i loaded these two pics early in the morning. those words of the "title" being their story at the time.
But then….i went out to Feed. All ordinary until i got down to Nogal. He was not out. as i walked, i called for him. As i walked there came a plaintive response….plaintiive…something wrong…. He was no where in sight and his "house" his calf hutch house….Maybe ?, in it's back? i unlatched his gate, went in and there he was. lying flat….unable to get up. Trying and unable to get up. He made sounds to me and i caressed his face and he made sounds and he couldn't get up. I stayed a while and then went to call Alyssia. We need help. She came and we agreed to call the mobile Vet, Sarah Lynn who has come before, who came for Sunny Ray. At first she didn't answer but then did. Was a half hour away on another call. Would come and she did. Tetnus. Clostridium tetni. a bacterium that lives in the soil. The onset is sudden, the progression can be fast which it was. Just on New Year's Day, that day of SUN, all was well. and then yesterday, the Hard Day of Rain and i don't know because he didn't come out but i thought it was rain and sailed him a block of feed to this doorway. By the time she got here, a half hour, he had already become blind. His rear was stiffened, his head arching back in what she said is called Star Gazing.
she is soft spoken but sure. She said she could try to keep him alive. there was a slim chance. But he would remain blind and there would be residual disability. We all were quiet a while . while i held his head. Talked to him. She shaved a place on his neck and put him down.
Alyssia began digging the grave. a ways away from where he was but where it seemed the most likely to be able to dig. Many places here are not. the granite is close up. She dug. there was a soft rain. She left to pick up Emrie from school and returned. She dug more, Emrie wanted to help and did. They dug. Emrie sang. many songs, quietly, just songs…like the alfabet song and then songs from Frozen that she knows. and we talked off and on of other things and we talked off and on about him. Why were his eyes still open if he was dead? She talked about how he had come to trust us, and then to love us. outright….wanting us, wanting us to be with him, wanting us to touch and then more, to rub and scratch and laugh with him. We talked about how he had come to be ok being loved and how that felt to us, to be Wanted to give love, how we were loved by him. and how that took a long time of bringing 3 tortilla chips every time so he'd know. We talked a little about how it was so obvious that Who He Was was no longer there….that it was a body. But Who He Was was no longer there. She could see that.
i brought down one of the sheets that Lacelady had sent and we made a sling of it, got him in and i held his head end, Alyssia the most of his body with Emrie at the side and we got him over and through the small opening in his feeding pen, down to where his grave was, not far from TenZen's and lowered him in. His legs were still stiffly out and Alyssia knelt and bent them.
and he was then, softly there. Rain picked up and we covered him.
Nogal. walnut in Spanish. He looked like a little walnut when he was born. He was the offsring of Alyssia's most loved Goat Buckwheat who was the buck of all bucks, BeautyFull and perfectly symetrically marked and also crazy buck. I bred him in order to keep one of his kids for her. Could not keep him. He needed to be of use for what bucks are best at and i wasn't at that place. That was back in New Mex. Nogal was not like his sire. He was soft and gentle with does….it took him forever to woo them, to feel ok about mounting them. He was not the most popular. He was him. He was shy and till the end, it was only Emrie and I he loved.
windthread 
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