I get so tired of hearing arrogant and ignorant humans talking about how animals cannot feel. That they do not understand and cannot feel compassion or empathy. My experiences in life have shown me over and over again just how much animals can feel. It is as if some people think that humans have a monopoly on feeling.. My story of Dewey is just one of many experiences I have had with animals and my goats that show just how empathic animals are. Here is his story...

Several years ago when I had just started doing jobs off of Vashon Island on the "mainland" I was doing a job in the woods of Woodinville for a couple who wanted their woods cleaned up by the goats. I was new to traveling with my herd. The site was pretty intense. It was a woodland with lots of downed trees and stumps and a variety of brush and invasive species of plants covering it. It was very hard to get around and the customer wanted the goats to clear out the brush so they could park out their land.
Goats were a perfect fit for this site as it would have required a bulldozer without them. I had my 60 goats with me and it was early spring. One night it poured down rain. I would sleep in my truck at night in the back seat and always kept my rear slider window cracked open just a bit so I could hear the goats. As I said it was pouring down rain and the noise of it pounding on my truck made it hard to hear anything. Late in the night I was woke up by the faintest sound. I listened for awhile because I could not tell what it was. Suddenly however I heard it louder and bolted out of bed. It was a goat crying very faintly some distance away. I grabbed this HUGE  flashlight, you know, one of those million candle numbers that is the size of a small boat anchor. I headed into the goat pen to investigate. It was still pouring and all the goats were standing under cover of the trees their eyes glowing as the million candles glinted off of them. I proceeded through the downed trees and brush following the faint cry of an obvious goat in distress. Suddenly my light found Dewey. He was suspended by his two front legs which had become wedged in the crotch of a tree. He was limp and hanging there, soaking wet and exhausted. I lifted his 75 pounds and managed to get his legs unstuck and he fell to the ground. He was almost dead. He had no energy and could not even lift his head. His front legs were completely limp and showed no signs of life. They were ice cold. He had not broken them however. I knew I had to get him back to the goat trailer to warm him up and vet him. He could not stand let alone walk. I picked him up and began to carry him and the stupid flash light through the woods. He was heavy and we had to climb over downed tree trunks and through blackberry vines to get back to the trailer. About half way my million candle light crapped out on me so now we were in complete darkness. I continued on a few feet at a time as I had to stop to rest my arms and back. At one point it was too difficult to continue. I knew it would be getting light out soon so I just sat down and held Dewey to try and get him warm. He was so weak...Light came and I carried him the rest of the way out. I got him in the trailer and gave him inject- able Vitamin B which is good for stress, Injected him with antibiotics and gave a pain medication. I also gave him a litre of Sub Cutaneous Normal Saline. I bedded him down in straw and waited. I wanted to give him a few hours to see if he would improve. He did improve and regained his strength however he could not use his front legs. They remained motionless and did not improve. I was fairly certain that he had sustained either nerve damage to them or that he had lost blood circulation in them and they would die. I decided at this point to take him to the vet. I contacted Pilchuck Vet clinic. This is a renowned clinic that happened to be close to where I was working and they specialize in farm animals. I was really sad as I knew he was mostly going to have to be put down. Dewey was the sweetest Nubian boy and still really young. I put him in the front seat of the truck to keep him warm and bless his little heart he just laid there letting me pet him as I drove. I prepared myself for the inevitable.

On arrival I checked in and they had me just leave him in the truck so the vet could come out and check him. A lovely young woman vet came out and we headed to the truck. I told her what had happened and what I had done for him thus far. She looked at him and did a needle test of his legs. He did react some which was a good sign. She said " you know, these guys are pretty tough I think if you just keep doing what you have been doing he may come through this". She also said that he had pressure spots on both his legs and that they would most likely turn into pressure sores. She instructed me to put antibiotic ointment on them when they open up and to wrap the legs at that point and keep them dry and clean. I was so happy! I was so sure she would advise me to put him down but she didn't!. So, we headed back to the job site. I did what she said and kept him in the trailer while the other goats worked. Just like she said he got better and started moving the legs and eventually he stood up. He was very gimpy initially but got steadier on his feet with time. Just as she said the sores developed and opened up. I followed her care plan and he eventually recovered completely. It took a few months before he was totally normal but in the end he was just fine.

Fast forward now a year or two.

