Dad I wanna raise goats. A sentence no father of a nine-year-old girl thinks he will ever hear. Dumbfounded my dad stared at me openmouthed. I wonder if he heard me, I thought to myself.  I wanna raise goats, I repeated. Snapping his mouth shut, my dad glanced at my mom who stood next to him. “We’ll talk about it,” she suspiciously replied. After discussing it in private my parents pulled me aside. “So Mom and I talked about it and we think that this is a good opportunity for you to learn responsibility,” my Dad said as a warm smile spread across his face. My heart leapt with joy! Looking back now, I realize that my parents were spot on. No one has taught me more than the life lessons I’ve learned from raising goats.

First lesson: sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to. I used to be afraid of giving shots. Looking back now it seems silly, but then again, some people faint at the sight of needles. The first time I ever gave a shot was to a goat named Penny. Penny was large in stature with small horns that lazily curved back from the top of her head behind her ears. She was a deep chestnut brown in color with black markings on her back, neck and face. Penny had a skittish – no, skittish wasn’t the right word - Penny had a terrified demeanor.  The moment you walked through the door Penny was literally scaling the opposite wall to get as far away from you as possible. Already she sounds like a great option for a first shot, right? Honestly when my dad told me I had to give her a shot I thought of every possible reason why I couldn’t give her a shot. One thing you should know about my dad is that he will do anything for me but he also has a stubborn streak deeper than an indestructible planter wart. That stubborn streak wasn’t something I was about to mess with. So out to the barn I walked sealed needle and syringe in one hand and vitamin B complex in the other. Giving shots is supposed to be easy but for some reason the first time I do just about anything never goes how it is supposed to go. I did everything perfectly apart from giving the shot. As I held the syringe my hands shook from fear and I couldn’t find the courage to actually puncture her skin. I stood there for several minutes until my dad told me to “just stab her!”. Unfortunately, I’m a very literal person so I plunged the needle straight into her leg. Penny, who had been tensely standing tied to the wall, lunged foreword screaming in pain. This caused me to loose focus which in turn led to the release of the syringe form my hand. The syringe stiffly protruded from her leg. Blood streamed from the injection site, I had somehow managed to puncture a vein. Overwhelmed with fear and shock I started to cry but cry as I might, my dad made me finish the shot. I slowly injected the vitamin B into her leg and carefully pulled the needle out. Even after the needle was removed, blood continued to stream from the injection and Penny whimpered in pain. My dad brought out a towel and applied pressure to her leg and the bleeding, eventually, stopped. Afterwards my dad assured me that it was very rare to hit a vein, and I, likely, wouldn’t hit one again. Damn right! I was never going to give another shot as long as I lived! One thing I’ve learned time and time again from raising goats is that sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to. But the fact that you don’t want to doesn’t change the fact that, regardless, it has to be done.

Second lesson: death is a part of life. There are some things in this world beyond control; death happens to be one of them. Death never gets easier to deal with, you just learn to accept it and carry on. Every time one of my animals dies I feel as if my heart has been ripped from my chest and tossed aside. The story that I’m about to tell you is about a buck named Rebel. Rebel was a wild thing but not in a skittish kind of way. He was wild in a way that was free and recalcitrant, an untamed spirit. Rebel was golden in color with different shades of light and dark brown mixed in. My dad and I had driven all the way to Kansas to purchase him and I was planning to use him heavily in the following breeding season. One day I noticed Rebel standing in a corner by himself. Although this was not normal for him, I merely dismissed the thought of him being truly sick. The next day I was shocked at his appearance. His body was hunched up, his head low to the ground, eyes dull and his back end was covered in diarrhea. He felt cold to the touch despite the hot and humid summer air. Quickly, I separated him into his own stall and rushed to gather some medicine. I tried to drowse him with electrolytes, which he let dribble out of his mouth with a moan. Next, I dewormed him which made him moan even more. Rebel just stood there staring at me with dull eyes filled with sorrow and misery. Shivering, he leaned against the wall for support. I set up a heat lamp and sat in the stall with him talking quietly to give him company. He slowly walked over and laid his head on my chest gently pushing before easing his whole body onto my lap. I tenderly stroked his coat, realizing for the first time how easily I could both see and feel his bones, there was nothing to him. As day turned into night, the air turned chilly, and I carried him inside to put him by the fire. My dad of course scolded me for two things, bringing the goat in the house and turning on the fireplace in the middle of summer. One look at my face and then the bony dull eyed goat was all I needed to get him on my side. Shortly after we brought him inside, Rebel fell over and was unable to get up. I sat by the fire, Rebel in my lap, rocking back and forth. At some point, I looked at his half closed eyes and watched his chest slowly, weakly rise and fall, and the pit of my stomach dropped. I knew. After that, he cried out loudly and frantically struggled, trying to get up, then his body relaxed, I watched his chest rise and fall one last time before witnessing the light fade from his eyes. Then the tears came, and there was nothing I could do to stop them. Cradling his head in my arms, I rocked back and forth apologizing again and again… My dad found me in the living room holding him in my lap, watching the tears fall off the end of my nose and onto his dead body. Carefully, my dad lifted Rebel off my lap and wrapped him in a towel. He embraced me and kissed the top of my head. I hate death. I hate it because I like to be in control and when an animal is dying in my arms, well, that’s just about the opposite of control. I can hate death as much as I want, but that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t control it. Death is a part of life. Death is part of raising goats.

Third lesson: anything that’s worth waiting for is never easy to wait for. Without a doubt, my favorite thing about raising goats is the babies. Every goat is a unique and its humbling to watch each character develop over time. The gestation period of a goat is 150 days give or take, if they settle the first time. The breeding part is easy the waiting, however, kills. The first time, I bred a goat I made the mistake of creating a countdown to the due date, essentially, killing any and all possibility of time flying by. The day that she went into labor, I was determined to see the birth. I convinced my dad to get up with me throughout the night and check on her. Starting at ten PM every thirty minutes we went out. To say it was exhausting was an understatement! Every time I was about to fall asleep the alarm would jolt me awake. Together we would trudge out with our flashlight in PJ’s, boots and coats. Slowly and silently, we would open the door and slip in. I peered around the side of the stall and my stomach dropped in disappointment, no babies. This seriously happened twenty times. Every time my dad and I would get our hopes up, only to have them crushed at the site of a pregnant goat. After the twentieth time, I began to doubt that she was even in labor. Exhausted, I told my dad to go without me. I lay on the couch wondering if babies would ever come while I listened to the sound of my dads boots slosh in the mud as he made his way out to the barn alone. Seconds later, I heard quick footsteps coming towards the house. I shot upright, excitement wiping away any trace of exhaustion. Leaping off the couch I struggled to slip into my coat and boots. At the same time my dad burst through the door “Abigayle Babies!!!” he exclaimed. I sprinted to the barn, adrenaline coursing through me. I could hear my own heart beating as I slowly opened the door. It was as if the world was moving in slow motion. Peaking over the stall door, I saw in front of me two bundles plopped down in the straw. Warmth seeped from my heart and I realized in awe that this, this was a miracle. They were beautiful and perfect and without a doubt, worth the wait. Never settle for less than what you want because you deserve it and because what you want is most definitely worth the wait. Anything that is hard is worth the wait.

No one has taught me more than the life lessons I’ve learned from raising goats. The patience to wait for what is truly worth it, the persistence to chase my dreams, and the ability to acceptance that there are some things you can’t change are just a small glimpse into what raising goats has taught me.  Of all the places in the world I can be, my favorite place is with the goats. Whether it be out in the barn, at a show or at someone else’s house, you can always find me in my natural habitat: learning life lessons from the goats.