Goat Problems

In late 2012 I had acquired a new dog I named Perro, an Australian Cattle Dog, aka a Blue Healer.  Tami had found him.  I took him because Tami had too many animals.  He had belonged to some Spanish fellows, and they had been trying to get rid of him.  He was such a bad dog, they were planning on putting him down.  I never could properly say his name.  So I named him Perro, the Spanish word for dog.  At first he only spoke Spanish.  He had never been in a house before.  He was terrified to come in the first few days.  It was only later that we would find out how severally abused he had been.

Perro could at times be a very good dog.  Then a switch would flipped in his brain and he would attack.  He had been raised on a horse farm, and he kept attacking the million dollar thoroughbreds.  He was trying to herd them, by biting them in the leg.  He was beaten for that, often.  He would be beaten so badly one time, he defecated on himself.  We would learn later, that if you do not properly train one these dogs from an early age, they kind of go nuts.  They are not for a first time dog owner.  I believe Perro had brain damage from his abuse.  We later found out that his original name meant Devil dog. 

Perro would bite my goats and not let them go.  They would just scream out in pain and not let them go no matter how much I screamed at him, or threatened to beat him.  It was no simple nip in the heals.  He often broke the skin.  Our goat herd was large that year.  We were running about 14 head at the time.  I would turn them out to graze, and go about my day.  They would just take themselves across the highway, to the fire station and start grazing in the woods over there. 

One day we went to round them up, taking Perro with us.  I had hoped he would herd them for us.  He didn’t he just ran around biting them.  Tami and I were riding on the back of the truck, and I had my leg hanging from the tailgate.  Perro was happily following behind us.  Suddenly he reached up and bit me in the leg,  and threw my jeans he drew blood.  The only reason he didn’t take a whole chunk out of me, was because his bottom teeth tried to bit threw my boots, and could not get thru.  I knew I in trouble.  I was bleeding, but I had to cowgirl up and go on.  My goats took priority. 

We were able to get the heard back across the road and in the pen.  By that time I am hurting pretty bad.  “Jay I’m in trouble,” I said.  And I dropped my jeans, in front of Tami, god and everybody.  I was pouring blood at that time.  Tami was shocked and ran for medical supplies.  Jay was pissed and fussed me.  “Why didn’t you say anything?!” he scolded me.  I told him we had to get the herd safe first. 

The wound was bad enough that taking me to the hospital was discussed.  I told them, “No.  If they find out it’s a dog bite they will put Perro down.  It’s my fault for what he did.  I should not have been dangling my leg.”  Thank the gods Jay is a trained medical assistant and first responder.  He patched me up, and although I was sore for a few days, the two deep punctures I received, healed up nicely. 

My goats continued to go across the road, every time I let them out.  The cops were nice about it the first 10 or 15 times they were out here.  In March of 2013, the livestock man came to my house.  He is in charge of arresting people for livestock violations.  He drives a truck with a fifth wheel attachment in the bed, to hook up the goose neck trailer to take your animals away from you.  He is a regular police officer with a gun, handcuffs and everything else. 

He’s a bit terrifying.  He came to my house to discuss my goat problem.  He told me, “If I have to come back out here again I will take all your goats, and it will cost you $75 a head to get them out.”  And he looked around at my dogs, who are free roaming, and said what terrified me most, “and I’ll take your dogs too.”  I kind of lost it after that.  I went into a suicidal depression for several weeks.  I jumped at every sound.  I was terrified he was here to take my fur kids from me. 

We continued to have goat problems.  We put up a fence, and the goats just jumped threw it.  At some point that year Jay and I were both separately slapped with a lose livestock fine.  In August of that year I gave away most of my heard.  I kept Star, Kali, Bridget and Dagda, because they never went across the road.  In September I had to go to court and plead guilty to a misdemeanor.  One of the scarcest things I had ever done. 

Perro’s attitude never improved.  He often wanted to nibble or give love bites to people.  He never got any better.  He had tried love and we had tried whooping him.  I would not keep him confined or chained up.  That is no life for an animal.  We did not know what else to do.  Perro was becoming a danger.  He was still biting the goats.  I never knew if he would bite me again.  I never knew if he would suddenly decide to bite someone else.  What if he bit a child?  I was also feeling a lot of pressure from D & K to put him down.  Perro was unpredictable and a liability. 

