Just kidding
he goat was the last straw. Came home from work one evening. It hadn't
been a good day. I went round to the back to go in as usual. The goat was
standing on the top rail of the paling fence, eating the last top knot of
leaves off my carefully nurtured ginkgo. Emma, the kids called her.
She lived in half of the shed that was supposed to have been for me to park the car (the chooks resided in the other half). The guinea pigs used to live in a cage in Emma's half of the shed. That was until the kids decided they need more space: then they lived wherever they liked, which unfortunately, seemed to be with us, despite the cats, who were very fond of fresh young guinea pig for lunch.
Having shouted at the goat (and got a momentary look of mild inquiry in return), I was about to march off into the house, with "That bloody goat has to go!" already forming in my mind, when I stepped in some duck shit. This diverted my attention immediately. Aficionados will know that it is squishy, horrible stuff to get on your shoes. That is why I built a fence across the back yard-to keep them off the one-eighth of the garden where the path and the clothes hoist are.
The fence works well, and the ducks are happy in their seven-eighths of the yard. When I say the fence works well, I mean it works well when the gate was shut. Naturally, the kids are usually in too much of a hurry to make sure they leave it shut.
As for the chooks: we have ex-battery chooks because 'we' (I use the term loosely) felt sorry for them. Dear little white things with chopped-off beaks, cast on the scrap heap of life at age eighteen months because that's when their laying rate declines. It did not, of course, decline all that much, and we now provide excellent support for the view that a long-term high intake of dietary cholesterol does not necessarily cause hypercholesterolaemia.
Just as well we like eggs, because what do you suppose ducks do when they are not squelching duck-droppings on the paths? They lay eggs. Big ones. Great for cooking with-very rich. More proof re cholesterol.
The first ducks we got were Indian Runners, because the kids liked the little curly tail feather, and the way they were always rushing about quacking in that wheezy way they have. Then they had to have a Khaki Campbell, because they liked the colours. It's drakes that have the nice colours. Now we have a garden full of pale brown multicultural ducks.
The reason I succumbed to the duck argument in the first place is because chooks don't eat snails. We are ultra-keen on natural gardening. We collect ladybird larvae from everywhere to eat our aphids. We let the chooks run riot in the vegie patch to keep other buggies down, but the snails are not on their hit list. I read in one of those back-to-nature type magazines that ducks are excellent snail eaters, and don't eat the lettuces etc at the same time. It is true, you know, ducks are excellent snail eaters, and they don't eat the seedlings. What they do is they walk all over the seedlings with their great flat feet and mangle them into the well-fertilised dirt instead.
The goat was supposedly a miniature goat. I discovered later that this is code for a stunted, underfed refugee from feral stock with an appetite like a couple of Clydesdales. We bought the goat because (a) she was cute and (b) she was easier to keep than a sheep that (c) could take the place of a lawn mower.
So here we are on day one, replete with organic lawn mower, waiting for our lawn to emerge from the jungle. Perhaps a bit of basic research would have led me to realise that goats don't graze. They browse, that's what they do. At least, that's what Emma does. If it is below an imaginary line from her eyes to the horizon, and it grows in the ground, Emma doesn't recognise it as food. She will, of course, lower herself to eat anything you leave lying around that you don't want eaten. It is true. She is a garbage guts. Those cartoons are right. She is happy to chew the Saturday paper to shreds, plastic wrap and all. She is happy to eat chook food and any scraps we leave out for the guinea pigs. I haven't seen her at the cat food, but I wouldn't put it past her. What she doesn't do is eat grass. In addition, she doesn't like lawn mowers and goes totally berserk when someone has to do the job she was employed for in the first place.
Let me tell you about our other experience with poultry. The kids love their little white chooky refugees, but they also like to read a lot, and animal husbandry is high on their list of interests. What I mean is, the theory of animal husbandry is high on their list. Apart from spoiling every non-human species on the planet (qualification: not less than two or more than four legs), the daily round of routine chores is beyond their attention span.
I am being unfair. It is not entirely true. They are very willing helpers when we all get out there on the weekend and do things like change the chooks' deep litter or clean out Emma's 'bedroom'. They are especially good at looking after the livestock so that I can get on with it.
Anyway, it is a fact that in any book of pictures about poultry, Rhode Island Reds look spectacular. So off we go one day, over to the other side of town to a chook-selling place and purchase six Rhode Island Red chicks. Picture this idyllic scene. Over on the left we have a bunch of turkeys suddenly popping over the fence making stupid turkey noises and frightening the hell out of me while the kids laugh. Over on the right we have an assortment of geese in a very aggressive mood (I cope nobly with the hissing. They are safe from me on the other side of a good strong fence). I ask for one rooster and five hens.
