Goat Duty

Okay so West View (the camp Shalom is linked with, the one I stay on this summer) has four goats. They have a fenced in area on the side of a hill across from the lake, but they often jump the fence and walk around camp. On Thursday, all the goats had escaped and were near the fishing doc on the lake walking around. The nice goat Marty fell off the doc and started drowning. Luckily, there were counselors around and two couselors rescued Marty. Things were not looking good though. Marty was very bloated and his lungs had a lot of water in them; also, his legs looked broken and he couldn't stand up. Rumors were spreading around camp, of course. Everyone thought Marty was dying. Thursday afternoon, Greg (the head maintenance man) took a trailer and transported Marty back to the goat pen and put him under a tree so he would be shaded. Gomez (the camp program director) knows I love animals and so he roped me into being on goat duty while Marty recovers and to make sure he doesn't die. I couldn't say no. Blair Bean came to visit yesterday afternoon until this afternoon. Tangent: Blair and I had such a blast: we harvested melons yesterday, sat by the lake, went to camp dinner, made no-bake cookies, watched a movie; this morning we fixed breakfast then took a walk to the river. Such a great visit:) Back to the goats: Blair and I were bringing Marty food and water and checking on him. Everyone said his legs were broken... I don't think so! We totally found him walking around yesterday. I was really happy to see that! Although he was falling some and he looked very weak. I think his hip may be out of socket. The other goats were also bullying him when we were trying to give him food, which made me really mad. So I had to take the dominant goat (Boe) on. I had to grab him by the horns and push them down to the ground to put him in his place. He pushed back, but I showed him who was boss. Blair and I looked like such clowns walking around in that goat pen.. y'all all would have died laughing at us trying to care for Marty and fend off the the other crazy goats. Anyways, I was really worried about Marty yesterday but today I feel a lot more confident about his recovery.

This is Marty: such a sweety

Marty is on the right and there are two other goats

This is Boe: the aggressive one.. Eating leaves from a tree