For the most part things have been smooth around here. Every day has its random, unexpected event, but for the most part we haven’t had any major blow-ups. Except for one. It took me a bit to write about it because I don’t really like writing about when crappy stuff happens. There’s enough of that in the world, you don’t need to hear it from us too. But when something happens that other people could learn from I do want to share it.
Literally the day we moved to the farm my sister met us at the house. We don’t see each other too frequently so it was great to have her here for a special time. Part of her reason for coming down was to bring her cat. She’s moving and going through some life changes at the moment and her cat, Billy Goat (a female), needed a new home. Billy Goat was born on a farm, but had since been transitioned to an indoor life. We decided to adopt BG and eventually transition her to a “barn cat”.
For the first two weeks BG was terrified of her new home. She practically lived under our bathroom sink and would only come out every so often at night. Eventually, she started to warm up to us and would come out a bit during the day and let us pet her. At some point we felt that she could handle life in the barn. And she did. We put her out and she met Sophie and our adopted dog Ginger and she left the guineas and chickens alone. At night we would catch glimpses of her running around in the yard and in the daytime she’d sleep and relax in her various hiding places. So far so good.
Then we got the big girls. Izzy and Sheba. Bringing on two huge dogs to a place with a lot of little animals is kind of stressful. I was nervous about it for weeks beforehand. You don’t know the temperament of the dogs and you can’t be 100% sure what’s going to happen. All of my focus was on the goats and Sophie. I forgot about BG.
So when we introduced the big girls to the goats and Sophie and everything went well I thanked my lucky stars and slept well that night. But BG didn’t. BG went on one of her nightly strolls and came upon a big dog that she had never seen before. Three days later I would find BG in the field. Dogs barking at the vultures in the sky. No blood, no gore, just a lifeless cat that my sister had entrusted to me. I hadn’t thought to introduce her to the new girls. Maybe it would’ve turned out the same even if I had. I’ll never know.
RIP Billy Goat, sorry I let ya down. You too sis.
