November 2

Something unusual happened a few days ago which was the highlight of my week. I was marking some tests in my house and I heard a goat crying loudly. They always make a lot of noise so I didn’t think anything of it. About a half hour later I took the trash out and the goat was still crying. The sound was coming from the water filter station and the sound had an echo. I searched around and finally found the goat at the bottom of a water holding tank. The tank is a concrete structure like a wide well, but not as deep. The poor baby goat was terrified and covered in green slime from the nasty water. Some girls saw me and ran over and said “Miss Smock, you should go in and get the goat!” So I did. It took me a little while to climb down. Luckily the water was shallow. When I was standing in the well, I could reach the top rim if I stretched my arms all the way up. So I picked up the goat and lifted it up to a 12^th grader who was waiting at the top. She put the goat on the ground and it ran off. It looked fine. I saw it running around the mission again today. That goat incident really made my day. The incident reminded me of my brother’s story about saving a puppy that some kids threw into an outhouse pit or cesspool (I forget the exact details. Andy, can you clarify?)

Now that I’ve bonded with the baby goat, I feel like such a hypocrite for eating goat meat. We have a big event at school this Saturday, a dedication ceremony for some new buildings, with lots of speeches, singing, and feasting on meat. They’ll probably serve goat and I’ll probably eat it. Luckily the baby one covered in green slime probably won’t be picked when they do the slaughtering.