I have heard that chicken-sexing is a skilled job, involving close examination of the interior of fairly small creatures, and I am looking forward to seeing an expert at work. Imagine my surprise at the new, modern technique demonstrated on this day. It consists of a copper disc on a string. Clockwise = rooster, anti-clockwise = hen ("because the girls are more contrary, you know, mate", the sexer confides).
Imagine the kids' excitement as the chicks mature. They all look wonderful. I am a bit puzzled that the rooster isn't more obvious. What we do have, though, is a clear demonstration of pecking order, because the last one on the pole is definitely a poor hen-pecked little thing. Finally, we work out which is the rooster-the biggest of course!
Imagine the kids' excitement the day the rooster crows for the first time. "See", we all congratulate ourselves, "we were right. It is the rooster." He is magnificent, sitting up on the perch, crowing his head off. Imagine our amusement a week or so later when we hear another rooster answering our rooster (I am relieved that I am not the only suburban idiot with a farm in the back yard).
Now imagine our consternation when we go down to the shed to cheer our rooster on, and discover that it is two of our chooks sitting on the perch trying to crow each other into silence. "Well", I say, "I had my doubts about the sexing process from the start. I'm surprised he got any right." By week's end, five of the Rhode Island Reds are crowing, which explains the state of number six. The kids' theory is that the chook man misunderstood me and got it the wrong way round. I favour a more stochastic explanation. In any case, there are two possibilities. Option Two is to apply to the miscreant supplier for an exchange, which is what we choose.
I confess that Option One does not appeal. Actually, it brings back memories of my childhood, when I had two pet ducks. Fluffy and Wagtail. Highly original names. Fluffy died one night for no apparent reason. I buried her of course, under the tree in their run. I recovered from my grief shortly after the funeral, but Wagtail went to sleep every night standing faithfully at the graveside. You might think this is because I buried Fluffy where they spent most of their time anyway, but I knew better. After a while, it came to me that a new friend would assuage old Waggie's grief. My parents were not keen. A week later, Wagtail disappeared! I was distraught.
Next night we had roast duck for tea. "Look", said a parent, "you know we are moving soon" (I didn't, but we often did, and I accepted it as truth), "and we can't take pets with us" (secure in the knowledge that with the innocent credulity of my childhood on their side, I wouldn't think to ask why not), "so we took Wagtail to a nice farm with other ducks. The farmer really liked him and gave us a dressed duck to eat in exchange." I can't remember which was harder to swallow, the roast or the story, but I was a growing boy, so I forced them both down.
When you are a child, these are all new, original experiences. It is only when you grow up that you face the mundane reality that all parents lie dreadfully to their kids. My wife tells me about her pet lamb, which eventually began to turn into a pet Merino ram. It was too big for the yard, her father said, that night when it had disappeared and they were sitting down to lamb for tea.
He had taken it over to a farm, and got a carcass in return. 'Amby' was happily playing with his woolly friends on the farm. Somehow, promised visits to say goodbye never, ever, materialised. Hands up any of you boys and girls whose parents played the game of kidding you along until your mind moved on to something else.
Back to the present, and our exchange program. We end up with a motley collection of cross-bred hens in place of the excess roosters. They are big and ugly and the kids think they might pick on the beakless wonders. So I get the job of implementing our original Option One. The kids, being kids, and for all their affinity with animals, are fascinated with the slaughtering and plucking process, and have a great time with the feathers. As for the goat, once she learned to walk along the top of the fence, it wasn't long before her little goat brain realised there is another side. She never worked out how to get back though-or perhaps she preferred it out there. She got more adventurous with time, and travelled further. Far beyond the range of her homing skills. Unfortunately, our next door neighbour is not only a kind, helpful man, but also a Council worker. Consequently he was able to restore Emma to us on numerous occasions when she had turned up at the Council pound.
Eventually, she must have gone far enough to end up in some other Council's pound, and does not come back. The kids are sad. I manage to contain my lack of grief.
I am not a hero to my kids. I have broken the cardinal rule. I have told them the truth. I do not give them some totally unbelievable tale about happy Emma gambolling with new-found friends in goat paradise. I say I have no idea where she will end up and good riddance. I horrify my kids. Belatedly, I realise why parents lie to their kids on such occasions. It is so kids can practise kidding themselves about happy endings and not have to grow up too soon. It has nothing to do with belief, nothing at all. It has to do with peace, quiet and sanity for the parents.
Emma is now just a distant memory to the kids (it is a couple of weeks, after all), but my perfidy lives on in their minds, unabated. At least I have a chance to grow another ginkgo, and park my car off the road. And I don't even have to eat the goat.
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