You all should know that I’ve waited a handful of days to tell this story. Not because I find myself so deep in mourning that I had to recover first, but more because I felt like we should all have the chance to bask in the memory of the world’s most ancient goat before I ruined our collective sense of reverence with what I’m about to tell you. If you’re squeamish or are easily offended by what amounts to somewhat dark and irreverent humor, you might want to pass on this one.

Through the powers of social media, I posted last Friday that Carrie, our 20 year old goat, had finally waddled off into an alleyway between the wellhouse and the cabin, keeled over and died sometime early that morning. I was working from home that Friday because my farrier was due for a visit and I had delusions of grandeur about getting more stuff done if I didn’t have to commute back and forth to town twice.

Knowing that the recent deluge of rain had turned most of my smaller holding pens into an impassable bog, I decided the best way to contain the horses for their pedicure was to shoo them into the main (and much drier) corral so they’d be easier to catch. The horses had evidently woke up Friday morning, slammed 3 energy drinks each and forgot to take their anti-anxiety medication. The second I walked out to proceed with trying to herd them into the corral, they became immediately belligerent and led me on a merry steeplechase in the main alley. On my first pass by the cabin in hot pursuit of snorting, tail-up horses, I happened to look to my right and noticed a white pile of sodden mohair all in a heap. Realizing who it was, I hit the brakes to take a closer look while hoping against all hope that it would be like every other time I had found her in the last few months…down, stuck, but still alive and would pop back up with a little help and continue on her merry way. Sadly, this time, Carrie was gone.

Truthfully, she was getting very close to me calling the vet and having her put her to sleep. In the last month, the rate of decline had been pretty quick but she still appeared every day at the wellhouse door smacking her lips and looking for her grain. I figured if she was still motivated to eat and to toddle out to the pasture for a few bites of grass, she wasn’t suffering and I left her be. For the most part, she opted to go out on her own terms. I can’t argue with that.

However, that left me with a small problem as to what to do with her body. The sky was threatening another downpour and the farrier was due in under an hour. There wasn’t enough time to move a body, much less hide one. Resolving to explain the situation by indicating I don’t randomly store dead things in strange spots, I figured the farrier was a livestock kind of guy and was probably familiar with how inconvenient it is when things just drop dead with no warning.

True to fashion, he showed up right on time. I met him in the driveway and walked back to the corral with him, explaining that we had a recent tragedy and to not mind the dead goat over in the corner. He just chuckled and quipped, “If you own livestock, eventually you have deadstock.” and I nodded in agreement. Animals die. Most of the time they die in awkward or extremely messy ways guaranteed to cause the most amount of pain and suffering to their still-living owner. Eventually, you even develop enough of a callous to dead things that you don’t even bother wrinkling your nose any more when you find them. Unless there’s maggots…which I can assure you, dear reader, you don’t really need the details on those.

So picture the scene, if you will. Here I am, holding the lead rope of a horse and making idle chit-chat with the farrier as he works his way around to each foot in turn. We talk about the weather, the price of eggs, how nice each hoof looks when he gets done with it. (He’s a very good farrier and I’m a huge fan of his work.) I have a wary eye on the sky as the clouds are getting thicker and lower. There’s no wind and the sun isn’t frying us. It was almost idyllic if you didn’t look over between the buildings and see four legs sticking up in the air.

Somewhere in my reverie, a strange sound penetrates my consciousness - somewhat like an angry swarm of bumblebees. My brain starts flipping through the channels trying to think about what it might be. All of a sudden, it dawns on me that what I’m hearing is the half-gargle, half-growl of an extremely horny male alpaca. For reference, the sound is called “orgling” and you can sample what it sounds like here.

For those that aren’t aware of camelid behavior, male llamas and alpacas can pretty much put bonobo chimps to shame when it comes to amorous intent. They’ll literally try on anything for size regardless of species. Smaller livestock are often victims of their attention, but this particular alpaca has been pretty good around the goats - who more than likely jabbed him with their horns a few times until he got the point. When I heard the orgling, I started looking around trying to figure out who the victim might be. A glance behind me showed all the sheep out in the pasture. A glance over to the right showed the two remaining live goats standing in the corral watching the pedicure proceedings from a safe distance.

I experienced a slow dawning of absolute horror at suddenly finding myself in polite company and no good way to explain the decrepit goings-on in the background. My mouth and brain struggled to find the kind of words to fully encompass the situation with some tact and delicacy. I became fully, consciously, aware beyond a shadow of a doubt that my asshole alpaca had discovered a goat that couldn’t get away from him and had settled himself into a nice long session of lovemaking with what was, in his mind, a perfectly willing partner.

Yeah. My alpaca was humping a dead goat in an alley.

I cleared my throat and bravely tried to interrupt my farrier who (thankfully?) seemed completely oblivious to the activity over ‘yonder. It took two or three tries, but he finally straightened up as I apologetically tied the horse to the fence and bolted for the space between the buildings. Paco the alpaca is going to town with eyes half-closed in a complete state of bliss as I descended upon him yelling and flapping my arms. Undeterred, he hunkered down harder as if to get a better grip and I had to resort to booting him in the rear a few times. When that didn’t work, I finally reached down and grabbed his tail. Indignant that I should touch his person in such a way AND interrupt his fun, he stalked off in a huff. I turned to go back to my now bewildered farrier and horse when I hear the orgling start up again behind me. I turn around just as Paco starts to settle in for another go. Carrie has now been dead for a few hours at this point and had already started to puff up like a balloon. Adding the weight of a male alpaca on top was creating all sorts of exploding goat horror in my head and although it would be no less than what he deserved, I didn’t want to deal with the aftermath. I resumed squawking and flapping like a deranged chicken until he finally gave up and walked off.

I walked back to my farrier standing there leaning on my horse in complete disbelief. Once the equine pedicure resumed, I answered a barrage of questions about alpacas (evidently he’s a cow guy, this was all news to him) and was assured that this made number one on the list of interesting stories he would be telling his wife when he got home later. (I have a feeling it will go further than that, to be honest.)

I resorted to covering what remained of Carrie with a piece of tin until I could get her in the ground and I saw my farrier back to his pickup a short while later. He was still chuckling to himself. As he got in his pickup, he turned to me with a grin and said,

“Well, the Old Girl has still got it!”

So yeah, it turns out that of the things an alpaca will attempt to have sex with, being alive isn’t really necessary. Feel free to tuck that random bit of information in your back pocket for later.

Until next time.