JoJo the Poet

George and Fred as babies.

We have little pygmy goats. We're not livestock experts. We're doing the best we can. We got goats because our back property is a giant hill that gets overgrown with weeds, and the goats do a nice thing by keeping those weeds mostly at bay. Plus, they're super cute. Adorable. We started out with two little goats ... George and Fred. They've been happy little goats for the past several years. This year we added to our goat family and now have four more goats. I'm sure our neighbors just love us.

We've never had any issues at all with our goats. They seem to love us. We love them. Everybody's happy. The goats all run together wherever they go. They come as a group to get treats every day. They basically stay in the same area while they are grazing on our property. They run to see us when the cars pull up. But in December things started to change. Fred stopped hanging out with the other goats. He wouldn't come with them to eat. He slept away from them. He looked miserable. We thought it was odd, but we didn't recognize that it was a sign that he was having some sort of serious health issue. By the time we figured out that there was something really bad going on, it was too late. Fred was going to die. He was miserable and seemed to be in a lot of pain. We needed to do the humane thing and put him down. We've never done that before. How do you do that? If it was our dog, we'd take him to the vet, but our farmer friends told us that it was better to just do the job ourselves and shoot him. Oh no! Well, any feminist tendencies in myself went right out the window at that moment, and I explained to Herman in very logical terms that shooting a prized goat is definitely a man job. Definitely. No way was I going to shoot Fred. No way. Herman agreed, but only on the condition that our entire family go with him as he did this. Our whole family. It's true. That's what he said.

PETA WARNING ... Those who don't want to hear about an animal being shot should probably stop reading at this point. Just skip to the poem at the end.

So .... one cold and dreary December day we bundled up the kids, put on our hiking shoes, and carried Fred to the bottom of the ravine found behind our house for our family activity of the day. Fred was pretty non-responsive at this time. He was probably close to death anyway. But that didn't make the job of shooting him any easier. Herman and Spencer (who was home on break from college) grabbed a couple of our handguns, loaded them up, and began to shoot. I'm not sure how many bullets it takes to put a very sick goat out of its misery. Herman and Spencer didn't know either. They wanted to make sure that Fred died quickly and didn't suffer needlessly. They didn't want Fred to be alive and bleeding to death. Having never killed an animal before, though, we didn't realize that there are death spasms that occur when the animal dies suddenly. Thinking Fred was still alive, I'm pretty sure that Spencer and Herman maybe used a few more shots than were necessary. With each shot, my poor, sweet JoJo got more and more distraught.  Looking back, it may not have been the wisest parenting decision to include everybody in this activity. But the deed was done. Fred no longer suffered. Saddest moment of the experience .... as we turned around to walk back up the hill to our house we saw Fred's brother, George, standing alone at the top of the hill watching the whole experience. Tears.

We all survived the experience, though. Even JoJo dried his tears and wasn't too upset. At least I thought  he wasn't too upset. Today as I drove JoJo to school he remembered that he had accidentally thrown away an order form with some old papers in the kitchen. He asked me to rescue it, so I went through his papers when I got home. As I was shuffling through them I came across a poem he had written. He obviously had felt a little poetic about the experience. All I can do is share it for all the world to see. Enjoy!

My Family
a poem by Joseph Blau

My family is a good one.
I love the voice of my loved ones.
The voice of goats are mournful ones.
The goat execution has begun.
The goat was shot with a gun.
The goat was shot many more times than one.
Tears were shed, sadly but true.
And that is the end of this tale.

hahahahahhaha. Best poem ever! I LOVE MY JOJO!

It's terrible picture quality, but a great poem.