The Wether Report

There is a poem by Mark Nepo called Adrift that sometimes visits me when I am dealing with a day that both punches me in the face with sorrow and simultaneously embraces me with wonder. On these days when grief and joy collide, the opening line in particular loops like a chorus in my mind:

Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.

I first heard this poem read aloud on the porch of my tiny chapel years ago. The reader was a very young widow whom I’d first met when, a few years prior, I performed her wedding. Her husband suddenly died in an accident and now, as I had presided over the happiest day of this young woman’s life, I led the memorial marking her saddest. She trembled as she read and her voice cracked. On her hip, her newly fatherless toddler. I won’t ever forget that day, that moment, the words of that poem as she offered them up to the sobbing crowd.

Last week, I wrote about how I was behind on an important task. My one intact male goat, Sinead, had a single gonad left, the result of my own botched attempt to castrate him when he was a little guy. Juan Pelota¹ is enough to do the job and Sinead managed to knock up Wendy and, worse, his own mother Lisa. Fixing my error—paying a veterinarian to finish what I’d sloppily started— was going to cost a fortune but parting with Sinead was going to cost something else. I had, I realized, become as attached to him as his remaining testicle.

My visiting vet service came up with a payment plan to allow me to solve my problem. The appointment was set for last Friday afternoon. In a case of curious timing, on Friday morning, when I went to feed the outside animals, I noted that Lisa was in labor and that she was in distress. I messaged the vet, grateful she could head to the ranch early.

In the meantime, I tried to help Lisa expel the kid to no avail. I thought about another time this had happened when, after a very long labor, it became apparent that my heifer Bobby Jo was experiencing a stillbirth that wasn’t progressing. A kind young man who works at the ranch next door came to her aid and together he and I, using some heavy equipment, finally managed to get the calf unstuck and deliver it. That was such a hard, hard day, such an excruciating task. But the young man’s intervention allowed Bobby Jo to live, and this helped mitigate the sorrow I felt about the lost baby. And then, to my astonishment, I observed all the other cows, who had given Bobby Jo wide berth as she labored— a thing cows do—now marched in a line, one behind the other, until they found her out in the back field and made a circle around her and the baby, as if to offer consolation, to help her bear her loss.

Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.

Dr. T and her assistant Ki’era arrived, went into M.A.S.H mode, and swiftly set up a field hospital in the goat yard. They gave Lisa something to ease her pain, then set to work to free her of her suffering, I debated whether or not to watch. Henry very nearly died as I was birthing him. And the thing that had nearly killed him was the thing that had killed Bobby Jo’s calf and, I had a hunch that would soon be confirmed, had killed Lisa’s kid.

The medical term is dystocia and refers to a fetus being too large and/or too awkwardly positioned to exit the birth canal. It is a sudden stuckness that incites extreme panic. I have carried the residue of that panic in my body and my mind for going on thirty-five years now. Of all the horrible things people have said to me in my life, of all the trauma I have endured, I can state with authority there was no trauma greater in my life, no crueler words than the midwife shouting at me, “If you don’t get this baby out on the next push it’s going to die.”

I decided I did want to watch, with eye aversion allowed as needed. I did not feel triggered. If anything, I felt oddly comforted. For as I sat and stroked Lisa and reassured her, as I watched and connected with what she was enduring, a wave of self-compassion rolled over me. I am an Old Crone now and can finally look back and see how very much young pregnant me did not know. About anything. And how unsupported she was. And, not unrelated to being so unsupported, how defensive (and yes, angry) she was. And how nice it would have been if things had been different, if more people had stroked her horns and told her: You can do it. I know you can do it.

It took some effort for Dr. T and Ki’era to extract the baby but Lisa’s relief was immediate, as was mine, at last knowing her odds of surviving this ordeal were very good. I thought about how, were she a human woman, the odds of her getting such thorough, immediate, life-saving maternal care in Texas would be highly unlikely.

They wrapped the kid in a towel and I gingerly lifted this bundle, heavier than I expected, into a hay-lined trough, which I carried out back, to the place I always offer up deceased animals that weigh less than 500 pounds. (The bigger ones I must have carried away for cremation.) I placed the wrapped baby on the ground and covered it with the hay. I knew from experience Mother Nature would take it from there, that Lisa’s loss was a gain for the many creatures who would find nourishment as they participated in the roles assigned to them. Circle of life and all that.

Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.

No time to dally after that, for we still had before us the originally scheduled task, the de-balling of Sinead. He was plenty pissed off even before we began, for I had tethered him on a very long lead to a tree, nothing he’d ever experienced before. He hated his loss of freedom, hated how he kept tangling himself up. Now, as we approached him, he knew something was up and he knew it wasn’t going to be good.

Though Sinead is a mini-goat, he is still quite strong. Once the medieval looking tools were all laid out, Ki’era and I restrained him—she took the horns and I, kneeling, wrapped my arms around his belly, unintentionally bracing my head against K’s butt, which made my ever-wandering mind think of Benetton ads from the eighties, all those young men pressed up against each other in a boat.² Despite being sedated, Sinead offered up a vocal performance on par with The Exorcist. And when Dr. T was finished with her handheld guillotine, and some other device that literally utilized a power drill, she held out hand and asked, “Do you want to keep it?”

