The goat

This weekend, I was unceremoniously attacked by a goat.

Hal and I traveled to St. Louis for a wedding this weekend. While there, we spent some time at Grant's Farm with several of our friends (Hal's college friends). Grant's Farm is a really cool place, and I highly recommend it if you happen to be in the area. We were impressed with the park and the staff and really left with the sense that the animals were very well-taken care of.

We got to run around and see the animals and they also had opportunities to feed several of the animals. We fed the camels and the alpaca.

And the goat.

I have a vague memory that once when I was very young I went to the Cincinnati Zoo and was much loved by a goat in the petting zoo who smelled some sort of yumminess on a napkin or tissue in my pants pocket. The goat followed me around trying to get in my pockets, which was possibly a traumatizing incident -- if I didn't make it up.

At Grant's Farm, you could pay $1 to buy a small bottle of milk to feed the goats. Then you could wade into a pen of goats who were conditioned to know that they could get FOOD from these people.



I was enjoying feeding my white goat, who was being very polite, when a little gray goat (you can see him here at the bottom of the picture), decided I wasn't sharing enough and took his horned little head and rammed it right into my shin! Hal took this shot, which is as close to an action shot as you can get of the little goat ramming me. I even LOOK startled in this picture.

Little gray goat (perhaps I have a different name for him in my head) did this to me several times. "I. Want. Food!" *BUMP* "Give. Me. Food." *BUMP*

When I see an animal using its forehead to attack me when there are numerous children much smaller than me running around, I think of my grandmother consoling me after Hal and I accidentally road-killed a groundhog. Very kindly, she patted my hand and said, "It's okay. It wasn't very smart." So, there, little gray goat, you are NOT VERY SMART. Stop hitting me with the part of your body that houses your BRAIN. Do goats have brains? If the little gray goat did have a brain, he could have seen that there were many little children running around with bottles of milk to share. Perhaps he just wanted to share that moment with me.

Then!

The white goat, just like the white stallion Prince Charming would ride, came to my rescue. It turned around to the little gray goat and headbutted it right in the side!

After that, the little gray goat was off to find more willing food dispensers. I was able to exit the pen unscathed. Luckily, the little gray goat was not big and didn't hurt me at all (kudos to Grant's Farm people for only keeping small and small-horned goats in the pen -- they are harmless, although perhaps a little startling).

My army brother responded to this story by telling me that he ate goat for lunch while "working."

I can only hope it was a little gray goat.