It was winter and I had my goats at the winter pasture that at that time was a field I had to fence in with my electrified netting as it was not fenced. It had a small building to use as barn. One night the goats escaped the fence. They went to the house that was on the property and pigged out on Rhododendron which is extremely poisonous to goats. I arrived in the am to feed the herd only to find them out and eating the plant. I was freaked out as I had no idea  how long they had been out and how much of the plant they had eaten or how many of them had eaten it. My herd was about 70 at the time. I got them back into their pen before any of them had started showing signs of poisoning. I fed them as sometimes if you dilute the poison with hay it will cause less symptoms. Within a very short period of time one goat started puking and then another and then another.. I tried as best I could to get a slurry of activated charcoal down the throats of the sick ones. They just kept puking and would shake their head to expel it from their mouth as goats cannot project vomit. It was like a scene out of the exorcist! Goats spewing puke and shaking their heads side to side causing it to spray everywhere. I was covered not only in goat barf but also now black activated charcoal that they just spewed backup. They were in horrible pain due to GI distress as well and crying and often throwing themselves onto the ground and rolling. I had one friend that came to help thank god! I called the Vet and they told me to do what I was doing . My vet has outfitted me with many medications and IV fluids etc to care for my herd. They know I am skilled and capable from my years of being a Paramedic and from all my goat experience. I do everything they would do so they have me do it and keep them appraised and then if they need to come out they do. More and more goats were beginning to vomit and pretty soon 40 goats were in the throws of the toxin. I got all the sick ones into an isolated area so I could better care for them and to keep the toxic puke away from the unaffected goats. They were getting puke into the feed bins and water and potentially poisoning the other goats with that. I was giving pain meds, anti inflammatory , SQ Iv fluids and charcoal to 40 goats around the clock for at least 48 hours. By day two I had about 6 goats who were somewhat critical. I kept up the treatment regime however and they began to also improve. One goat however was really bad. He was not improving and it appeared he had gotten so much toxin that he was cardio toxic. After hours of caring for him and still caring for the 40 who were now at least improving it became evident that he would not survive. I had been shown how and given a means of euthanizing  a goat should I have to because when I work I am often not anywhere near a vet that knows how to treat goats. I had never done this before however and I knew that I was faced with having to do it now. I was a wreck. I was crying so hard and so conflicted. I could have called the vet but it was a weekend and after hours I knew it would take awhile to get the vet there and he was suffering . I also knew I had to do it myself  to show myself that I could. I was sitting on the ground in the goat shelter and many of the other goats were lying about recovering. All of a sudden Dewey showed up. He was one of the affected goats but was recovering well. He came to me and put his head over my shoulder from behind his big floppy Nubian ears  warm against my face. He just stood there and snuggled his head next to my face as I cried. He did not move from that spot.  I could feel him supporting me as I cried and as I struggled with having to give the final injection that would end my goats suffering. He communicated with me telepathically and said and I heard "it is okay, it is his time" He said" you were there for me when I almost died and you gave me every chance to survive, you did not give up on me and I am here now because of that" He said " But this one cannot survive and it is okay that you help him to the other side..It is time and I am right here with you".. with that I injected the drug and watched one of my beloved goats pass out of his misery. I cried and cried and Dewey he stayed with me the whole time and  let me cry onto his big ears and head.. He walked me through it .. I was absolutely blown away by this act of compassion and love.. I was changed by it.. Dewey lives on to this day in my herd and will always occupy a very special place in my heart.

Back in 2010 I was doing a job in Bonney Lake. It was in an upper middle class neighborhood that was very quiet and sleepy save for the inflatable holiday lawn ornament wars they had going on there.  Ya you know, those stupid inflatable turkeys and pilgrims and igloos etc that people put up on their lawns to "celebrate" the day.. I hate those little F*&$ers.. They keep scaring Pearl my herding dog. I would take her on her little poop walk and one would be deflated on somebodies lawn then all of a sudden they would come to life and inflate as we were walking by them and Pearl absolutely lost it! It was like running the gauntlet getting past one then having another grotesquely come to life as we walked by.. This was on Thanksgiving mind you not Halloween but they were equally as scary.

Anyway.. we were in the neighborhood clearing an acre lot of 500 mile high blackberry and it was colder than snot out. We were nearing the end of our 14 days there and I was living in my truck with the king cab as this was before the new travel trailer. I had gotten pretty comfortable there so I had kinda let my guard down. I would spend my days snuggled in the truck usually doing computer work etc.

So this very cold night I almost had pearl sleep in the truck with me instead of the livestock trailer as I thought we could snuggle so I could stay warm. I decided against it because I knew she would not let me sleep. Sleeping with Pearl is like sleeping with a stalker.. She just stares at me like 2 inches from my face and every time I move at all she starts to wiggle and wants to crawl into my mouth. It is not pleasant. So I decided to bed her down in the trailer..Big Mistake!