Jay and I made the decision to put him down.  It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.  I have never had to put down a perfectly health dog for mental issues.  In the end I could not be in the room with him when it was done, and we did not bring him home to be buried.  I wonder if he hated me for that.  Felt abandoned.  I hope one day he can find it in his heart to forgive me and return to me in a new body. 

Perro taught me a very important lesson.  You can’t save every dog.  Some dogs are just too far gone from, abuse, trauma, bad breeding, etc.  That doesn’t mean we should not try, I just think we shouldn’t be devastatingly angry at ourselves, if we try our best, and it does not work out.  Sometimes we are just not the right home, the right owner, or the dog is not the right breed for you.  I often still kick myself, thinking that I did not do enough for him.   I wonder if someone who knew more about his breed, could have pulled him though this and made him change. 

I recently journeyed to Holda’s Garden.  I wanted to check on some of my goats who had passed over.  Holda told me the pasture was around the bend, and so it was.  Just past her house, down the dirt road, thru a grove of trees I found the pasture.  Sitting among my goats was Perro, watching over them.  I did not expect to see him there.  He came to me, and gave me love.  He told me that he had had, “a broken brain.”  He told me he was all better now and his job was to watch over the goats.  I told him again how sorry I was about putting him down.  He said he didn’t blame me, and assured me again he was alright.  I am glad he is there with them, doing what he loves.  Even if it may all be just in my head.

Ilsa

 

Becoming His

In the fall of 1995 I returned to USL in Lafayette, more than 4 hours away from where Mike was at NSU.  He called me not long before I was to leave and go back to school to tell me Charlie had broke up with him.  He could not understand why. 

When I returned to USL I began to write him letters again, many of them erotic.  It was not long before we became a couple.  What he did not share with me, until our wedding day, was that he had slept with another girl, between Charlie and me.  Some girl he had met at his apartment complex pool.  I still don’t know how many times.

Mike called me one night after receiving one of my letters and asked me to marry him.  I gladly accepted.  We began to make plans soon for him to come down, so that we might have sex for the first time.  I even brought special purple lingerie and white thigh highs.  He arrives and we go to make love, he never says anything about how nice I look in my new lingerie.  I lay on the bed, him on top and he enters.  It is over in 30 seconds.  He shivers and collapses on top of me. 

I pat his shoulder and say, “what the hell was that?”

He says, “Oh you didn’t have an orgasm too?” 

“Um, No.  Was I supposed to?” I ask.

He does spend the next 2 hours making it up to me, but he knew it was my first time.  You never get to make that back up, you know.  This was not his first time.  He knew what he was doing. Most you remember your first time, and I hope it was a good experience and not what happened to me.  This man should come with a warning label I swear!  I wish there was somewhere I could register him as a sex addict, abuser and a bad lover so other women would know to stir clear of him.

We continue hot and heavy for that semester.  As I had no car, and I still think that is part of why I married him so I could have a car, he had to come down and visit me.  I could not drive to NSU to see him.  He did take me back with him one weekend and I got to meet his friends and go to the Wesley up there.  We spent most of that time shacked up in a hotel room though.

That semester Mike’s grandmother died and left him some money.  He bought a new car, a new computer, some inline skates, and an engagement ring for me.  He just showed up with it one day.  It was gold with a 1/8^th of a caret diamond in it.  Yeh, I hated it, but I accepted it. I was never asked what I wanted, and if he had ever bothered to listen to me, he would have known I don’t like gold and I don’t like diamonds.  I find them pretentions, everyone has them. 

Now my parents did not like Mike from the very beginning.  Hell my dog Sissy did not like him either.  Every time he tried to touch her she screamed and ran away.  She would not let him touch her.  She never did this with anyone else.  Remember what I said about animals always know, if we only listen.  I should have listened.  After a summer spent messing around in my parents’ house, behind closed doors, they were not thrilled with me either.  And why would they like him.  He was a music major, had basically had an affair with me while still dating Charlie, and had not worked meaningfully since the time they knew of him.  They saw no potential in him, and now their only daughter was having sex outside of wedlock.  This could only lead to no good. 

