making the noise, I was expecting him to tell me it was a whooping crane or a snipe or something. When he yelled back I was surprised to hear that it was one of our baby goats. We were lucky enough a few weeks ago to have twin goats join our farm. Apparently the baby boy goat (Phil) was beating up the baby girl goat (Lil). I've been wanting to see the twins but hadn't gone out to see them. I decided to put on my shoes and go meet them. Lil is probably the cutest thing I've ever seen. I held her for a while and she just cuddled up to me.
After a bit I put her back into their pen and watched her for a while. She is so much smaller than her brother and she seems to have a funny leg, making it hard for her to stand. I was really upset to see her brother immediately come over and start pushing her over and then jumping on her. She was squealing and we knocked him off her. My dad decided to call my brother to have him put her in his pen. My dad and I both forgot our phones inside so I stood guard while my dad went to make the call. I made sure that Phil didn't get close to her, but I wasn't too worried about mama goat. I was pretty upset when mama goat head butted Lil into the wooden fence. I held her again and waited in the dark till my brother and dad showed up. Sad to say, I bonded with little Lil and I think I'm in love with goats now. Lil is now in her own pen and will be bottle fed. She'll make it through! :)