I was buried in my mummy sleeping bag with all my clothes on including my coat. The only thing I did not have on was my shoes. My head was inside the bad as well as my face would get cold otherwise. At some late hour while dead asleep I heard a noise? it was a little bell going ding,ding,ding..I was so asleep that it became part of the dream I was having but I did slightly start to awaken.. Next thing a light came on ? I was like where am I ? I didn't remember I was in my truck right away and then I started to realize that I was. Then my mind went "why is there dinging and a light"? Then my next thought was I am in my truck that is the door alarm telling me the door had been opened!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I pulled my head out of the bag just in time to see some dude crawling into the front of my truck.! I felt that split second of terror as my thought went to "what is he going to do to me"? Then I saw RED!

Let me explain. When I get scared I get mad and when I get mad I can see red and when I see red my brains shut of f and I become like a lizard.. Lizard brain kicks in and I basically then cannot recognize who or what I am. In this case I screamed some ungodly scream that went something like this.."GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY TRUCK"!  the voice that came out of me was not mine . It was some lion or amazon or ninja turtle or something but it was not mine. This all went down in a couple of seconds mind you. When I screamed the dude about shit himself. He did not know I was in there. His eyes about popped out of his head. He looked like a loony tune character as he finished what he was in there to do. That was, to steal my computer sitting on the console. He grabbed it with expert precision and speed , yanked it out ripping the power cord out and exited the vehicle..

I was a maniac.. The only thing I could think was "I just spent days reformatting my computer and losing all my saved passwords and I AM NOT! going to do that again.. That was all I could think and I was not going to just roll over and let him have it.. You might be thinking OOOOkayyyyy????

Burglar Dude jumped into a get away car and they sped off down the block. I grabbed my cell phone, opened the truck door and jumped out onto the ground in my sleeping bag, mummy F-ing bag and managed to dial 911 before I hit the ground. You see I had one critical piece of info the at burglar dude did not... They went down a dead end road and would have to come back past me to escape.. SO, I pealed myself out of the blasted bag like a banana out of its peel. Kicked it off my stocking feet and stood in the road waiting for them to come back.. Sure enough the car approached and what did I do .. Well you know like any lizard brained creature would I stood smack dab int he middle of the road and waved my arms to stop them.. Yup you heard it right, I stool my ground in my socks and would not let them pass.. I was successful for a very short period of time and the car came to a stop with my hands on the hood. I looked them both in the eyes and said GIVE ME MY FUCKING COMPUTER!!!!!.
They did not comply so I said it again LOUDER!.. They just started lurching the car at me and I banged on the hood.. Now they got even more aggressive and finally my sand, rational , human brain came back online and I thought "is this worth getting killed for" Uhhhhh nope. So.I stepped aside. As the car squealed it tires and began to move past me I was pissed as hell. The passenger side window started by me and burglar dudes face was in the window with this look of shear terror on it.. I took my fist and smashed it sideways into the window right where his face was as they sped by.. Amazingly I did not break the window or my hand.. As they passed me I heard my phone a voice coming from it saying Hello, Hello.. I thought Hello? Who the hell did I call 911 doesn't answer the phone saying Hello. I put it to my ear just as the license plates of the care were passing me and just in time to distract me from getting the numbers on the plate..Who is this I said ? "This is 911 what are you reporting"?

Needles to say I never saw that computer again..You know what they say "l

HOLY F$#&*ING CRAP!! Got woke up at the Wallingford job by the crash of the 4 block long cyclone fence crashing to the ground!!.. Yup that would be the fence that is enclosing the 120 goats I have working at this job site in the city.. Yup that would mean no fence to contain said 120 goats in their work area.. LUCKILY, the awesome community came out in force to help keep the goats in risking life and limb due to cars speeding by refusing to slow down.. No goats escaped..Well one did but the neighbors were on it! Pearl the squirrel my awesome herding dog was FANTASTIC! She kept the goats at bay and from crossing the downed fence panels. Reason the fence crashed down you might ask? Goes something like this.. 60 mile per hour winds led to leaves blowing down off trees. Wind pushed the leaves onto the cyclone fence, goats thought that was great as it was like a huge platter of leaves all heaped up on the fence and they being goats jumped up and put their feet on the fence to eat the leaves..The fence did not like that.. The fence decided the weight of 120 goats and the 60 mile and hour winds was too much to bear so it fell to the ground.. More later.. I need a valium . Oh ya.. All this while once again you guessed it, in my pajamas..WTF is up with that??

Thanks all who helped You are all honorary goat wranglers!! Thanks for the coffee and bagels and for keeping me from pulling all my hair out..

