It’s supposed to be very nice weather all weekend. I’d like to plan a campfire in Cuzco’s honor. For once in his life he can have all the leftover hot dog buns, and I’ll even give him a whole Hershey’s chocolate bar if he wants it (usually he only gets one or two little squares). It will be “Cuzco’s Campfire”.

I bought him a fresh tub of powdered donuts this afternoon. Usually he only gets them when they’re close to expiration and on sale half price (in other words, rarely). Phil and I gave him a few this afternoon. He dropped one in his eagerness to snatch it out of my fingers (grabbing things quickly is tricky for him now that he no longer has teeth in the front). It rolled toward the edge of the patio where the dog was waiting with eager jaws. But Cuzco never lets a donut escape! He dove for that thing like a striking cobra, and unfortunately his greed surpassed his reflexes. His knees buckled and he crashed face-first into the pavement, but by golly he got that donut! I don’t think he cared that he did a face plant. He jumped right back up for another one and then licked my fingers afterwards.

He also felt good enough to go for a walk today. I think those sugary donuts gave him an energy boost because he was more or less able to keep up with us this time. Good ol’ fella. I’m glad he’s still game for a walk. Not being able to go is heartbreaking for all of us.

The new spring grass is soft and green, but Cuzco has a hard time enjoying it any more. There aren’t many teeth left in his old head, and he’s tired and slow. His swollen old joints ache when he lays down and they ache when he stands up. Moving is slow and painful, and he’s starting to lose his balance. Finn never had to battle for Cuzco’s position at top of the herd. Cuzco’s own body betrayed him and he quietly surrendered the crown without a fight. It’s more merciful this way I suppose. Losing to Finn would have been humiliating. At least this way Cuzco decided when to let Finn take over and he never had to be defeated. Finn is not too mean to the old fellow, but he’s not too nice to him either. Cuzco has some payback coming to him I’m sure, but thankfully Finn is not a cruel goat. Cuzco has been a good example to the young leaders in our herd.

I called my neighbor to come dig a hole. He’ll be here in a few days. As hard as it is, it’s Time. Cuzco has missed three walks in the last week, and we have to go slowly and wait for him when he decides to come. I hate looking back only to see him standing near the house staring longingly after us but unable to muster the strength to come. Cuzco has never missed a walk in his life. Even if all the other goats stayed home, he came. The worst weather never stopped him. But Time has little respect for young feelings trapped in an old body.

Cuzco has been telling me for the last week or two that he is ready. He began by refusing his joint supplement in any form. Lately he’s been largely refusing alfalfa pellets, sweet feed, and sunflower seeds. He picks at the new grass, and he still eats the leafy alfalfa I put in his feeder at night, but he doesn’t act like he’s very interested in most of it. It’s like he’s too tired to be hungry any more. His eyes are still bright and eager for peanuts and any other junk food I want to feed him, but he’s done eating real meals any more. Like my 100-year-old great grandmother, he only wants dessert, and at his age I’m ok with that. I plan to feed him up well on his favorite treats this week. He’s entitled to his own plate of garlic cheese knots from the local pizzeria. I’ll probably buy him a tub of powdered donuts, and I’ll be making him a big bowl of popcorn with butter and cheese dust. We’ll try to make these last few days very good for the old fellow.

I’m sure we could string Cuzco out longer, but at this point he’s still relatively happy and he still has his dignity. I cannot have him get to a point where he starts falling or where he can’t get himself up in the morning. I don’t want Finn or Sputnik to hit him too hard and break something. I’m afraid even a playful knock could do some serious damage, and I don’t want Cuzco to suffer. Right now he can still potter around the pasture picking at grass, and he spends many hours laying contentedly in some warm, sunny hollow. I don’t want to wait until Time takes even these little pleasures away from him. He’s been a good goat for many years and he deserves a good ending. Fifteen is quite a respectable age for any goat. When I think back to how many close calls he’s had in his lifetime, I’m amazed he made it this far. What a trooper!

Yesterday was a fiasco. You know… one reason I didn’t have children is because I didn’t want to get barfed on. I don’t do well with barf. For me, barfing is a group activity and once someone starts I have a hard time not participating.

Last year we somehow managed to escape the dreaded projectile vomiting that seems to strike one of our goats in April. But this year it was Rocky. Phil and I were taking the goats for a walk and I noticed Rocky was making a lot of noise. He was making a soft, grunty “baa” nearly every time he took a step, almost like he had hiccups. Every now and then he would make a louder baa-aa, but he was keeping up fine and didn’t seem distressed. About halfway through the walk, Rocky burst into a run right next to Phil, and as he passed by an enormous explosion of green goo shot from his mouth and nose. It covered the ground around us, splattered Phil’s pants, and (of course) my face. It was horrifying.

