July 5th: The Secret Life of Goats

For anyone who just tuned in, I spent two weeks on a little farm in Big Sur, California- milking goats, making cheese, and spinning honey...

The goats are so fantastic to take out grazing. They're afraid of mountain lions but they trust people so as soon as they leave the safety zone of their barnyard, they follow whatever human is with them. They are animals of routine and femininity. They are each others support team and they prefer pack life to free wandering.

While walking through the forest with the goats, they will stray only far enough to reach some tender branches, which they will all gather around and feast on. Sometimes though, one of the goats will get caught up with a particularly luscious shrubbery and not realize that the pack has moved on. She finishes chewing absent mindedly, looking around blankly as if thinking, "wait, what the hell's going on?" and then, remembering the circumstances, recognition flashes through her eyes, she bows her head and makes a mad a-line dash for the pack, kicking off rocks into an in-flight full-body panic spasm, contorting through trees, mowing over saplings and whizzing an inch from my kneecaps, only settling once she's in the center of the pack. At which point the whole matter is wiped clean from her memory.



The grazing world is a microcosm for all of goat existence. I feel like I have a pretty solid grasp on goat society, social norms as well as the occasional pushing of the mold, and the personalities of the five ladies I've been traipsing around the forest with.

Lucia is the big mama, about to kid any day now. Her pregnancy shows as she wheezes along, loyally sticking within a few feet of me but hesitant to stray too far from the shed. She is by far the wise one of the bunch. Definitely the only one whose brain activity transcends the day-to-day routine of a dairy goat on Sweet Water Farm. Her mind thinks beyond the goat world of hay, milk, and alfalfa, as she methodically ponders the unknown, the banal existence so many easily fall into, the eternal, the here and the now, and the legacy she may leave behind. Physically, she's easily distinguishable by her thick white collar and quaint, classic gold bell which hangs under her throat and emits the high, proud jingle of authority, leadership and worldly wisdom only clear to her and I. The rest of her goat company frolic in and out of life's daily pleasures, unaware of existence outside of themselves, utterly devoid of perspective. Lucia gazes pensively out of pale black eyes, never shying away from sustained eye contact or any opportunity to connect on a deeper level, humans alongside her intellectually disappointing but indelibly attached goat kin. These bodies we are graced with are of course, but external shells housing a piece of the eternal which Lucia recognizes everywhere and within everything. I get the feeling that Lucia curses her crude hoofs for not allowing her to express herself through the medium of watercolors. She has come to terms with the fact that her wisdom falls amongst furry deaf ears yet she remains hopeful as to the new pure-breed high-producing Sonnen that Charlie the farmer man has promised to bring in come October.

Ange is meek and mild. Sensitive no doubt, but not wise like Lucia. Ange is the milquetoast one of the pack. There's nothing weird about her. She's just your ordinary dairy goat. Her pride, however, lies in this reliable domesticity. Unprompted, she can be counted on for half a gallon of milk morning and evening, her teats hang evenly and she stands patiently until the pail is full, making milking a breeze. Her kid, to whom her initial milk production can be attributed, is long gone on another farm or, but she prefers to not consider this option, slaughtered. Bucks however, as she knows well, are of little use in the dairy world. Every effort in Ange is directed toward progressing the dairy business of the farmer, to which she is loyally devoted. "I did not choose the life of a dairy goat," muses Ange, "but alas, it is the life into which I was born and I shall fulfill my destined role." If things had been up to her, who knows where she would be, what pastures she would be frolicking through, and with which bucks she would be fornicating. Her pride in being the "farmer's pet" as the other goats tease, makes for a constantly tested ego. "This is all I've got," Ange rightly observes, ever the realist. Her value to the farmer, her external attributes and temperate disposition, make for a superficial relationship and at times, she feels taken for granted. In an everlasting effort to bolster her self-esteem, held up by external approval not internal confidence, she is a victim to her ego and she often finds herself comparing herself to her fellow goat ladies and then admonishing herself for doing so. To make it more difficult, Ange is naive to the fact that the existentialist struggles she faces are not unique to herself alone. She attempts to not bog herself down and "go there" by focusing on life's daily pleasures and her valued role in the barn community.

In-depth character analyses of the 3 other goats, Sierra, Heidi and Blanchette, are coming!! Stay tuned. They are stunning items as well. To be continued....