Too late for Lucy

Morning chores brought tears to my eyes. Lucy is succombing to the meningeal deerworms brought on my eating the slugs. I carried her out of the pen as gently as I could and put together some hay for her to lie down on. I can't bring myself to actually do the deed of putting her down. I have to let her go naturally. I don't think she is suffering much. She's not crying out in pain, nor is she thrashing around. The doggone deerworms are doing their worst. And there is absolutely nothing that I can do. This has been such a tough year for us with our animals. Lucy and Brian take the cake, tho. They were great goats. It was tough to bury Brian, it will be tougher to bury Lucy. It's not that I like Lucy more or better than Brian, but I'm sick of burying goats. And cats.  Luke, the German shepherd, is doing just fine. He doesn't sleep much, but he's still pretty healthy. He's 11. Kayleigh, the Golden Retriever, is 9, and other than her snoring, she's still going strong. Harley, the Doberman, is still very much a puppy. But she's only 2 years old, so she should be.

Getting back to the goats ... Brian was always so very silly. We have so many pictures of Brian where all we see is his head above the gate. In looking at these pictures, you wouldn't think that he even had a body! Brian was the goat we took to church. We could lead him around everywhere! He behaved so well in church, and made a great addition to the sermon about the use of a scapegoat by the Israelites.

Lucy was a great mamma. She was probably the best mamma we've ever had! One of her and Freddie's kids was a best in show grand champion Pygmy goat this past summer. Her little Willow is a show goat now, earning ribbons and championships. She was always so calm and loved her chin being scratched. She was the first goat we purchased with a beard. We nearly named her Aunt Ruth, after the VeggieTales song.