So, as I said before, I woke up. When I looked outside I almost wept. The T. rex compound had worked. She's we're all just standing there scowling at me. They were not amused.. I was however. I started my day at a leisurely pace. You see I get to do that when I don't have to race out in my pj,s and catch escapee,s. I had my coffee, checked my email, got dressed, ate breakfast and then when I was damn good and ready I went outside. Today was moving day for the herd so I wanted to get going and get it over with. Moving the goat herd is probably the most stressful thing I have to do.. Well, that and catching them when they do a walk about. When loading goats in the trailer it is like baking, if you don't follow the recipe exactly your cake flops and caves in on itself. Goat wrangling and specifically loading is like that. If I do not follow my routine exactly, if I skip one tiny step they make my life a living hell. Here is what the routine looks like. 1. Configure the catch chute, 2. Reinforce the catch pen with extra posts and ground stakes on each section of netting to prevent them from crawling under, 3. Have goat mini tazer( small shock device not big) in my pocket and turned on, 4. Have little red shepherds crook in hand ( again damn that comes in handy) 5. Have hammer handy. No not to thump them with but to pound netting post in with after first batch of goats are loaded, 6. Have Pearl in position to herd them down the chute if they are stubborn little butt heads and won't go without her' 7. Take a deep breath, and let the loading commence.. Hopefully, pretty, pretty please with alfalfa pellets on top. So, back to the actual story. Did all of the above, opened the trailer door and damn if they didn't just jump right in, no fuss, no muss, no swearing, no wtf are you doing, nothing but 100% pure unadulterated cooperation. I was like "cool, that,s never been so easy" " it's is going to be an awesome day" I shut the trailer door, tuck the remaining 50 or so goats back into the T Rex pen and head to the truck to pull out. I was high as a kite, singing, whistling, nothing could bring me down... Uhhhhhh well I got a wee bit ahead of myself with that last statement... Did I mention that it rained like cats and dogs the night before, did I mention that I decided not to buy the new set of all terrain tires for my big ass truck this spring because I didn't, want to spend the $3000 it was going to cost to do so and the rainy season was over so I wouldn't need said tires until next winter, did I mention all that? So, the truck and trailer was on a wee little incline on grass and what had been dirt but was now wet dirt otherwise known as slicker than slug slime on a piece of lettuce. Went to pull out put my foot on the accelerator and, " that's weird, we are not moving" Again, still nothing, " shit, it is slick out here" I will just get out and lock the hubs into 4 wheel drive no worries.. Oh now there was movement all right, sideways not forward.. Crap! Ok Tam, think, think, don't panic, don't get pissed, just think" ...go look for something to lay down under the back and front tires on the worst side. I looked around and found some pieces of lumber.. Tried putting them under the tires, nothing... Get some brush and pile it in front of the tires then when the truck moves forward it will run onto the brush, you will have traction and wha la!.... Uhhh nope, just made salad with the brush as the tires spun all over it. There was no way in hell that I was going to do the unthinkable, no way, no how, not ever. I was not going to unload the trailer to get it unstuck. Not after the most pristine goat load in the history of mankind. NO! There had to be another way..

