The Goat(s)

It was a typical weekday. After a cup of coffee and a walk in the woods with the dog, I had settled into my office to work. I sit (or stand) at a desk that faces a set of windows. There are also windows next to me. I love to look outside throughout the day and see a bird fly by or witness the darkening of the sky before a thunderstorm.

We live in the woods, and I’m very accustomed to seeing a deer wander by one of the windows, or a turkey, or a stray cat. Last week, as I sat at my desk typing on my computer, I saw a big gray goat strut by my window. It was wearing a pink collar and a bell.

“What in the world?” I said out loud.

I went out the door to see if I could approach it. The goat looked to be a nanny goat, and I tiptoed over to her and tried to comfort her with my voice.

“Hey there. Are you lost, baby? Are you lost?”

She didn’t answer. She turned and walked down a trail behind our house — that bell around her neck clanging with every step.

I came back inside and got on our community’s Facebook page to post about the lost creature. The first thing I saw when I logged on was a picture of the same goat with a smaller black goat, and a note below the photo saying, “Help! Dogs have chased two of our goats away and we’ve been looking for them for hours.” It had a phone number, and so I called.

“I’ve seen one of your goats,” I told the stranger.

The neighbor was upset and told me that he had to work out of town that day — something he couldn’t afford to miss — and he wouldn’t be home until 3:30 or 4. He asked me to go into the woods and see if I could spot both of them. With the phone in my hand, I walked back there, and after about five minutes, I found them standing on the other side of a dry creek bed.

“The gray one is very friendly,” he said. “If you don’t mind, try to grab her collar or a horn and lead her up to your house. The black one will probably follow her.”

I know nothing about goats. Nothing. But after the phone call, I eased up to the gray one and grabbed her by the horn. The goat didn’t like that and immediately shook her head violently and made a sound that scared me, so I let go and backed away slowly.

I walked up to the house and retrieved a carrot out of the refrigerator and returned to try and lure the pair up to the house. They didn’t like the carrot.

I called and explained the situation to the neighbor.

“Can you please just keep an eye on them until I get off work and get home?”

I agreed. I was worried sick about the goats. I hiked to their location three or four times that day to check on them. Then around 3 o’clock, I went out there, and the gray one was gone. The little black one still rested near the creek bed.

The neighbor and his son showed up at our house around 4. I try not to judge, but… they were both wearing shorts and those little plastic shoes — Crocs. They didn’t look to be dressed to wrangle goats out of the woods. We hiked a little and I pointed to the black goat, who I later found out was “Regina.”

The two started moving toward her, and I pointed to a lush stand of poison ivy between us and the goat. The two men stopped in their tracks.

“Can you keep an eye on her while we run home and change clothes?”

I agreed. When they returned in their long pants and real shoes, the four of us (the neighbor, his son, my husband and me) tried to herd Regina out continued from page

of the woods toward the truck. The neighbor carried a rope he’d tied in a loop — like he was going to lasso the goat like a cowboy. She wasn’t having it. She escaped every time we got close to her, and herding her wasn’t as easy as we had thought it was going to be. We chased her all over the woods, and an hour later, the four of us were tired, wet with sweat and no closer to capturing her.

“I give up,” the neighbor finally said.

“You can’t give up! You’ve got to catch her. She can’t live in our woods,” I said.

“Well, I give up for now,” he said. “Gretchen [the other goat] is taking a nap on a lady’s front porch up the road. We’ll go get her and then maybe try again later. Can you keep an eye on her?”

They left around dinnertime, and we haven’t seen hide nor hair of them since.

As for Regina, she wandered away and onto another neighbor’s property. Is that neighbor now keeping an eye on her? Or is she just wandering around in circles alone? Is she scared? I wonder. I’m worried sick about her.