Mike decides in the Spring of 1996 to transfer and be at USL with me.  He says he needs a change.  For the rest of our marriage Mike would go into a screaming fits and often rage about how USL ruined everything in his life.  While we were happy to be together, stealing in each other’s dorms when we could.  Hell I practically lived I his dorm for days in a row until we almost got caught and we decided it was not worth getting kicked out of school over. 

While we were still hot and heavy for each other, the porn continued.  It just never went away.  I kept explaining to myself that it would get better, once we were married.  Mike worked very little other than being a monitor at the Wesley, which paid less than $100 a month, and stuffing envelopes occasionally for his dad, he had no steady employment or real skills. I am always lending him money, which he never paid back.

Mike claimed to be a music major, with his concentration in voice.  Mike never sang.  He never practiced.  He never studied.  I still don’t know how he passed his classes.  I have a memory of walking to his dorm on my birthday.  He didn’t get me a present, get me a card or even make me one. I innocently asked him to sing me “Happy Birthday.”  Just to have something from him on my birthday.  He refused.  He suddenly claimed to be getting a sore throat.  In fact, he never sang to me. The only time I ever heard him sing was during one of his finals at NSU.  I was waiting for him outside the door, and I leaned my ear to the door to hear what he sounded like.  He sounded good, accept he kept saying “wait”, as if to get what he was doing correct, every few seconds.  They flunked him.  That was the only time I ever heard him sing. 

Why Mike was at USL, my father insisted that I stop paying for things for him and he get a job.  What money his grandmother had left him, was long since gone. Mike walked around the corner from the Wesley and got a job delivering pizzas.  A profession he is still in to this day.  Delivering pizzas got us through most of our college years. 

At some point in the Spring of ’96 it was decided that I would transfer to NSU in the fall.  I missed my family terribly.  I was 6 hours away from them. I saw them maybe once or twice a semester if I was lucky.

When I began to apply to schools I was told by my father that they had to be within driving distance of home, so that limited me to Louisiana.  I had applied at several universities in Louisiana and got into all of them, even LSU.  I had wanted to go to LA Tech like my father.  When the letter came that I was accepted into LA Tech I was so excited.  My father then looked at me and said, “That’s great.  Now you can choose.  You can go to NSU where your mom can watch over you.  Or you can go to USL where you aunt can watch over you.”  I was crestfallen.  I was a daddy’s girl.  I wanted to do what daddy did.  As I had and still have a very difficult relationship with my mother, and I knew many of those who attended my high school were attending NSU, I chose USL.  It was only years later that I learned NSU had wanted to give me a full ride.  By the time I got there, those offers were long gone.

I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.  My father said, you’re going to college, so I went.  I did as I was told in those days.  I had thought for some years that I might want to be a chef and USL had a good culinary program.  So that’s what I had come for.  But as they laid out the realities of the cooking industry and what it took to run your own restaurant, I decided it was not for me. When I heard that even with a degree I would start as a dishwasher, I decided to switch majors. 

Hell I was failing anyways.  Two years into college and I had a 1.9 major and not for lack of trying.  I had taken remedial math twice and failed.  It would take me 3 more times at NSU before I passed. I often tell a joke where I say, “It took me 5 times to pass math in college,” and only holdup 4 fingers.  I still hate math and are amazed by those that can do it well.

Somewhere along the line I had to take a Sociology course, and I fell in love with it.  I had the most awesome teacher who has spent many years working with people who had AIDS and in the LGBT community.  Don’t ask me to spell her name I never could get it right.  So in the Fall of 1996 I would transfer to NSU as a Sociology major.

Ilsa

Animal communication and Finding Holda

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t love animals.  The walls in my nursery had animals on them, and I even had Bambi curtains.  Being a little girl I remember my momma teaching me to pray for the animals.  She has always been an animal lover.  I’ve been saving and rescuing dogs since I was little.  People would just dump their unwanted dogs at our house.  We’ve even had them dumped as young as 2 or 3 weeks old.  We kept most of them and rehomed where we could.  The only time I did not have a dog is when I went to college and then shortly after.  I used to tell my friends in college, “as soon as I graduate I’m going to get a dog and dishwasher and in that order!”  LOL! 