We got back to the house and I swilled Rocky’s face and chest with water from the garden hose. I wasn’t about to try medicating him as long as he was covered in that slimy green putrescence! First I gave him a shot of C&D antitoxin. He was surprisingly well behaved for the injection even though I had to give him 10 cc’s.  Next I filled a drenching gun with activated charcoal, straddled the now wildly struggling little monster, and tried to force the nasty black stuff down his gullet. It was a rodeo. Rocky backed, bucked, plunged, threw his head, knocked me into walls and gates, bit my finger, and finally, as a last resort when I wouldn’t get off his back, sent a rocketing cascade of vile, rancid, green slime all over my hands, my pants, and my shoes. I needed help. Phil held Rocky’s backside in place (and got a painful scrape down his calf from a protesting hind hoof for his trouble) while I got the goat’s head back and plunged the charcoal down his throat. A lot of it ended up on my pants and hands and on the goat’s face, but he swallowed some of it and I’m sure it did him some good. At least, he stopped baa-ing pathetically after that and had a good appetite for his dinner. He was right as rain this morning. I’m not sure my pants or shoes will ever be quite the same. I hosed myself down before venturing into the house. I don’t like things that barf on me. I avoided joining in the activity this time, but Rocky should be careful. If he ever barfs on me again I might return the favor!

Little stinker…

It’s been much too long since I’ve posted anything here, but then there hasn’t really been all that much to post about. The most exciting news lately is that WE CAN FEEL THE BABIES KICK!! Yes, our mamas are showing and if we feel their bellies in just the right places at just the right times, we are rewarded with a little flutter of baby hooves! We’ve got four mamas due in May. Hooray!!

But until the babies come, we’ve got some practicing to do with our working wethers. Phil and I are teaching a harness goat clinic at the Weld County Goat Extravaganza in April and we need to make sure we at least give people the impression that we have some general idea that we know what we’re doing.

Yesterday was beautiful and Phil and I were able to take Finn and Sputnik out for a little drive around the golf course. The boys were almost perfectly behaved for the entire drive. They even crossed water! There was a bit of balking the first time I faced them into this puddle…

But with a little encouragement, Sputnik splashed in and Finn couldn’t help but accompany him. Finn really wanted to leap the puddle and was all gathered up in a heap at the edge, but he wasn’t exactly sure how to jump while hitched to a wagon. Luckily Sputnik was there to show him how to cross by putting one foot in front of the other.

Then we turned around and went back through for an encore. The second try was better than the first.

Good boys! We crossed the puddle two more times before continuing on our drive. I got out after each crossing and rewarded the boys quite profusely. Finn even got GRAIN!

Beautiful Finn.

A well-earned reward.

I love this drive because the road is very level and very quiet. There is seldom any traffic at all, and the cars that do run on it go very slowly. The road is almost perfectly level and runs in a mile loop so we never have to backtrack. The best part is that it parallels a busy highway for quite a ways but with a sizable ditch between the two roads. We’ve been able to accustom Finn and Sputnik to all kids of speeding, noisy traffic including sirens, trucks, air brakes, and rattling trailers without ever having to actually compete with those things on the road. It’s a marvelous place to train!

We also get to enjoy the mountain scenery and a view of the golf course the entire way around.

Phil and Finn look so noble! It’s too bad Sputnik is ruining the picture with his fussing.

As a final hoo-rah, Phil drove the goats past the truck and the clubhouse (they were a bit hesitant, but they did it) and brought them back to the puddle.

They went through like champs! We were very proud of them, and of course there were cookies all around, and we led them back to the truck.

Some of you may have heard rumors that Phil and I have our sights set on taking our goats to the International Goat Days Festival in Millington, TN in September for the annual goat chariot race. Last week a friend did some minor work on our goat carts so they can now be converted from sit-down carts to standing or kneeling chariots! Of course, we have not yet added panels to make these look like bona fide Roman chariots, but we took them out for our first test drive on Saturday.

Sputnik was the hero of the test driving event. This goat knows his job and he really puts his heart into it! Finn has been less cooperative about driving (or working much at all) recently, so we decided to harness him up but not drive him. Finn got to walk alongside and watch how Sputnik does things.

For the actual race, contestants always kneel. I need to add some padding to the front rail and the floor to make this position comfortable.

Although it was much less stable, I thought standing was a lot more fun! Finn would like you to think he is pulling the chariot in this photo.

