A Hill With Goats On Top

To a ten-year-old boy, recently moved from a small town to an even more rural area of Vermont, simple things like a tree or a secluded clearing in the woods can offer vast amounts of comfort. So, too, could the small but incredibly steep hill just behind our new house.

I had come across the word "hummock," in a book I was reading, which described the hill precisely--short, incredibly steep and flat-topped. This hummock, probably grown slowly around a boulder left by a passing glacier thousands of years ago, shoved up into the sky even higher than the roof of our new house, which was a rambling three-family affair on a stretch of interstate highway south of Stowe. It, along with the various climbing trees scattered around our property, became my safe havens, where I could bring a book and a sanwich, or stash my dreams of starships and adventure, later of starships with girls on them.

The fact that I was blind didn't keep me out of the trees, and certainly didn't keep me off the top of the hummock. I didn't need to see to be able to climb, run around or follow a path through the woods around the edge of our acre and a half of land; I knew it all by heart.

In the winter, I would sled down the steepest face of the hummock; a short but stomach-wrenching ride with a sharp right-hand turn at the bottom to avoid running into our back steps. In the summer, with the tall grass sheltering flowers, the buzz of insects and the hot sun making everything lazy and slow, it was a launching pad for rockets, a place to fly a kite and, later, to put the antenna for my Ham radio station. When my father decided to rent out part of our house, it became our new tenant's place to pen her goats.

We had lived, for the two years previous to moving to the Hummock House (that's what it was called on our checks and letterhead), in an apartment complex, and no pets were allowed. I had a gerbil in a cage, but I have to say I didn't laern much about animals from Squirt the gerbil, and he died shortly after we moved. However, in rural Vermont, livestock was more the norm, and while many people probably heard of a lease with a goat clause, we decided to give it a try.

Sue came to live in our next-door apartment and put her goats on top of the hummock. When she offered to teach me to milk them, I jumped at the chance with my typical ten-year-old hyperactive enthusiasm.

I had never even milked a cow before, much less a goat, and I was told that goats are harder to milk than cows--more stubborn about it, and not as even-tempered when it came to things like cold little boy hands on their teats. That was another thing; goats have teats, cow's have udders. Before puberty, it is just this blissfully simple.

Teats are smaller, too. However, like all domesticated milk-giving animals, teats get uncomfortable when full of milk and a goat, even if it is cranky and keeps shifting about, really does want to be free of all that weight dragging it down painfully. Goats just want you to do it their way. I was told all this by Sue, the "goat lady," as I came to think of her (it was a term of flattery from a 10-year-old boy), and with some trepedation on everyone's part I climbed the short, steep face of the hummock to where they wre kept on the top.

I remember that it was winter, so cold sometimes that it hurt to breathe. The scent of wood smoke was ever-present, from our chimney as well as from others up and down the highway. Wood smoke can drift for miles on a clear night with a breathe of breeze to push it slowly along. Sometimes I thought, in the moments of cold, still clarity that are winter nights in northern Vermont, that I could feel the pinpoints of light from the stars tickling my skin.

Goats have a strong odor. It can take your breath away, but it's not unpleasant, as long as they are well cared for and healthy, and these were. They are not very affectionate animals in the conventional sense, though they will come around and investigate you. They don't purr when you pet them, or wag their tails in greeting, sometimes they don't seem to care if you come or go. They are, however, glad for food, and relieved when they are milked.

Until we moved to the Hummock House, I hadn't known much about animals other than dogs and cats. I killed the goldfish I won at a fair when I was six by petting it. Squirt the Gerbil didn't provide me much of an education, other than that clean cedar shavings are one of the best scents in the world, and that exercise wheels need to be regularly oiled, or they will keep you awake at night.

I didn't know what to expect, but neither did I have any preconceptions, so when the goats bleated at me, rather than purring or wagging, I wasn't too put off. Once happily distracted by goat feed, which Sue showed me how to apportion for each goat, they could be milked. She showed me how to massage the teats first, warming them and drawing the milk down toward the nipple. "don't just squeeze the end, she's not a ketchup bottle. Instead, use a circular motion and grasp the teat with one hand at the base and one hand further down, and start by pressing upward toward her belly, then drawing gently downward while squeezing gently and steadily." With a little practice, I was able to hear the satisfying sound of milk squirting into the metal pail placed for this purpose in front of the goat's hind hooves.