I guess then that it should come as no surprise that I am an animal communicator.  I think the person who was shocked the most was me.  I have always had a deep connection with the creatures, dogs in particular.  Like I said before I am a funny lady, always cracking jokes.  I have always done the dogs voices.  Spoke aloud for them, and spoke to them.  Known what they what and how they thought.  I have ready many books on dog and animal psychology. Their research mirrors what I knew already that animals do not think the way we do.  Some of their concepts make no sense to us and some of ours make no sense to them. 

Yes I’m crazy, and been to the psych ward to prove it.  But Schizophrenia has never been part of my diagnosis.  Now when I tell you I hear their voices, it is in my head and mostly my heart.  Animals may also speak by sending pictures to your mind. I’m sure if I could smell the way they do, they would send me that as well.  I have never heard them, except in two cases, with my ears.  Therefore these are not auditory hallucinations. Yes I have told councilors this and they look at me a bit weird, but never call for the straight jacket. 

You will find, as you study pagans in general, that this gift is not unheard of.  I know many in the community who speak with trees and plants, some who speak to birds, and even a few who can speak with the rocks. 

Dogs have been my friends when there was no one else.  I believe it was my dog Texas, one of our rescues who helped me to first learn the language of the dogs.  Texas was a beautiful half Lab, half Border Collie that my daddy found as a stray on a location.  He was sleeping under dozers, covered in oil and mud.  It took three baths to get him clean.  Texas was with us 10 years.  He was my best buddy, the one I told all my secrets to, and I believe now probable my first familure.  He died six weeks after I went to college, the vet said of hep c from eating something dead.  I believe he died of a broken heart from missing me. 

Dogs and most animals have a different sense of time then we do.  The watch the way the light falls, the moon and the cycles of the seasons.  They understand routine as well.  That daddy will be home every day about sunset.  I even had one dog, Sassy, that would dance on our heads, at dawn, on every other day.  Because that is when her former owner, Jays grandmother, would get up for dialyses.  She must have had some concept of the ability to count as well.  But the idea of a future, as we understand it, is foreign to them.  Everything is about now, and this present moment.  So when they freak out that you are leaving to go to the store they have two general thoughts.  One is that you will never come back.  The other is that you are going somewhere they cannot protect you.  They believe their job is to love you and protect you.  This is part of why they freak out when you take them to the groomers or the vet.  They often associate the two with physical pain and the pain of being away from you.  They believe you are never coming back.  This is why they are so excited to see you. 

I told you I’ve had two experiences in which I really heard the dogs speak outside my head.  Both times I was sleeping.  The first time, Jay and I were dating, but not yet married.  I was living at home with my parents.  I was asleep in my bed when I was awakened by talking. 

I heard, “Should we wake her up?”

“No, let her sleep.  She had a rough night.”

“Could you move over please?”

I was confused.  There was no one in bed with me, just the dogs.  I was so disturbed by this I went to my pastor at the time.  I was told I heard my angels talking.  I believed him, obviously he was the expert.  But why would there be two angels, and why would one ask the other to move over???  Many years later I was again awakened by voices. 

I heard, “Mommy!  Mommy!  Mommy!  Move the covers and let me in.  Are you okay??  I had to go pee.”  I opened my eyes to me lifting the covers and letting Punka, my Dachshund, jump in the bed.  She had indeed been outside to potty.  No one else but the dogs calls me Mommy.   I began asking other pagans in my community if it could be possible I had heard my dog speak to me.  They told me it was definitely possible.  I know now my dogs were talking amongst themselves and in Punka’s case directly to me.

In the early days of my pagan path, I was working as a dog groomer.  After my encounter with Punka, I began to believe that I could in fact speak to the animals, that I was an animal communicator.  It kind of became known around the office.  One day I had a client come in and speak with me.  She asked me to talk to her dog for her.  She had been robbed, but the dog had been unhurt.  I said I would do my best. 