I looked at the shiny gonad, glistening in the blazing afternoon sun. I did not have to think twice. “NO!” I said. I did not want this prairie oyster. Though I did ask if I might photograph it.

Sinead quit screaming as soon as it was done. He’s got a hitch in his giddyup that I expect will last a few more days. But now he is a wether like the other boys—as in Wether you like it or not son, they’re gone. Which is beautiful for me and so sad for him, only not really because now he gets to stay here at the ranch with his flock.

As for Lisa, she is taking it very slow but seems to be on the mend. In all the years I’ve had her, she has never allowed me to get close enough to scritch her. Now, tentatively, she is receiving gentle rubs. Could be she’s just too exhausted to run from me. But I like to think it’s more than that, like we bonded there on that bed of hay, offering comfort to each other.

The day after the Day of Way Too Much Goat Excitement, I hosted a memorial service for Norma, mother of my friend Linda. Linda asked me to open with a Mary Oliver poem she’d chosen, In Blackwater Woods. As ever, Ms. Oliver does not disappoint, reminding her readers, among other things:

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it

go,

to let it go.

Can I get a secular amen y’all? How is your life going? What’s sad? What’s beautiful? I want to know.

***

JOY AND BEAUTY DEPARTMENT

There’s a Starbucks in the Hilton next to the museum where I work. During our coldest snaps this winter, on days I would pop over for a hot coffee, I noticed a friend of mine sitting quietly, steaming drink before her, reading her Bible. She’s a woman I met through the volunteer work I do to feed and clothe the homeless. She has been unhoused for I don’t know how long. She travels with a double wide jogger stroller, in which, among other things, she stashes her beautiful cat. The Starbucks staff³ is always kind to her. Come to think of it, I’ve seen the Hilton lobby staff be friendly with her and the cat, too. ANYWAY—so when I went by last Thursday for a coffee, I was excited to tell the staff something I’d found out at my volunteer gig earlier that morning. Our friend got housing!! This is some much needed wonderful news in a world teeming with anxiety-inducing headlines.

I’m baking for my baker friend Pascal who can’t bake for herself right now because fuck cancer. This week I made her some fluffy blueberry scones and some olive oil chocolate cupcakes with raspberry glaze. I know that olive oil chocolate combo sounds weird, but it’s actually a very tasty recipe that you can play with. For example, for the liquid you can use coffee, orange juice, probably wine, probably not Gatorade.

Never mind the fecking price of eggs. Hello? One of my chickens thinks she is sooooo funny. Like I won’t notice she laid an egg five times smaller than all the other eggs. Nice try, chicken.

Chad and I came up with a new band name last week. Condiment Genius.

Didn’t do no devil’s work last week. Did enjoy the sunlight pouring in the windows.

Without even calling each other, my 20 year-old coworker and I showed up in highly complementary ensembles. So we did a band photo.

NOTES:

My goodness! The subscription list continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Thank you all for being here! And extra thanks to all of you who are pitching in for a paid subscription. You are helping keep the goats alive and healthy and nut-free. If you aren’t yet a paid subscriber, I hope you will consider it. A mere $5 per month—such a bargain. Other ways to help: Share this with someone you think will dig it. Buy a copy of my book Grok This, Bitch. $10 for an e-copy, $30 for a print copy. Venmo: @spike-gillespie

Starting TODAY I will spend Mondays through the end of May offering FREE WRITING WORKSHOPS at the San Marcos Public Library from 10 am til noon. REGISTER HERE.

My FREE WRITING WORKSHOPS at Hampton Branch Library happen on the first and third Tuesdays of every month from 5:30-7:30 pm. These always fill up so please REGISTER.

FREE WRITING WORKSHOP AT THE RANCH! On March 29th I’m hosting a workshop at the ranch. It is donation based. 10 am - 1 pm. Space is limited. REGISTER HERE.

AMPLIFY AUSTIN happens March 5-6 from 6 pm til 6 pm. There are so many wonderful nonprofits you can support. This year I’m encouraging you to donate to Ant’s Happy Endings—Senior Dog Sanctuary. My wonderful friend Jody French founded this nonprofit to honor the memory of her amazing son Ant, who was killed in a drunk driving accident in 2020. Ant was a newlywed, another young groom over whose wedding I presided and memorial I hosted. Jody has truly turned her sadness into beauty with this organization.

1. Juan Pelota" is a nickname for Lance Armstrong that translates to "one ball" in Spanish. The nickname refers to the surgery Armstrong had to remove one of his testicles for testicular cancer. "Juan" sounds like "one" with a Mexican accent, and "pelota" is the Spanish word for "ball".

2. I will SWEAR on my Murphy Mom-Mom’s grave there was a Benetton ad with a bunch of guys squished together in a boat—a row boat maybe? I can’t find photo proof though, so had to use a more recent ad to illustrate my point.

3. Interesting factoid: The Starbucks in the Hilton is actually owned (franchised?) by the Hilton, so technically the staff are employed by the Hilton. I know they’re both huge corporations, but I’m just saying.