I was so excited about my daughter coming, and this was so not the first afternoon I wanted to spend with her. A few seconds after I posted about how excited I was that she was here... She was great, but the day was bad. I wanted to clarify that...

Anyway, I got a phone call from the woman I gave my goats to over the winter. One of the goats has been ill and she has been pinging me several times a day over Facebook about how he is doing and getting advice on how to help him. In the phone she was in tears and telling me the goat's condition had gone from ok to bad. She gave some details I am not going to share.

I knew that hubby could not emotionally take a sick goat... he is not a country boy and even though we gave the goats away months ago, he is still VERY emotionally invested in them... No way I could drive an hour one way out there, so I poked my daughter who was sort of wandering around and got her to drive me. As she got ready, I had hubby give me a ten minute lesson on how to use his pistol. With three bullets loaded into a clip, I put the case in a backpack with my vicoden and took my antipanic meds.

My daughter got changed into get dirty clothes, and broke it to her friends (who were city people) that she had to do drive me out to kill a goat. You can imagine they were shocked. They headed out to go play tourist, my daughter drove me out to the friend's house where my goats now live...

We pulled up to my worse fears. Poor little Ewok was limp laying in my friend's lap as she tried to feed him Pedialite with a syringe and little bites of flowers.

In spite of him having been up and standing yesterday, today I took one look at him and knew that there was no hope. The light of hope was out of his eyes. I told my friend there was no hope here. He would not make it. She told me no, there was a vet in route and he might be able to do something to save him.

So my daughter and I sat cross legged in the pasture, stroking his soft head and talking to him. Walking around us was his buddy, Jango. At first my attention was just on the dying Ewok, but it did not take long for me to note that Jango was lethargic, dehydrated, and not in much better condition than Ewok was in a few days ago.

When the vet got there, about an hour later, we moved Jango to his small pen where he could not see if Ewok passed. Jango had lost his brother just last fall - which is when I bought Ewok.

The diagnosis was that lice had weakened Ewok's immune system, and with him being a runt and such a little guy, he did not have the reserves to fight though the anemia the lice were causing. The vet gave him a few shots of vitamins to help boost his general system and a pain killer...

My sweet little Ewok, who turned one year old on May 5th, took a deep breath without pain and just gave up life. There was no fight, no "I want to live" just a "oh thank goodness" and he was gone.

My daughter went into the car to cry, while my friend's son (who was Ewok's new person) used archery to try to deal with his first encounter with death. I made sure that Jango was checked out, and sure enough he was covered in lice too, anemic, running a light fever, and dehydrated. He got a few shots to kill the lice and boot his immune system. My friend got a list of things to do to make sure he pulls through.

My daughter and I drove off to the sound of Jango bleeting in misery for his missing friend. Goats don't like to be alone. I am going to see if I can help my friend find a new buddy for Jango. As soon as he feels better, which should be in a day or two, he will start breaking out to go in search of more goats.

This was not the afternoon I wanted to spend with my daughter.

It was not an afternoon I wanted to spend at all.

I am bouncing between tears and numb. I know I need to cry it out, but I don't want the headache that will come with the hysterical tears that want to come out. At least I did not have to shoot him myself.

yadlim with one less critter