Hurrying across the street, I chased a flock of goats from my coconut palm that has been struggling to grow for over a year. I do not understand how they get their heads — horns and all, between the wire fence to chew on my plant.
It irks me, and once a young ram got his horn stuck in the fence and it was a while before I helped him free himself. That should have taught him to leave my palm alone.
They looked like John’s goats but I knew they were not. We live on a 2×4 island, but goats could not have walked that far. There was a minimum 9 miles between John’s farm and my garden.
It was on his farm last week that I heard bleating.
“You have small stalk, John?” Small stalk in our local vernacular meant small ruminants — goats and sheep.
“Me brudder* gave me four nice goats and dey already have seven kids between them. Is like I going soon have a goat farm! They must have been in kid for there ain’t no ram goat up here except me.”
There is a local meaning for calling a man a “ram goat” but explaining it is not for this G-rated story.
“Okay, John. So you is a ram goat and an old bull. What else you be?”
John grinned, “a damn happy man!”
I. Trudie Palmer
One Love
*brother
Have you missed any of the Welcome to the Happy Farm stories? Well find them all here.