Farm Fresh Blog

People in my office are used to getting strange reasons for why I'm late. I can't even surprise them anymore. Yesterday was no exception:

Am driving to work in the rain. Am also on the phone with Dear Friend Jeannie. Abruptly interrupt her to exclaim that two goats are on the highway. YES! Two white goats are walking down the white line of  a major highway. Most people were just whizzing by them. Most people. Not me. No, I'm a crazy person who does a u-turn, in the rain, on a busy highway, to rescue two idiot goats, no doubtedly owned by idiots.

Let me paint this picture: I want you to imagine two white goats wearing orange extension cords. (If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'!) Yes! Orange extension cords! The smallest goat is wearing a collar of frayed orange extension cords that have been wrapped multiple times around her neck. She is dragging a frayed three foot segment of extension cord.  The larger goat is wearing a large, wide orange dog collar. (WIDE - like a fighting dog's collar) Tied to the orange collar is - guess what?!!  An orange extension cord!  The cord is about 12 feet long and was tied to - a tire!  The goat hunkers down, leans into the collar, and drags that tire down the road like a draft horse.

I've seen some crazy shit in my lifetime, but a pair of white goats wearing extension cords, dragging a tire in the rain down a busy highway stacks right up there.  After my brain has a moment to process what I've just seen, (and I report it to Dear Friend Jeannie) I pull into a parking lot and commence to wrangle goats. I grab an extension cord and start reeling in the goat like a marlin. The goats are less than happy to have me save them from a certain close encounter with the grill of a fast-moving Chevy. 

After much pulling and cussing, I get both goats off the highway. I can only imagine what oncoming traffic must have thought - a police officer in uniform, rolling a tire and dragging two goats down the side of the road - in the rain.

WTF!!! (I do not doubt that people almost ran off the road watching us.)

Once safely off the road, I now point them at safer grass behind the bakery while I pause to ponder my dilemma. 

Where did they come from? What am I going to do with them? I'm going to be late for work, again . . .

Tackle Problem #1: Where did they come from?  I leave the goats wrapped around debris behind the bakery while I stomp off toward a strip center to ask.  I knock on four doors before I find a business open. The insurance agents are quite polite when I ask them, "Do you know who owns those damned goats?"

Yes they did! Apparently they have rescued these two in the past.  The goats belong at a mobile home beside a church in the distance.  Okie dokie. Hike back to goats. They are still there but are being worried by a large white Akita-looking-mutt.  I yell at him as he barks at them. He looks at my badge and tells me to f@#* off.  I yell at him again. He calls me a few names over his shoulder and lopes off toward the mobile home.

The goats, who have not bothered to thank me for saving them from certain death on the highway, thank me for removing the dog.  I drive toward the mobile home.  I'm about 6 feet from the door of my truck when I figure out the dog lives here. Rut ro!  Dat's a Big Dawg.

Fortunately I make it to the front porch while he's still pissin' on my tires.  Three cats slither around the porch to avoid my gaze. Orange extension cords are running out of the house, under the door, and at that point, I lose interest in following their path. The light bulb on the porch light is cockeyed and half-filled with rainwater. These people aren't living too far away from the living conditions of the goats. I knock at the door.

And that's when I remember that I'm in a police uniform. Often people who live like this DO NOT like the police. Double Rut ro! I stand to the side of the doorway and knock again. From inside I hear silverwear being thrown together. Someone is home. I say a silent prayer that I do not get shot for walking into a meth lab/dope house/coyote den. 

I have no back-up. No one but Dear Friend Jeannie and the insurance agents know I'm here. Dear Friend Jeannie has no idea where this is and the insurance agents don't care. I wonder if two goats are worth getting killed over. I would NEVER have let this happen on-duty. See?!! See what goats do to you! As I contemplate this, the door swings open.

That's it. The door swings open like a horror movie. No one is there. It just opens. On its own.  That's when I decide I have no intention of dying for two goats. These folks need to know what I'm doing here right here and now!

"YOUR GOATS ARE OUT AND THEY'RE ON HIGHWAY 6!!!  You need to come get YOUR GOATS!"

A young Mexican man comes bouncing through the kitchen.  "My GOATS!"

"Yes! Your goats are out! I got them off the highway but you need to come bring them home."

And just like that, he was okay with me. He and I are both clearly relieved. At the moment I am not the law. I am someone who got his goats off the highway. And that's all I wanted to be. I didn't look at anything in that kitchen. I didn't look at anything outside. Like Sergeant Schultz on Hogan's Heroes "I SEE NOTHING!"

As he catapults into his little Nissan and drives off in search of his goats, I climb in my truck and drive off to The Big City . . . where it's safe, sorta.

At least there I expect to find danger, not goats wearing extension cords and dragging tires down the streets.

And THAT Dear Friends, is why I showed up late for work, yet again . . . wet and muddy.

OH! And the above photo is NOT one of those goats. That's one of my old goats. When I finally got to the office, Dear Friend Fergus Fernandez asked "Did you take a picture of them?"

CRAP! I forgot! This little adventure was so bizarre you would have thought I would at least have photographed the goat dragging the tire. DUH!  So not only am I wet and muddy, and late, but I have absolutely no proof that it even happened!