My Million-Dollar Donkey

by East, Ginny;

  Now, you may be wondering what a goat costs. A boy goat is sold by the pound. That season goats were going for $1.25 per pound whether the animal was for petting or for the plate. To determine exactly what a goat weighs, a special measuring tape is placed around the ribcage. Freckles measured out at a healthy sixty-nine pounds.

  Doing the math, I was surprised at the total cost. Eighty-six dollars! What would goat meat cost if it came prepackaged in the grocery store? Much of an animal, after slaughter, would be left to waste and $1.25 seemed a lot to pay per pound for a non-sliced-and-diced goat considering all the bones, horns, and inedible parts were tipping the scales. But things could be worse. Female goats, starting at $300, were more valuable because once bred, they would give the owner not only one baby but often twins or triplets two times a year. Females also provided milk for cheese and such.

  For us, $1.25 per pound was plenty to pay for a pet whose primary purpose was to eat weeds. I wrote out the check thinking a mechanical weed eater would have cost us practically the same, but at least the goat didn’t require electricity or gasoline.

  Just like that, we were the proud owners of our first goat unless you count the goat from Heifer Corp., a foundation that provides livestock to families in third world countries. Over the years I’d sent donations to this worthy organization to purchase a cow for a needy family every spring. This year, I had bought a goat instead, harboring a romantic notion that looking out into the field to see my goat would remind me of another woman half a world away, looking with pride and gratitude at a sister goat of her own. Freckles was to be my tangible reminder that the world is filled with people who have less than we do and I need to be grateful every day for my life.

  My Heifer Corp. goat cost $120, a fantastic bargain considering the third world recipients always received an impregnated female goat. You’d think the law of supply and demand would make girl goats in a third world country more expensive than one you buy in northern Georgia, but apparently, goat economics is complex.

  I finished up with the goat lady while my husband put Freckles into the back of his new pickup truck. He gestured to me that we were ready to go and I hopped into the car. Just as we were pulling away, the goat lady leaned into the window and said, “Don’t forget, that little guy will need a lean-to or shelter to protect him from the elements.”

  “Say what?”

  “A shelter. You don’t want him to catch a cold.” She gestured to her lovely barn where dozens of goats loitered casually, not one of them sniffling. “If you don’t have a barn, just throw up a simple tarp or something. Nothing fancy required, but he will need protection from the dew and frost. You don’t want him to get wet.”

  Mark and I exchanged a worried glance. We certainly didn’t want to be responsible for anything as sinister as melting a goat, so when we got home, we let Freckles loose in the pasture and talked of shelters. Staring at that small goat standing next to the massive weeds littering our creek bed, we felt rather silly. It would take 50 goats (or one hungry goat 50 years) to make a dent in that foliage.

  “Get eating, buddy,” Mark said.

  “I think he’s more interested in getting to know the donkey. Do you think the kids will like him?”

  “Kids always love other kids,” Mark said, grinning at his own pun. “I’m sure they’ll be thrilled when we tell them they have a new pet, which will be in about fifteen minutes because school is almost out.”

  “Shouldn’t we throw up a tarp for Freckles first?”

  Mark looked at the clear sky and shrugged. “Tomorrow will be fine. We’re running late, after all.”

  So off we went to attend to our daily chores of picking up the kids from school and my going home to fix dinner while Mark pored over building magazines for more construction ideas. After dinner and homework, playing with the dogs, and a quick game of cards since we still didn’t have a TV, everyone went to bed, each of us headed for independent dreams, mine of travel and Mark’s of methods to attach log beams to a 25 foot ceiling.

  At five the next morning I got up and stood looking out the window.

  “Is something wrong?” Mark asked groggily.

  “It’s raining. We should have thrown up a temporary tarp like the goat lady said.”

  “Freckles is just a goat, not the Wicked Witch of the West. A little water one time won’t destroy him.”

  “You’re a goat expert now?”

  “Goats survived for a million years before barns were invented,” he reasoned, scratching his hair and nestling back into the pillows.

  “But the goats that survived were probably the ones living near caves for shelter, and the process of evolution and natural selection would make their offspring even less tolerant of rain.”

  “I’m going to cancel the Nature channel.”

  “We don’t even have a TV,” I said.

  A thunderclap shook the windows. I lifted my eyebrows as if to point out that God was validating my theory. Mark had been married to me long enough to know that if he rolled over now, he’d hear a lengthy diatribe about goat health, rain risk, and mankind’s responsibility to honor nature. He sat up, sighed, and pulled on his pants mumbling that if a million dollars wasn’t enough to give a man a perfect house and a trip to Paris, that much money should certainly be enough to buy him a decent night’s rest.

  “But you’re living the good life now. Land, a truck, and a modest living is all a man needs. You said so yourself.”

  He grabbed a baseball cap and stomped out into the downpour. “Now, I’m not claiming to know everything, ‘cause I only have ‘bout some college education, but it seems to me building goat shelters at 5 am isn’t part of the good life.”