As I groomed the dog, I laid my hands on him.  I began to ask him questions out loud and he began to transmit pictures to me.  I was a bit taken aback by what he had told me.  That he knew the people who robbed the house.  The robbers had been in the house before.  The dog told me they were friends of his human brother.  The dog told me that he had hid because he was afraid they would take him as well.   When the dog’s mom came to pick him, I gave her the description of the robbers I had been given, as well as the way the robbery occurred and the red truck they had been driving.  What happened next I did not expect.  She came to me a few months later and told me, thank you.  The robbers had indeed been in the house before, and they were friends of her sons.  Also a suspicious red truck had been seen in the area around that time.  For better or worse it seemed I had the gift.  I was floored.

We had just moved to this land, not long before the above story took place.  This land is very wild and full of land spirits.  One day my kids are going just nuts, barking their heads off, about noon. 

I asked the dogs, “What is it!  What are you barking at?”

“Momma!  It’s Momma!”  That just made no since to me what so ever, I’m Momma.  Just because I can hear what they say does not mean I always understand or translate correctly. 

“Momma who?” I asked.

They looked at me stupid and said, “Momma of the dogs.” 

I leaned over the couch and sure enough I saw, with my third eye, what they were barking at.  With my third eye I saw a woman dressed in white with a white horse, coming up from the creek bed.  I had seen her before but told no one.  The fact that they could see her too amazed and comforted me. 

I immediately got on the yahoo groups and began emailing my pagan friends all over the world, telling them this story.  Most of them believed her to be Rhiannon aka Epona, goddess of horses.  But it made no sense to me that a horse goddess would come to me when I had no tie to horses.  But I put a horse shoe on my altar just in case.  No the dogs had said, “Momma of the dogs.”  As I have mostly Germanic dogs, Dachshunds and a Rottweiler.  I thought I would look up Germanic dog goddess, so I Googled the words, and there she was… Holda. 

It took me some years of research but I did find that in her maiden form sometimes she is seen dressed in white, bathing in creeks and rivers, sometimes accompanied by a horse, and noon is her holy hour.  What the kids and I had seen was Holda.  I still believe that to this day.

Holda was my first and still is my main goddess.  Now she is known by many other documented names including but not limited to: Hulda, Frau Holle, Frau Holt, Percha, Bercha, and Herka.  She is the Germanic goddess of the dog, domestic animals, children, winter, snow, lakes and streams, infertile women and is sometimes associated with caves and forests.  She has been seen in all three aspects of Maiden, Mother and Crone.  Although it is perhaps as her crone or grandmotherly state that she is best known in.   I have seen her in all three.  She is known throughout Germany and among the Pennsylvania Deutch.  Many fairy tales and much oral tradition surround her in both places.  Using the internet, many who believe in her, have banded together to share their local heritage of her, as well as their own stories.  In 2011 Garden Stone published “Goddess Holle,” to date it is the only book in English totally devoted to her.  I believe she stirred me in the caldron of life.  I believe has been with me since the beginning, guiding me ever gently back to her.  I encourage you to look into her and see if she may be the right Goddess for you. 

I believe every animal speaks their own language.  Different animals, different things that are important to them, different ways of thinking, and what feels like to me different frequencies.  Dog is my main language.  My cat is rudimentary, as I have no cats and I am deathly allergic to them.  I have a pig, but have yet to hear him speak to me.  I understand most of what he says with body language.  I still have no working knowledge of bird.  The pictures they send get all jumbled in my head.  They come so fast.  Also they often send me colors I don’t understand.  I mentioned this to a bird friend of mine.  Apparently they see colors we cannot, like infra red and ultra violet.  My head is just not tuned for that.  I seem to be tuned into mammals and only at close distances. 

Goat took me a while to learn.  I think it is lower and slower then dog.  Star and I talk all the time.  We say normal things, like I love you, go this way, come here for a cookie, etc.  Mostly what I get from Star and Kali talking is, “OH!  Have you tried this plant!  Oh!  It is so good!  Oh! but what about this one here!!!”  Probable the most earth shattering conversation we have had is over what each finds valuable in life.  She and Kali value good plants, variety, and the ability to walk freely around the property and browse.  Star likes to nibble on my wedding ring.  I explain to her that it is valuable.  She likes to say, “It’s just a shiny rock.  If you can’t eat it, how valuable can it be?”  point taken.  I ask her how she feels about the fact humans eat animals.  She says something to the effect that animals know all their lives that someone may eat them.  They consider it an honor to give their lives for those they serve.  The least we can do is be thankful. 