Since I knew that my balance would be an issue, I drove Sputnik in a halter so as to avoid hurting his mouth in the event of any accidental rein-pulling. Sputnik was very excited and wanted to trot most of the way, so I did get “left behind” the motion a couple of times when he would go straight from a stop to an eager trot. At those moments I was glad for his sake that I opted to use the halter!

Phil generally preferred to kneel. I think he’s ready to race!

Sputnik says, “What the heck are you doing back there? Can we go yet??”

Today my friend Jordan invited me and another friend to go hiking on the trail to the natural water slides. I’ve only ever been on this trail in summertime and Jordan thought it would be pretty all frozen over. She brought her yearling packgoat-in-training, Geronimo, and I brought Sputnik. We put the little blue pack on Geronimo and he carried a few odds and ends.

Sputnik carried the crossbuck saddle with a set of horse saddlebags tied on (the normal panniers were overkill). He carried the water bottles, some snacks, and a bit of litter we found along the way. It was a really fun hike and Sputnik was great. He was a little pushy at first because he didn’t have Finn there to keep him at the back of the line, but after getting corrected a couple of times for shoving past people, he settled down and stayed out of everyone’s way.

Geronimo was a funny little dude. Jordan has been off at college most of his life so he hasn’t been handled as much as most packgoats his age, but he’s a very chill goat and wasn’t too skittish about wearing a halter and pack. He loved climbing over all the rocks. but he never got out of sight of Sputnik, who was a very good mentor for the little guy. Sputnik showed Geronimo how to cross shallow water without a fuss, but Geronimo wasn’t convinced and twice tried to cross the ice instead. Both times he fell through and got wetter than he would have if he’d just followed Sputnik through the shallow bits along the edge. The creek under the ice was not deep or dangerous, but I’m sure it was cold on the legs!

At one point Geronimo got too far away on the wrong side of the creek. Sputnik was following close behind me when suddenly he turned off the trail, walked to the edge of the creek, and called across to Geronimo. Sputnik waited until Geronimo came after us before he started again. It’s cool that he was looking out for our trail companion! Geronimo challenged Sputnik a few times, which was quite comical. They looked like David and Goliath. Sputnik put Geronimo firmly in his place but he was not mean to him. He never hit Geronimo unless he was provoked, and he didn’t hit hard–only enough to make his point.

Today Sputnik had his first test of finding an alternate route for himself. We spent much of the hike scrambling over and around boulders, and at one point the gap was much too narrow for Sputnik’s pack. On the way up I removed the pack so he could squeeze through, but on the way back I wanted to see if he could figure out how to scramble up and over the boulders. The alternate route was no picnic and was also not very obvious, but I knew he could do it if he thought it through. It took him a few minutes, and I heard some very distressed cries from the other side of the rocks before Sputnik’s head appeared over the top of the boulders. From there he had a few tricky leaps and bounds to get down to us, but he made it without incident. I think next time he’ll figure out quicker that he doesn’t have to follow exactly in our footsteps if the people route doesn’t work.

Several spots on the trail were steep and icy. Luckily I remembered to attach a strap to the rings on the back of Sputnik’s saddle which could be used as a handle. It came in handy several times. On the last steep, slippery slope I hooked a leash to my strap and I held on while Sputnik pulled me up the hill. He did a magnificent job. In fact, we went up a lot faster than I wanted and I was fairly out of breath after Sputnik made us run most of the way! That driving has really paid off. I was able to have him “whoa” in front of me while I hooked the leash on. Then as soon as I said “walk on” he headed right on up the hill ahead of me. At one particularly steep spot, Sputnik had me hanging onto his saddle and the two other girls holding onto the tow strap! He wasn’t pulling us up, but he was helping us all balance which was kind of messing with his balance. He got a little balky at the end and turned to look at us like “What the heck do you think I am? A ski lift??” Needless to say, he got lots of praise and cookies. Thanks to Sputnik, no one got stuck or slid backwards down any hills. He took very good care of us and of Geronimo. What a good boy!

I got the cutest, most adorably awesome Christmas gift yesterday!! A friend of mine commissioned this little figurine of Cuzco and it’s just like a cartoon of him!! I’m going to treasure this gift for always.

In other news, my last post about Cuzco was a bit ominous, but I’m happy to report that the old fellow rallied when the cold weather started and he’s doing just grand. We’ve had a very mild (if windy) winter, but even on the nights when it’s gotten very cold Cuzco has done very well. He’s still King of the hay feeder and Finn remains very subdued in Cuzco’s presence. If Cuzco moves to one side of the feeder, Finn runs to the other. As long as Cuzco feels good enough to pound Finn into submission I figure he’s doing just fine.