Part two

I was really starting to worry that we would not find Ray, ever. It was like a needle in a haystack. If he did manage to find a way up to the woods and I would never rule that out with a goat, I feared I would not get to him before the coyotes did. bill and I had begun are long track back from where we started this whole search and rescue mission. We were chatting a bit about the history of Indian Island all the while scanning the beach and cliff for any sign or Ray. Weird thin was we did not see any tracks... I thought this quite odd.. Nary a one was seen by either of us.. We were getting back closer to our starting point and jabbering away when I looked at Bill and damned if not right behind him about 2/3 the way up the cliff was you guessed it , Ray.. He was standing there with his head down and not moving a muscle.. He looked almost catatonic. I walked to the base of the cliff and began climbing. Now mind you this was a sand cliff... So every step I took it would crumble under my feet. I was hoping that mr catatonic would stay that way at least until I had my hands on him. He didn't even blink when I rattled the rocks in my bucket or showed him the hay.. I could tell the poor little fella had, some stories to tell about his night "out".
I think I forgot to mention that Ray though a tiny goat maybe 35 pounds was as wild as T Rex. He is one I raised and was a triplet. His brothers Charlie and Doug were always like pocket puppies. Not Ray. Nope he was as wild and flighty as they come. So I was a bit worried to say the least that now that I had found him I would not be able to catch him. When I was about 15 feet from him he suddenly woke up and began climbing up higher.. I was like " oh crap" though I did not use the word crap... You see the higher he went the steeper and more treacherous it was. ray of course had no problem with this because , we'll he is a goat and goats live to climb. So I got up as high as I could go and began to shimmy my way along the cliff face on a teeny tiny little path that went from about 2 feet wide to about 2 inches wide in very short order. Sand, remember I told you it was sand. ray found himself a sweet little ledge to stand on and there he stood about 25 feet from me. He was not going anywhere. I could tell.. He just had that f&¥€ you look in his eye.. I all of a sudden was feeling very mortal up there on my teeny tiny little path. One slip of the foot and I would be down about 30 or 40 feet.. I don,t know call it my age or my vast life experience but I just thought that this would not be a good thing. So what did I do? I sent in Pearl the squirrel ... Aka the Terminator. She climbed that slope like she was a goat however unlike the goat she slid back down several times. She was undaunted however and made another attempt. This time she was up on the ledge with Ray.. Well Ray was none to happy about his new cliff mate. I asked Pearl to "walk up" herding lingo for " get his little ass down here now!" pearl obliged only to get butted down off the goat perch. This went on several times until I thought there is no way he is coming down even with Pearl. Soooo what next? I yell down to Bill " I think the only way we are going to get him is with, you guessed it, the fire department" Bill replies we can do that I will go get them.. Now this takes the saving a cat from a tree to a whole new level.. About 20 minutes later Indian islands finest arrive.. They take one look and just kinda laugh.. So what do they do? Well basically exactly what I did only there were 3 of them. They first tried to climb to the farthest point I made it to only to have the sand give way under their feet sending them sliding about 30 feet down.. They liked that. You know how young guys are they find that kinda thin "fun" next one guy decided he would try to grab on to one of the little fir saplings that was growing on Rays ledge.. He got a hold of it all right but his feet slipped and he was left dangling by that wee little tree until his buddies could help him get down. One fella kept getting up to the top only to slide down over and over.. He had to stop to get sand out of his boots and underwear. Then one decided he would try to grab hold of a tree root at the top of the cliff to swing up to the top so he could then walk over and come at Ray from above. Instead he got an ass full of sticker bushes. By now the Captain is getting impatient and about ready to tell them to call it quits.. This called for drastic action.. We all started throwing little sand clods at Ray hoping to flush him down.. Nope!!! Finally, I decided to climb back up and give it one more go. The plan this time, I go back to the little 2 inch ledge and shimmery out and one of the guys tries as hard as he can to make it up under rays perch where the little tree stood. If he could get up that far he'd would be able to perch. That is pretty much all he would be able to do once he got up there but we didn't care, we would figure it all out once we were both in our places. Now fire dude had my little shepherds crook and I had the lead rope. We were both hoping our tools would come in useful somehow once we were in position. Now, as soon as fire dude get up to the perch Ray moves off the perch. Yep I know big surprise... He goes to the treacherous are I will call the chute of doom.. And because he is a goat he manages to make that into a new perch for himself.. Fire dude is stuck now on Rays old perch and if he moves the least bit to quickly he will slide down to the bottom. He does however have his little red shepherd crook which he uses to poke at Ray to try and get him to move down the chute of doom. ray starts instead moving to get back up on his old perch where fire dude is clinging to.. Fire dude freaks out because ray has horns and he is afraid he will get butted off his perch. I start trying to rope Ray who has retreated back to the chute of doom with my lead rope. I get it over his head after several attempts but he moves and it just goes all the way over his body and he steps out of it. Fire dude has aggravated Ray enough now by poking at him that he is actually barely, reachable if I stretch my body as far as I can. I have one of the other fire dudes standing behind me on the ledge to " spot " me so that I do not slide down the chute of doom with Ray once I get hold of his horn. I say to him, fire dud just hold my ass.. Then I realized that sounded really wrong and I said I sont mean literally and he said, ya I kinda figured. I did get Rays horn finally and thank god he was pretty tuckered out by now because he did not fight me much.. All well and good except just as I have hold of ray my trusty rescuer who is supposed to be "holding my ass" vanishes from behind me and slides down to the bottom. I like suck in my breath and make like I am a lizard and suck myself to the cliff wall. I yell down uhhh hey!! You are supposed to be up here, rescuing me. He says " I will be right back up I promise and I say uhhhh that would be good. So when slip and slide fire dude finally gets back to the top with me and I can breathe again I say hold my pant loop and don't let me and Ray fall. He proceeds to do just that but in the process gives me the wedgie to end all wedgies.. We slowly and I mean slowly back up farther and farther until we are back to the wider ledge. From then on it was a breeze getting down.. I thin ray was relieved when it was all said and done.. He was very happy to be back at the job site with the herd and I think he slept really well that night. As for the fire dudes. I bought them a cake as they were awesome.. We all laughed a lot.. Well except for Ray he didn't laugh but I know he was very happy to not be coyote food.. So was I ...