  Three hours later, the rain finally subsided and the sun came up. It was a Saturday so the kids were sleeping in. I was just putting on my robe, enjoying a cup of coffee on the porch, imagining my drenched husband putting the final screws into a makeshift shelter. I might have felt badly for him if I didn’t know he had a donkey, three horses, and a perfectly healthy, wet goat leaning over his shoulder to give him his good morning kiss. Anyway, life wouldn’t always be like this. As soon as Mark was finished building our perfect home, developing the land, setting up his new workshop, and ...well... one day, life would be relaxed and good and we would spend every morning in bed together rather than chasing after this very complex idea of a simple life. The only worry I should have in the end is finding someone to feed our goat when we finally got around to that trip to Paris.

  “I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals.”

  —Henry David Thoreau

  INFORMATION, COUNTRY STYLE

  It was going to be a cold winter. I knew this because Tommy, one of the construction workers, pointed out that the spiders were weaving their webs close to the rafters of the roof. I thanked him for this information, even though I was already privy to this year’s winter forecast thanks to the kids at school telling my son that the wasps were building their nests higher in the trees, a sure sign a brisk winter is on the way.

  “The weather is going to be cold tonight,” I said, sliding into a seat across from Kathy.

  “Yeah, I know. They were talking about what to expect at the feed store.”

  Forget CNN or Newsweek. Just buy hay and you could get the scoop on everything that might affect you in the country. Even so, I still felt compelled to read the local paper, needing a more reliable source than hearsay at the feed store for my basic information. The Blue Ridge Observer was published twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays. I read the paper from front to back, even before browsing my fancy Atlanta paper for macro-news about the world at large.

  The local paper was where we learned Billy Bob was celebrating his second birthday with a cowboy party at the local McDonald’s. The paper featured articles about lifetime residents who
had passed on, obituaries that included not only the deceased’s occupation and surviving family members, but which Baptist church they were affiliated with and how they won the pound cake bake-off at the Moonshine Festival three years in a row. Sensationalized articles made the reader’s heart beat faster, too. One week the mayor and two councilmen got arrested for gambling at a cockfight. Another week, a sting operation helped the sheriff close down a meth operation in a cabin not far from us. Sadly, a hound dog was killed in the process. A week later, the Piggly Wiggly busted a water main and all the veggies floated out to the parking lot. Great scandals like that made the paper entertaining and informative, in a surreal sort of way.

  There were also announcements of things to do, such as watching a local reverend playing fiddle at the Shriner’s club on Fridays, festivals to visit, or church barbeques. Like all papers, there was a business section, too, and since building and tourism were the primary commerce in the area, lots of talk about the ongoing war over building codes filled the pages.

  North Georgia didn’t have building codes until all the newer residents started arriving from Atlanta or Florida and began throwing their weight around, forcing laws to be put into place to protect the rights of homeowners. The editorials showcased the great battle constantly being waged between the city folk intent on bringing “progress” into the area and the lifetime residents who didn’t like change...or strangers...or Wal-Mart. Local residents wrote letters complaining about how all the halfbacks wouldn’t leave well enough alone. (A halfback is a person from up north who moves to Florida, but when they miss the change of seasons, move only halfway back where the weather is milder, thus landing in Georgia.) The transplants retorted with facts about how the added income from their taxes helped inch the schools out of the dark ages, and of course they tossed in remarks about how, if the people around here were educated enough to understand economics, they’d appreciate what the new population was bringing to the table.

  The city people (this included us) were drawn to the area because they had a sincere appreciation for the serenity of the surrounding nature. The slow, meandering lifestyle calmed a stressed-out soul and helped a person touch base with what counted in life. But after people like us got comfortable, they started missing convenience (and Starbucks) so they pushed for little changes. They campaigned to get the dry county ordinance lifted so they could enjoy a glass of wine with dinner at a restaurant. They voted to let the Ritz Carlton build on the lake so everyone’s property values would go up. Of course, all these little changes added up to an unstoppable shift in the flavor of the little town, and the next thing you know, the very aspect that attracted everyone here was on the road to being lost. The property values would go up on paper, but living in a bustle-free environment, sans franchises, is what made the town priceless.

  I understood the frustration of small town limitations, but Atlanta was a mere two hours away and I clung to the fact that I could always drive to the city to attend an author’s lecture or visit a museum when I needed a metropolis fix. Every time I went into the city, I came home grateful for the lack of traffic, noise, and crowds in our small town. But at the same time, I felt smothered by the endless quiet and lack of intellectual stimulus. The tale of the country mouse and the city mouse was a poignant puzzle with no answer in regards to which was best.