I think one of the best conversations I have ever overheard, and they do talk to each other, was between Star and Ostara.  We were milking.  Star is always great in the milk stand.  She never kicks.  Ostara was just the opposite.  She would get in the stand, put her head threw to eat her grain, as soon as I locked her in and started touching her udder, she would freak and start kicking.  I did not want to hobble her.  After a while she settled down.  I think in part because of the conversation she and Star had.  Star told Ostara that she needed to give me milk.  She said, “It is an exchange.  They give us grain and a place to live.  We share with them our milk.  Now you just need to settle down.  She’s not going to hurt you.”  Ostara listened to her mother.  We had few problems after that.

I have also had conversations with other animals.  My favorite one was with an Elephant.  My friend and I had gone to a fair.  The Elephant and its owner were in an outside ring giving a demonstration.  It was funny and quite difficult at the same time, as they were both talking.  I could hear the ring master and then right after him, was the Elephants voice saying almost the same thing.  Example:

Ring master:  “I will now give him a loaf of bread to eat.”

Elephant:  “I will now eat this loaf of bread.”

The Elephant loved the crowds and you could feel lots of love for his owner as well.  The Elephant offered rides and pictures after the show.  My friend and I hung around.  After everyone was gone I approached them both.

 I said to the owner, “I know this is going to sound a little crazy but I am an animal communicator.  I would like to try to speak to your Elephant.” 

The man was more than happy to oblige, saying; “I am interest to see what you have to say.  We have been approached by an animal communicator before.”

I laid my hands on the Elephant and began to ask him questions.  He was so funny.  I just remember him asking me again and again if I wanted to ride.  I told him, no I just wanted to talk to him and ask him about his life.  He said okay.  I asked if he was treated well.  He responded that he was and he loved his owner very much.  That he was looking forward to sitting down and having a snack now that the show was over, and was I sure I didn’t want a ride? 

I told the owner what the Elephant had said.  He kind of chuckled.  Apparently I had said just what the other animal communicator had said.  I thanked them both and watched them walk away, into the shade to enjoy a snack. 

My dogs have never told me anything earth shattering either.  I also don’t think, they think as much as we do.  They have lots of free space in their brains, most of the time observing the natural world around them.  They tell me they love me and they are happy.  I can’t ask for more than that. 

Ilsa

Predator and prey

I was awakened by barking about 3 o’clock this morning.  Princess, my Rottweiler / Lab mix, was standing on the porch barking her little lungs out.  We had all gone to bed about 11 and the kids had quit barking about midnight, as is their custom.  So the fact they were up this late barking and not stopping told me there was danger.  As any good dog Mom will tell you, they know what certain barks mean.  This one meant trouble was not far away. 

I roused Jay for his deep sleep, and he and I went out to see what was going one.  We made the decision to bring the kids in the house and lock the dog door.  A valiant effort was made to bring Ms. Bridget, our free roaming Pygmy goat, in as well.  Many cookies were sacrificed try to get her in the house, but to no avail.  If there was something out there, she was going to have to defend herself.  Hey she’s got horns and my dogs don’t.

We live with the rhythm of the seasons around here.  In the late summer and fall comes the threat of the Chupacabra.  Now I use this word as a place holder, because after 10 years of being here we still don’t know what it is.  Something lives in our woods, something large.  So far it has taken 6 dogs off this property, sometimes in broad daylight.  Molly, Angel, Boudreaux, Amie, Sassy and Precious- the first, have all falling victim to this creature. 

In the early years we believed it to be a Panther also know as a Cougar, Puma, or Mountain Lion.  We saw something one night, and when we hit it with the flash light its eyes turned yellow.  It got scared and ran off.  We asked Fish and Wildlife if it could be a Panther.  They laughed at us and told us that it could not be a Panther that it must be Coyotes.  Louisiana fish and wildlife said at the time, that there were no Panthers in Louisiana.  Despite many people I know who have either seen one, or heard one, in different places in Northern Louisiana.