The End

Part One

The other day actually it was night when I was in my pajamas, the goats decided that the brush on the other side of the fence looked much tastier than what was in their enclosure. They decided to remedy the situation by bulldozing the fence and getting to the much tastier morsels. I got them all back in, I thought. I had Pearl my herding dog do an outrun into the woods to look for stragglers. Did I mention I was in my pajamas? She was gone awhile and then came back empty pawed.. Get it pawed not handed? I digress, I tucked everyone in for the night and did what any hard working goat wrangler would do, I went to bed... The next day while the goats were happily munching on the brush in there new enclosure, I said to myself sure hope all the goats are here. You see it is impossible to count a goat herd. Every time you try they move and trade places so you lose count and have to start all over again. Add to this 8 foot high dense brush that they are buried in eating away and well, you get the picture. So early afternoon the next day, I was out cutting down scotch broom stems that were remaining in the old enclosure.. As they are basically small tree trunks and I like to cut them down to have a much more finished look to the job. Up drives Bill and Sara. 2 of the folks that I am working for here at the Navy land. They jump out of the car with big smiles on their faces and say. You have an escapee to which I said WHAT!.. Yep our truck driver found it a ways down the road and he is keeping an eye on it.. I was like DAMN! "Guess one got lost during the coup the night before." Now, keep in mind that there are more coyotes per square inch at this place than there are deer practically and the fact that Ray, that,s his name made it through the night without becoming a meal was nothing short of a miracle. So I got my trusty escape goat kit consisting of a lead rope, bucket with a little hay in it and my little red shepherds crook and my trusty dog Pearl and we jumped in the car to go find Ray.. We drove and drove and drove for what seemed like at least a mile all the while Bill and Sara telling me how "fun" this was and the most excitement they have had in like forever. Finally we come upon the big semi truck sitting along the side of the road. I got out to find my goat and there was no driver.. I thought "huh" he must be out with Ray down the road a bit. Nope couldn't find him. I called out HEY! I am here for my goat, nothing... I got back in the car and we drove down this windy road. Finally we see the truck driver huffing and puffing as he is walking back up the hill. He said "I lost him" " he ran into the tall grass at the bottom of the hill and I could not see him." The guy kept apologizing that he lost him.. So, we went down to the bottom and sure enough Ray was nowhere in sight. I called him the way I call the herd GOAT! In a high pitched kind of obnoxious yell over and over but nothing. I put rocks in my little goat capture bucket and shook it.. They think it is food when I do that and usually will come running but nothing. Bill walked down to the beach that was right there and said after awhile "I think I see him" I was like, Yay! So I go to where he is to have a look. He says he is down there and I said where and he's says see by that big rock and tree on the beach see that black spot? I was like holy crap he is that far away that he is a black spot? I still couldn't see him. I took Bills word for it and we started hiking down the beach. I finally see the little black speck which is Ray.. we keep going and going and going and i am like "what the hell is he moving away from us? "Apparently so says Bill". I yell GOAT until my throat hurts and shake my stupid bucket full of rocks but nothing. Ray has vanished. Bill says, " he can't get off the beach because there is a cliff and it goes on for a very long way.. I though well that is a relief at least he is kind of contained. We got to the place Ray was when we last saw him by the big rock and the tree but he was not there. I sent pearl up into the brush and trees that were on the lower part of the cliff and she was sooo good. She came back without him.. At one point Pearl took a tumble down the hill and rolled onto the beach, jumped up and headed for a splash in the water.. She was ready for a break and so was I. I just kept thinking how scared it must have been for Ray out alone in the woods all night.. I could only imagine how freaked out he must be. I was starting to worry that we were not going to find him. We walked about 1/2 mile down the beach before we decided to head back. We wanted to get in the car and drive further up to where we could get to the beach and walk in from that direction. Just in case he had beet feet to the other end..

End of part one

So an interesting evening here under the Viaduct.. I have been sick with the crud the last few day you know the kind that starts as a little tickle in your throat then progresses to sneezing then a nose that turns into a faucet and finally culminates as a 30 pound weight of crud in your chest?? Ya that one.. So I have been sleeping a lot in my trailer to try to get over this little unwanted visitor.. Last night I went to bed while it was still light out and was just drifting off when I heard a really weird noise.. I looked out my little tinted window above my head and saw the the reason for all the commotion.. A guy was pushing a woman in a shopping cart across the parking lot and it was one of those really noisy shopping carts with the squeeky wheel etc. The gal was hollering and going on about who knows what. As they got closer I noticed that these were a couple of street folk and looked a bit like they had been partaking in some form of altering substances. The woman has a really loud gravely voice and is yelling" WTF!! why are there goats there" The guy is explaining that they are here to eat the brush and she is like "What kind of weirdo would do that!!" To which I quietly laughed out loud to myself behind my little trailer window.. She appeared to have a broken foot which is why he was pushing her in a shopping cart, I guess? The guy was being really helpful to her and quite sweet despite her gravely demeanor which was becoming more and more demanding. I soon found out why when the needles and tourniquets came out along with the little bag of party favors.. So as she is shooting him up and getting ready to shoot herself up she yells out whoever brought those f$#@%g goats is breaking the law!! That should be a crime!!! Ironic.. Then early this morning like really early, I was awoke from my Nyquil induced coma by another weird sound.. Music! not just music but LIVE music like right over my head. Now keep in mind that over my head is a freeway! So imagine my snot headed surprise when live music was coming from the freeway, did I mention right over my head! I rolled out of my cozy bed to go investigate what new thing Seattle had though up to do bright and early on a Saturday morning.. I walked over to where I could see up on the bridge and yup, sure enough there were dudes singing up there... OOOKAY! Went up to Tullys to get a cup of coffee and found out that the Seattle Rock &Roll Marathon was going on.. They do a running marathon and have bands like every mile or so to cheer on the runners.. ONLY in Seattle..

