R.I.P. Beebs

Friday 4 July 2014. An icy cold morning, while the construction guys are busy preparing to pour the concrete floor slab on the extension. I make my way through the icy grass to Goat Hill with the ration of hay for Jacko and Beebs’ breakfast.

(Above): Beebs with his glistening brindle/white coat and huge floppy ears on a better day.

Goats are strange creatures, pretty much loners, but always pleased to have some human company for a while, and these two are no different. As I round the corner of the garden at the veggie patch, I can hear Jacko’s maaa-maaa bleat. Nothing wrong with his ears, I muse.

(Above): Jacko, eager as ever to grab first at the bunch of hay. There is no word in the goat dictionary for “wait”. He insists on having a few sample morsels before you are permitted to put the bulk of the food into the feeding tray. That’s Jacko’s Rule.

He digs in without further invitation, creating sounds of someone chewing away at a crisp cucumber. He is able to make hay eating sound quite juicy and delicious.

I look around for Beebs, who always stands back for his horned colleague and prefers to eat separately. There is a strange silence. Ominous. I cannot see him.

I stroll around behind their goat-abode and see a brown furry form lying on the grass at the top of the slope. It is Beebs. There is no response to my call, which he would recognise.

Whilst we tend to personify animals, I must emphasise that Beebs was treated as a family pet and not as livestock, so we give him a burial befitting your trusty dog or favourite cat. Tyler kindly acts as grave-digger prepares the grave at the bottom end of the hill. It is tough going, hard clay ground strewn with plenty stones and small rocks.

We act as pall-bearers, carrying the limp carcass down the long sloping pathway, with Jacko in tow. I am sure he understands absolutely nothing of the current situation, or about the “journey” being undertaken by the Late Beebs, but nevertheless he tags along to see what is happening.

We reach the “cemetery” spot, which is ready the accept its first resident, and Jacko starts nibbling at some fresh roots which had been dug up by the grave-dig. I’ve heard of funeral wakes, but never where the mourners starts gobbling the nosh before the burial! But, hey, that’s the World of Goats for you…

(Above): Having completed the necessaries, we pack some rocks a-la-dogs-breakfast style to allow for a bit of subsidence, and gather up the pickaxe and shovel.

(Above): Ever-curious Jacko stands at the graveside for quite some time after we have left. From the top of Goat Hill, I can see him, still standing down there. Who knows what is going through his head? If anything at all… He’s a livestock, after all.

A goat has died. Quite ordinary on any farm, nothing earth-shattering. However, Beebs will be missed by the family, perhaps he will be missed by Jacko… if Jacko is intelligent to notice that he is now alone.