We have a friend who lives up the road. She used to feed the feral cats in her area.  One day she is looking out her back door and there eating the cat food is a Panther.  Another friend who lives two parishes over had one on her back porch.  A parish south of us, my mom saw one crossing the field one day.  And I myself have seen them in the wild.

In the late 90’s Mike and I made a trip to Biloxi, Mississippi.  We were on Highway 84 about dusk just outside of Jena.  We were going through a heavily wooded area, when I yelled at him to stop the car.  In front of us passed a magnificent creature.  She was huge!  Beautiful!  Oh she must have been 5 or 6 feet long!  She just slowly walked in front of our car, and then turned back to look at us.  All the while Mike screaming at me, asking why he had to stop the car, he never saw her. 

We know there are Coyotes in the area, as you can sit out on most nights and hear the different packs howl to each other.  I have even been inside my house and heard them.  They begin to move in the fall or when there is no water in the creek, like now.  It’s been a while since it rained here.  In the fall we lock the kids in the house at night, and Bridget too if we can catch her.  We just let them out in the morning and clean up any messes.  Hey my kid’s safety comes first. 

I have seen Coyotes here as well, during the drought, oh about 5 years ago.  The kids were going nuts.  I opened the back door and there he was standing in the woods.  I ran back in the bed room and grabbed the 9mm.  Now I can’t hit the back side of the barn, but I fired off the whole clip, with my eyes closed.  Shells were coming back and hitting me in the face.  Man was I scared!  I didn’t hit him.  I think the first few shots scared him off.  I saw him one more time. We keep a kiddy pool full of water, most of the year for Princess to swim in.  I saw him come around the corner of the house.  I think he was trying to get a drink.  But by the time I went in the house to get the gun, and came back out he was gone. 

The Coyotes at times have proved beneficial to us.  We had a beautiful goat names Ostara, a lovely little Nubian with white ears.  She was the first goat every born here.  She lived a long life here, birthed babies here and shared with us her milk.  In late March of 2013 she birthed triplets, Odessa, Ophelia, and another girl that did not live.  The birth was rough on her and she was done by the time I got to her. Later that day she became “downed, “unable to stand on her own power.  Her gums were white and she was floppy and almost unresponsive.  She was bleeding a lot more then she should have.  I began a series of frantic phone calls to my goat friends.  One vet told me she was bleeding because she had worms.  Idiot!  See what I told you about you are your goat’s best advocate. I finally reached my regular goat vet via telephone that evening.  He told me she may have, “busted a gut,” aka torn a hole in her intestines while she was birthing.  He told us there was probable nothing we could do.  We brought her and the babies inside the house.  Her condition continued to worsen over night.  I began bottle feeding the girls.  We knew that if Ostara made it thru the night, she would have to be put down.  That next morning after dawn we walked her out behind the house.  We said our goodbyes.  Jay, in tears, shot her, and I looked away.  It was the kindest thing we could do for her.  We could not let her continue to suffer. 

The rain had begun to fall softly that night and into that morning.  We did not process her out of respect for the life she had lived here, and all she had given us.   We could not burry her, as the kids would dig her up.  So we placed her on the fire pit, in the old circle.  We did not have enough wood, and everything was too wet to cremate her, but we tried.  A day after she had been placed on the fire pit, with the rain still falling, Jay went to check on her.  Her nose had been chewed on.  We knew the coyotes had been there.  We knew then we had to let nature take its course.  They were doing their job.   That night we locked the kids and Bridget in the house and let the coyotes do their thing.  I could have been mad at them, but instead I was glad they were there, giving us a solution to our problem. 

I believe in what a lot of George Melendez Wright had to say.  That unless a predator is threatening livestock or an endangered species to leave it alone.  I would rather have the coyotes be part of our ecosystem here, then to go out and hunt them.  They have a vital job to do in this world.  The Goddess made them for a specific roll and who am I to question what she has made. 

Ilsa