Two New Sweeties and Ten Stitches Later

They bounced and giggled and wriggled around us. These two new sweeties. We knew we’d bring them home.

We made small talk with the owner, a teenager with clear eyes and an honest face who clearly loved them but was ready to re-home them and move on to new projects.

Sophie and I set up the motorcycle ramp and wondered how long it would take to get these guys into the truck. Less than three seconds, as it turned out. They giggled their way right up there and then snuggled all the way back to Mom’s house.

I named one guy Sharkey. He had floppy ears that got in the way of his eyes and the energy of a cottontail bunny. He was part Alpine, but that was all we remembered. He was black-and-tan-and-needed a good brushing and his feet seemed to get a good zinger once in a while, so he’d have to jump off all off them at once.

The other guy was a pure white LaMancha mix. So he had the tiniest little ears. Even tinier than Bosco’s. Impossibly little. I could just pet his little-tiny-baby-ears forever. He’d managed to spill alfalfa all over himself before we got him in the truck. White speckled with green. He was my little white and green butterfly, flitting about, looking this way and then that. Very, very busy but not accomplishing much. He didn’t take himself seriously at all, so neither could we. We named him Jon Snow.

At Mom’s house, I opened the stock rack gate and they both tried to jump out at once. Sharkey succeeded. Jon Snow got his leg stuck in the gate and the rest of him fell out of the truck. I was afraid he broke his leg. We all ran over. Mom heaved him up and I freed his leg. He hobbled for a minute and then he looked okay until Bosco the Big Bad Goat picked the bad leg up between his horns and twisted. We all yelled at Bosco, and he let Jon Snow loose and then it was goat craziness everywhere for an hour.

We locked Bosco up but he got loose again and came back at Jon Snow and Sharkey with a vengeance. He was total crazy-man jealous. Sophie armed herself with a rake and I got the spray bottle and we yelled “NO” a lot while the new babies hid behind us. So then we locked up Sharkey and Jon Snow behind the barn instead. We reinforced the falling-down-fence with a roll of horse fencing, a volleyball pole, three bungee cords, and four steel shooting targets.

There. We said. There.

We were tired and it was getting late, so we decided to take the stock rack out of the truck so Sophie and I could go home. Mom stood behind to pull and Sophie and I got in the truck to push. 1…2…3…

Well that’s going to leave a mark, I heard my Mom say.

I looked up. She was sitting in the dirt. Stock rack looming over her.

“Did that hit you?” I asked.

Yeah, she said.

I climbed down and helped her up and away from the truck just in time for a waterfall of blood to start pouring from her forehead down her face. Off her nose. Into her eye.

“Okay you’re bleeding. We’re going to the hospital,” I said.

Okay, she said.

She waterfalled her way around.

Mom, sweetie, you gotta go get in the car.

Let me get a towel for my face. Go get my purse.

Sophie let’s go.

And then we were driving but we didn’t think she had a concussion so we changed gears and went to Urgent Care instead since it’s faster to get care than the ER. And we went inside and my sweet Mom, standing there in her sweatshirt with little flowers on it, covered in blood. Her hands red. Blood dried under her fingernails and crusting in her hair. Drips on her jeans and down the side of her nose.

I took a picture of her face.

And they took her away.

And I called my husband and my brother. And Sophie called her husband to come and get her. And she gave me lots of hugs because we’re both vaccinated and we can. Sophie’s husband Joshua checked to make sure the goats hadn’t killed each other and that we’d remembered to close the doors to the truck, and then they got us dinner.

10 stitches later, I brought my mom home to perfectly cooked steak salads and french fries with ranch dressing, peach cobbler and ice cream sundaes.

They say she’ll have two black eyes and a chin to match.

I stayed the night to monitor her for a concussion.

I stayed the night, and I stayed in shock.

I listened all night, as though I could hear what a concussion sounded like from another room.