  Thankfully, living in the country was ripe with novel experiences for a city couple like us, so life continued to be educational and adventurous. On my daily mail run, I’d stare at a dozen or so chickens wandering about the post office yard, scratching in the dirt, cackling, and waddling about in the sun like stage props carefully set about to enhance the ambience of the post office. I’d watch them from my car, marveling at the birds’ diverse shapes, colors, and quirky behavior. Then I’d go in to get the mail and spend a few minutes talking to the friendly postmistress, who not only knew me by name but had a pretty good clue about my personality, too, thanks to her checking out the mail I received. I’d return home thirty minutes later with arms full of mail that was now a mish-mosh of contradiction: Fitness, Glamour, and Martha Stewart Living magazines rubbing glossy elbows with Country Living, Organic Gardening and Farmer’s Almanac. I’d stack them all by the door and start breakfast, then drop hints about how nice cooking would be if the eggs I was poaching were home grown.

  Mark knew better than to take the bait when the subject was animals now, so he’d change the subject and ask if there was any important mail.

  “There’s an upcoming cow paddy bingo event. Tickets are $5.00.

  How many do you think we should buy?”

  “What’s cow paddy bingo?”

  “A field downtown is sectioned off with numbers and a well-fed cow is led around in a circular pattern. When he drops his paddy, the crowd goes wild because the person with the number the cowflop falls on has bingo and wins 500 bucks!”

  “Can’t beat Friday night entertainment in the mountains.”

  “I’ve also got a letter here asking for my support in a pig protection campaign, and I’ll have you know the association is not a police activist group. No, these are real live pigs they’re talking about and they need our help. I’m supposed to check the box that says, ‘Yes! I want to make a commitment today to help FREE pigs from the crate’ and send in a donation of $20- $100. Quick, honey. Get out your checkbook. The pigs of the world need us.”

  Mark lifted one skeptical eyebrow. “You are already doing your part. You didn’t make me bacon this morning.”

  I pointed to the letter and quoted, “If we treated dogs and cats the way we treat pigs, there would be a public outcry and the abusers would be thrown in jail!”

  “I do like pigs.” Mark said. “I like them best as bacon. Pork chops are good too.”

  “‘Dogs look up to you, cats look down on you – give me a pig! He looks you in the eye and treats you as an equal.’ Winston Churchill said that!”

  Mark sighed. “Didn’t we send money to the Heifer Corp. recently?”

  “For a goat, yes. I also sent money to the ASPCA, but we haven’t done our part to protect pigs. Of that, I am sure.”

  “I’m going to the house site. If you really want to save a pig, go ahead and write a check, but remember we have limited resources. A donation might mean we have to skip something we need, like a decent stove.”

  I kissed the top of his head. “Don’t worry. I want a good stove in the new house more than I want to save the world one pig at a time.”

  But after he left, I picked the letter up and read the text through, shocked to learn just how dire the plight of pigs really is. The poor animals are kept in gestation crates two feet wide, their movement so severely restricted they can’t even turn around. They’re forced to sleep, eat, and live in metal crates and continually produce litters of piglets. When the piglets are three weeks old, they’re torn from the mother and the breeding cycle begins again. Apparently, pigs live in this misery for several years and then unmercifully they are slaughtered, ending up bacon on my husband’s plate...when I remember to cook him bacon, that is.

  I tossed the letter aside, thinking ignorance really had been bliss because I now had to add this picture to my growing awareness of mass farm production sins. A person may feel less guilt-ridden eating bacon from a pig they don’t know by name, but I was starting to think that was like being an army general sitting in his cushy office, pushing a button to drop a bomb on an innocent village with no remorse. The fact that a person has distance from a moral dilemma doesn’t relieve them of responsibility. I still had trouble understanding how my neighbors had the stomach to slaughter and eat their own dear pets, even though I knew (academically) that bringing up a happy, free-range animal in your backyard, and giving the animal a life of dignity and a reasonable length of time on this earth is better than supporting inhumane pig farming by playing dumb to the facts. I got it—farm animals are not pets—but live creatures who feel suffering.<
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  A vegetarian lifestyle was sounding more attractive every day. I ended up sending $20 to the pig protection campaign because the pictures of Sugar Bear, a rescued pig at a Farm Sanctuary, tugged at my heartstrings. Then I went to the grocery store to buy bacon for Mark’s breakfast the next day. My entire life felt like this, a huge complex struggle between my emerging new ideals and my old life patterns. The dichotomy filled my mind with clashing realities as much as it did my grocery cart.

  “The common experience is that man fits himself as well as he can to the customary details of that work or trade he falls into, and tends it as a dog turns a spit. Then is he part of the machine he moves; the man is lost. Until he can manage to communicate himself to others in his full stature and proportion, he does not yet find his vocation.”

  — Henry David Thoreau

  CHICKENS

  One day, I stopped by the feed store to pick up grain and came face to face with a dozen incubators filled with day-old birds. The spring chicks peeped joyously, bouncing around like little yellow cotton balls with feet. Keeping a few chickens would not only be educational, but an economical thing to do, I reasoned. And offering a fifty acre home to chickens might create good karma to make up for my part in worldwide pig abuse.

  I’d read that most chickens lay an egg a day. Each chick was three dollars. I did the math. With eggs selling for about $2 a dozen, each chicken, once grown, would pay for herself within a few weeks. I’d keep harvesting free eggs forever after that, a far more productive outcome than keeping a goat, and a drop in the bucket compared to horses.