STARS, ECLIPSE and KID GOATS

My good memories of our life in Montana are many but I think there were three that really stick out as exceptional. The first was one night in particular. There were many nights like this but for some reason, it seems everything came together to make it more spectacular. We were outside at about 11:00 at night. Everyone knows that the skies are more spectacular when you are away from the city lights and our one acre was up the sleeping child road and about 14 miles from Hamilton which certainly was not full of city lights. One of us looked up and gasped. The stars were so bright and seemed to nearly touch each other. One could have read a book it was so bright. It was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. It was as if the clouds and debris and all matter between us and the stars were parted for that night. Perhaps we just happened to notice it more that night because there were surely other nights that were clear but we savored that night for a very long time lying on a picnic table.
The second was during the day. We raised chickens and turkeys and goats and they pretty much had free range. Not the goats, as they would just go if we didn’t have them penned a little. We knew we were going to have a total solar eclipse. I believe it was in February 26 of 1979 about 2:00 in the afternoon. Normally the chickens and turkeys would be clucking and feeding and roaming and at dusk they would slowly head towards the hen house. When the eclipse started it surprised me. I knew it would start to get a little darker and then after a while it would pass. I had never been around animals when watching an eclipse of any kind. We watched as the chickens and the turkeys and even the goats quieted down when it started. As it got darker, there was a complete quiet and calm. They just began to hunker down to roost as they would in the hen house at night. It lasted for about a minute or two and as the light came back then they shook themselves and went about their business. It was a moment to remember.



Another moment was the birthing of our first kid goats. We had a doe named Ruffian (shown above) that we took to a goat farm to be bred. Keeping a male goat could be very tricky and we weren’t that much into goat ranching. At any rate, when she was beginning to show that it could happen any time, we watched her rather regularly. Of course, when the event began to happen it was about midnight on a frosty night. We had a shed where we kept her and watched in awe at our first experience of watching a birth. She had one kid and she licked and prodded her and shortly thereafter she began having another. We didn’t know they had more than one as we were pretty green at this sort of thing. After the second one came out, she began to clean that one too. Then, to our surprise, she started to act up once again. We thought no way would she have another but all indications told us that yes, it looked like it. However, she was having a lot of trouble and began to make noises. We waited for a while and determined that she was in a lot of trouble. We had read a little about breech births but never gave it much thought at the time. My wife looked at me and said she probably needs help and after this soaked into my head, I thought, oh crap. I’m going to have to go in there. I took off my jacket and slowly put my hand up inside and sure enough, the feet were crossed and I had to literally turn it around and help pull it out. It took quite a while but I finally pulled it out. unfortunately, it was stillborn. It was an experience I would never want to go thru again but all things considered, I felt pretty good about myself. We know that it never would have come out on its own and we surely saved her life. The two kids did fine and the mother got them standing up and kicking before long. The next night was really cold and my wife insisted we take the two kids in the house for the night. Below is a couple pictures of Gloria's mother with the 2 kids while on a visit from Colorado. I think she was enjoying herself as were they.





Trust me when I say that kid goats are worse than cats or dogs in the house. They get into anything and everything. This went on for three nights and we finally left them with their mother after that. We named them Nip and Tuck.