So, went to load the goats the other day to move them to a new spot here on Indian Island. I was grateful to be going to a new location because this one I was on proved a bit challenging. The terrain was all over the place and there were zillions of sapling trees they wanted to protect. My goat pen had to zig zag all over the place and went up and down like a roller coaster. Reason this was a problem? Well the fence netting requires tons of extra support in these situations. If I don't re enforce every nook and cranny then Ethel the unicorn goat who diligently patrols the bottom of the fence line on her knees, will find a way under.. Red the gazelle goat will then institute and aerial assault and launch an invasion force over the top of the netting. You see, the electrified netting is a great containment system for goats however it is only as good as the human that installs it. If not done perfectly then escapes can happen. In this case Ethel the unicorn worries at the bottom and can pop a post up out of the ground if the ground is soft. Once she is under the other goats are like" why does she get to be out on the other side in the tall grass, that,s not fair!" Basically a herd of 2 year old kids... I am sure you get my drift. So they send Red over as a point goat in the aerial recon force and she is like" it,s all clear" and the rest begin to either catapult themselves over or belly crawl under to get to Ethel the Unicorn and partake in the feast. Now, I swear goats have a wicked case of ADD. They don't just land in a spot of lush foliage and stay there happily gorging themselves. Nope, they have to go taste everything within a half mile radius. So if you imagine dropping a bag of marbles on a concrete floor and the marbles scattering everywhere, that is what goats do. If I am fortunate enough to be right there witnessing this event then all I can really do is scream obscenities and pull all my hair out. If I am not there to see it happen then I get to walk up and find either a feeding frenzy in progress, an empty goat pen with maybe like no goats to be found anywhere!!! Or a pile of snoring, cud chewing, brush intoxicated goats with huge bellies sleeping off their bender...right outside the goat pen.. Whichever way it pans out I usually can only find and fix the weak spot in the fence and then round them back in with Pearl and hope that the problem is fixed... So back to my story. At this site they got out a couple of times. Usually whenever I left the site to take a shower or go get groceries etc. I would come back to one of the above scenarios and I was sick and tired of it!. So, I decided to build a fortress to make sure there was no way they would be able to get out without getting a big zap by the fence. I built a pen that was akin to the fence in the movie Jurrasic Park. You know the one that kept T Rex out of the compound? I built that. It was around the livestock trailer so they had good shelter from the rain. Then I did what any good freshly showered goat wrangler does, I got in my pajamas and retired for the evening in my little R Pod trailer. I would occasionally shine my flashlight out the door to see that the compound was holding them and each time I saw 120 plus sets of glowing eyeballs looking back at me.. I went to bed and slept like a baby, with one ear open at all times to listen for them plotting an escape.. They tend to start muttering amongst themselves preceding one. Morning came and all I had heard all night was the frogs, an owl and maybe the howl of a coyote... Ok gotta get to work.. I will finish part 2 later and let you know what happens..

I am officially at war with the flying vampires! I want to know how the hell they are finding there way into my little brand new RPod Travel trailer. It is built like a brick shit house and has intact bug screens on all the windows and the door. Despite this fact every night the little bastards find a way into my little abode and bug the holy hell out of me. Last night it took on epic proportions however. I swear they had little mosquito sized chips on their shoulders and sent every available one to suck me dry whilst I tried to sleep, emphasis on "tried". After killing at lest 10 before I shut out the lights I thought certainly that I would be free of them the rest of the night.. NOPE!.. By the time morning the inside of my trailer looked as if a chainsaw murderer had come to visit. The walls were smeared with blood, my blood from the mayhem... Little mosquito carcasses littered the floor and my bed.

Imagine the "Oh SH*! moment when I arrive at the goat pen at our job in the Issaquah Highlands only to find it empty!! To better imagine let me explain...