Phil and I took Finn and Sputnik for walk around Cuzco’s old stomping grounds at Lake Beckwith this afternoon. The boys had a fun time, and Sputnik has gotten to where he is pretty eager about running over and hopping in the truck when it’s time to go for an outing. The goats were somewhat intrigued by the geese at first, but soon decided they were boring.

The lake is very low right now. We could desperately use some snow. Normally the lake goes all the way up to the trees.

The ice chips along this shoreline made some really cool sounds in the lapping waves. They tinkled like wind chimes.

This ridiculously awkward photo was supposed to be cool, not embarrassing. But I’m posting it anyway because it’s funny. I was sending Sputnik over this creek and back and he was jumping magnificently with just a point from my finger. I wanted Phil to get a photo, but wasn’t sure he’d get the timing right if he didn’t know when Sputnik would jump. So I jumped first so Phil would know when to click. It somehow didn’t come out very well. It looks like Sputnik butted me right over the ditch! He also looks like he’s straddling it instead of jumping it, which I guess would be a more impressive feat actually. Well we had fun anyway.

Sputnik has learned very well that when I point at an object he should jump on it. Phil and I both spent time working with our boys and had them jumping ditches, hopping on rocks, walking along the tops of stone walls, and jumping back and forth over guard rails and parking barriers. Sputnik did not want to jump over the three-foot parking barriers. The were higher than he wanted to jump and it was easier to go under or around. Treats weren’t convincing him, so our practice at driving came in handy. Sputnik has learned that if I tap his hindquarters it means “go forward”. When Sputnik refused to jump the barrier, I swung the leash toward his hips and he went straight over without a fuss. He got his cookie and then jumping was suddenly fun! He got balky again when Phil took Finn back to the truck. That time I slapped Sputnik lightly with the leash handle and he immediately got the point. He quit looking at Finn, got his attention back on me, and jumped the barrier. He seemed very proud of himself for jumping without Finn there for moral support. Sometimes it takes a bit more work to make Sputnik do something he’d rather not try, but it’s always worth it in the end because he gets very excited and full of himself afterwards. When I push him to accomplish what I ask, his self-esteem goes through the roof!

Today the goats got their annual fruitcake treat, and of course Cuzco got most of it. Only a few of the goats really like it, and since Cuzco really, REALLY likes it (and because he’s the biggest and the oldest), he insists that he should have ALL of it. However, we made him share a few small bites with Nubbin, Jezebel, and Finn. Nubbin and Jezebel ate it like candy, Finn was politely interested, and the rest of the goats weren’t convinced it was edible. So Cuzco happily gobbled down their portions.

Finn and Sputnik got new Cuzco-sized halters for Christmas. They were outgrowing the old ones. Sputnik’s halter recently began riding so low on his big Roman nose that it was starting to slide off the end of his face. The new one rides comfortably above the bridge of his nose.

Finn didn’t quite need a new halter yet, but since he will by spring, we got him one anyhow. Both goats also got some nice little jingle bells in colors to match their halters.

Sputnik has been very full of himself lately–challenging Finn, pounding the young bucklings, picking fights with the girls, etc. But today with the jingle bells on his collar he was extra frisky! Every time he reared on his hind legs, the jingle bells would jangle. So he started hopping around all over the place and rearing up at every goat in the herd. Then he got in a fight with Finn too close to old Cuzco, and Cuzco made them stop. So Sputnik jumped on rocks for me instead. I taught him that when I say “Stool,” it means I want him to stand on whatever thing I’m pointing at. He’s been very enthusiastic lately and has started jumping on every rock along our walking route in hopes that I’ll give him treats for every one. He’s mistaken, but he sure is cute!

Sputnik didn’t believe me when I told him there is no Santa Claus.

We had a hellacious wind storm on Christmas Day. We went out for Christmas Dinner at a friend’s house and we were afraid we’d come home to find our house and all our goats blown away. Doing chores in 50 mph winds is no joke! I lost a load of hay and four buckets. Today Phil and I took the goats and wandered around our property picking up pieces of soffit, shingles, and insulation from our roof. I found two of my missing buckets lodged in the bushes. The big tub I used to carry hay had been whipped right out of my hands (with the load of hay in it) and I found pieces of it scattered across our pasture. The fourth bucket is probably in Kansas somewhere. We lost two trees. However, Cuzco would like everyone to think it was he who knocked this big tree over. That soffit in my hand was found clear on the other side of our property and a very long way from our house!

I was sad to lose this big tree. The other one had pine beetle holes in it so we would have lost it in the next six months anyhow. But this one looked perfectly healthy until the wind took it. At least it was not next to our house, nor any goat pens, nor any power lines! The goats will be feasting on this for months! I won’t be able to cut it up for a long time because it’s so green.