Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Inspirational Reading (the goat edition)

Tonight I'm up late glued to a book called "Goat Song". Yes, really.

Who am I, and why have I got the Goat Fever all of a sudden? I'm simply besotted of my sweet, curious, playful little goats, and I can't get enough information about them at the moment. It is my unfortunate experience, however, that most critter-related reading is either the cold and clinical kind or - worse yet - the I wub my putty-tat!!! variety. Egads, NO. No Chicken Soup for the Goatherd's Soul, for me, thank you.

Goat Song is actually quite poetically written, by a man who's relationship with his goats has become, by his own description, a quiet, symbiotic paradise of a sort. He describes the milking of his does as a time of quiet meditation for he and the doe alike. He further details the nitty-gritty, down and dirty details of animal keeping (sometimes in very graphic detail), interspersed with bits of the story of the history of the human/herd animal relationship through the millennia, with heavy meditations on what it means to be so life-and-death linked with another creature whom you sustain and in turn sustains you. It's good reading - educational, inspirational and so sweetly written.

In the end, it really just compels me to dive further and faster into this goat herding thing for the joy and satisfaction that there is to be found in it.

And his description of eating his hours-old chèvre rolled in homegrown herbs or honey is enough to get me chomping at the bit to get our Miss Gertie bred this fall.

4 comments:

  1. Sounds like a good book. Chevre, how I love thee!!!

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  2. Goat song actually means "tragedy."

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  3. I am always learning something from you, Jen! I shall now furthermore substitute goat song where I would have previously used tragedy. Them new zoning regulations is one hell of a goat song, I tell ya! Oh, yes, I do like the sound of that.

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  4. I really likes goats. I think there is a sense of spirituality when close to nature and working in unison. I hope you get to have a herd of goats!

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