So the mean value of houses here is no less than half a million and it goes up from there. This neighborhood has houses perched on a hillside with green spans between each row of houses heading up the mountain. We use the goats to clear said green spans as they are very steep and not safe for equipment or people for that matte,r to mow. Goats work GREAT!! Let me also say that all these houses have immaculate yards and gardens.

Now, with all that in mind consider the horror I felt when I checked on the herd only to find NO HERD!. It is a long skinny stretch and I cannot see from one end to the other. As I ever more quickly walk the length of it, I realize that it is indeed one of my worst nightmares come true..

At the far end I see people milling about in the street. This is kind of odd behavior here so I suspect they have seen the goats who have instituted a freedom march to greener pastures. I yell down, because they are far away."Are my goats down there?" No response comes back? I yell again "Have you seen my goats? Nothing.. I yell one more time actually I scream "ARE MY GOATS DOWN THERE!!!!!!?" Finally I get a response "YA, They went that a way!" "They are in the woods now"
Oh Super duper I think to myself. Actually, those are not the words I was thinking but you get my drift. They also say that they have called the cops and I am like oh GREAT!!

AT this point I run for my truck because we have to go a couple of blocks to get to where they were last seen. As we approach there are people and kids wandering about smiling and laughing and there is a trail of goat poop all over the road and sidewalks and yards but nary a goat in sight. "Where are they?" I ask.."Oh they are back in the woods and down by the pond below the houses now" I walk around to the huge basin which is the pond following the bread crumbs (goat turds)  and sure enough there they were darting about in grand ADD goat fashion.. I get on my phone to Craig the other Goat guy working up here with me.. "Craig , my goats are all out I need you and Harvey, NOW!!" He says he will be right there"

I had left Pearl my herding dog down where my travel trailer was staged because I was just "going to check on the goats" "surely there will be no need for Pearl" WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! Instead I had brought my new dog Rye who is barely trained and in training so we could have someone one on one time together.. So there I was with an entire herd on a walk about and no dog I could use to get them back in. Hence my need for Harvey Craig's dog.

While I was waiting for his and the Cops arrival I thought to myself, "how the hell am I going to get them back into their pen?" Now, with goats you always have to think of every conceivable thing they might do and be prepared for their tricky moves. In my wisdom and experience I decided to make a chute of netting from the end of the block up to their pen. I quickly recruited the residents to help by holding the fencing up. My Plan to run them up the middle of the street and keep them from scattering into peoples yards with the fencing.. I probably had 20 people and cops as they had just arrived, holding up the fencing. I decided to try to use Rye for even a little help. I put her on her long lead and we headed out to the pond area to await Craig and Harvey.. I got to the pond and save for about 3 goats no others were visible.. WTF? One of the residents who was gleefully watching the drama from his balcony said "they are over there beyond that hill, you can't see them from down there" "where?" I say, "Waaaaaaayyyyy down there" he says.. Sure enough on a very distant hill I see some specs which are indeed my goats.. "Holy Crap" I think.. "They are like a quarter mile away down by the baseball fields.." I call Craig to find out his ETA.. "I am almost there" he says.. I think, "good because much longer and they will be in Europe"

Craig and Harvey finally arrived and by now I was sweating bullets. I had him head down to retrieve the herd. Luckily Craig is not a gimp like I am so it was no big deal for him to head out cross county. It would have taken me like a year to get there with my bad knees.

Within a few minutes a wave of goats began running up over the hill and toward me and Rye. My thought was then "I hope they turn the corner here and run behind the houses and not go into the woods". I decided to go stand at the turn point with Rye on lead and hope they turned and didn't scatter. I yelled to the waiting fence holders "They are coming be ready!

The wave soon arrived and I was elated when they not only made the turn but slowed and moved forward at a trot and not a full gallop toward the awaiting goat chute. Rye and I followed the first wave to keep them moving to their pen and not stopping to munch on peoples ornate gardens.. Rye did great! Even though she is barely started in training she was able to keep them moving. She even endured a couple of head butts in the process, undaunted.

As is usual there were a couple of stragglers who were giving Harvey a hard time and trying to stand their ground. They came a couple at a time and before long we had most of them back in. Craig appeared carrying one small straggler because, well sometimes it is just easier to carry a goat then to herd it..

Finally everyone was back in and it was then time to say thank you to all who were" honorary goat wranglers" and start cleaning up.. Not a small task I might add because by then the street and sidewalk looked like it had, had a dump truck load of turds spread over it.

I was exhausted when it was all said and done but grateful it went as well as it did.. Could have been a nightmare.. Thanks to Craig, Harvey , the cops and all the residents who helped and were gracious about the whole thing.

The  reason they got out in the first place? Human error.. I forgot to connect one section of netting to the next and so it was not electrified and goats being goats, they figured it out.. DOH!!