Ever seen a kid do the splits? And I'm not referring to the cute little girl with long, braided hair in a gymnastics leotard, I am referring to the offspring of those strange animals we call goats.
When my mother decided to start farming goats on our farm I was shocked! We used to be a Drakensburger Stud farm and I loved it, but GOATS? What does one do with a goat? I don't find them cute or beautiful or even slightly majestic. In my eyes they are a complete waste of space, but my mum loves them and gets all excited when they're lambing.
In my eyes the only thing good about a goat is when it's been slaughtered and is on the spit braai!
Well it was, until last night.
You see, when the goats lamb in the middle of winter the kids often need to be brought into the kitchen where they are placed in front if the Aga stove where they can heat up. Often these are the "hans lammetjies." For those of you who don't understand what that means it refers to the kids that have been kicked out of the house.
Then these horrible animals proceed to take up the kitchen floor and when they are finally feeling well enough to stand up they find the need to urinate all over the kitchen floor! This is usually just before the time that I finally drag myself out of bed and head to the kitchen, eyes still glued shut, for some coffee. There is nothing more upsetting than standing in goat pee when you've just woken up!
Last night however, as I was sitting in the kitchen cursing the very existance of goats the cutest thing happened. The kid was trying desperately to stand up but due to its weak one day old limbs and the fact that our kitchen floor is tiled it was, to say the least, struggling. As it eventually managed to get its two front legs up however the tiles kicked in and the goat ended up doing the splits.
I didn't know whether to burst out laughing or save the stupid animal, so I burst into laughter!
After five minutes of laughter I decided the goat might need some help, so I helped it up onto its legs, but as I let go it happened again except this time it hit its head on the tiles pretty hard and it was ENTIRELY my fault. Now, while I may not like the stupid animals, I am not sadistic (always) and felt pretty bad and all the animal could do was stare up at me in pain.
You've all heard about puppy-dog eyes, but
nothing comes close to the look this poor animal was giving me. Suddenly my heart melted and I felt pretty bad about laughing at the little thing. Maybe goats really aren't that bad...
Well, as I was writing this I felt the sudden urge for a cup of coffee and as I headed for the kettle and did my ritual "stand-in-the-goat-pee-thing" I realized that no matter how many looks that little kid gave me, a goat will always be much better on the spit!
Oh, look, it's lunch time!
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