They were a little skittish at first, but once the goats (whose names I cannot, for the life of me, remember) got used to my scent and my presence, and if I remembered to warm my hands in my armpits first, even the crankier of the two settled down and let me milk her. I never developed a taste for goat's milk, but I was still filled with wonder the moment I put it together that this was where milk came from--be it a cow or a goat, this was the raw form of the stuff in the plastic carton in the fridge. It was a substance from a living creature, not something produced in a factory.

Aim is very important when milking a goat, especially if the goat lady is crouching opposite you milking the other goat. "Watch it," she cried, laughter in her voice, "you just squirted me!" I felt warmth and wetness against the front of my coat, the odor of fresh goat's milk wafted into my face and heard the wet sound as Sue squirted me back playfully. Warmth spread from the impact point. Always eager for horse play, even with goats, this time I aimed for her and, with a shriek of laughter, a teat fight ensued.

Before Super SOakers and water cannon, there was, placidly munching away on feed pellets and loaded with hot white ammo, teat wars! Goats not only provided ammunition but you could take cover behind them and keep from getting splatted. In theory. The goats seemed to sense the mood and something about the way they stood and the sounds they made seemed happier in response. Needless to say, not much milk got into the pails that night and my mother had a fit when she saw my new Carter's winter jacket liberally stained with flaky white residue and smelling like goat's milk.

The epitome came when Sue went away for a weeks' vacation. Someone had to take care of the goats, and I eagerly applied for the job. Twenty whole dollars for a week of feeding them and milking them and brushing out the knots in their coats. I got the usual lecture about responsibility, and taking my duty seriously, and it was with great pride and somber dignity that I began my chore.

I was a pretty short, skinny kid--about four feet nine, maybe 70 pounds--when I was ten. While the goats were not taller than me, they outweighed me and were probably stronger than I was. Suddenly, there I was, little old me facing animals eager for food, cranky with the weight of milk dragging at them, and wondering where the heck their real caretaker was. It was a humbling moment.

Still, I had a job to do, and great responsibility weighed on my skinny shoulders, and I proceeded, with trembling hands, to feed and take care of the goats. When it came time to milk them, I remembered to warm my hands in my armpits first, then squatted, assuming the milking position.

I remember, free from the distraction of talking to Sue and of hearing her move about, free even from her presence, how the creature in front of me filled my senses. Her smell, so strong that it became intimate, filled with the knowledge of living different from my living. Her soft, even breath moved her flanks regularly in and out, coarse, curly hair shifting against my palm as I caressed her gently, preparing her for milking, reassuring her that everything was alright. The soft sound of her eating, the rumble of digestion, loud where I squatted next to her.

I knelt on cold ground, the earth frozen hard and the snow long since trampled into mud which had frozen. Under my hand I distinctly felt the imprint, preserved in the frozen ground, of a hoof. This was the first track I ever became aware of; a footprint left behind which can tell volumes about what made the track and how it passed through. As my hands found her teats, a deep calm, feeling like a surrender, stole over me. In minute shifts and subtle sounds, sensing a soft whisper deep inside me, I could tell when I had placed my hands wrong, or when I was pinching a fold of skin. A gladness seemed to echo in me when I got it right, milk splashing rhythmically into the pail, the sound changing from a hollow metal ringing sound to a softer, more liquid sound as the pail filled. It was as if I could sense the energy of the goat, allowing me to take from her the nourishment meant for her young. I wondered if she knew that it nourished us. I could feel her relief as the weight was lifted from her. In my ten-year-old way, I realized that her giving this stuff of life was as sacred an act as my taking it from her should be. From then on until I had earned my 20 dollars and even after, until Sue moved out, taking her goats with her, I made it a point to say Please before milking the goats, and to say thank you afterward.

That first night, when I had finished and lingered for a moment to pet the goats and make sure they were all set for the night, I paused to stand at the brow of the hummock. A cold winter night, still and clear and silent, was clamping ruthlessly down on the Earth. Things seemed intensely clear for me at that instant; smells of smoke and of cooking food, far-off swish of cars on the highway, feel of the cold ground pressing upward against the soles of my boots, the smallest puff of breeze only making the stillness even deeper.

I threw back my head as a wave of exuberant delight started at my feet and welled up through me. It carried me down the hill in a flail of gawky limbs and a , wild, childish shout of laughter. It had no words, that laughter, and if you had asked me then why, at that moment, every cell in my being was joyous to the point of aching, I could not have told you. I felt a oneness, a gentleness which moves through all things, wash through me that night. It has been my life's mission to understand that oneness ever since.

July 20, 2004.<

Meant to be published alongside
Where the Sun Hums
instead, this essay has recently been published by
Magnets and Ladders
for which I am very grateful. More essays in the theme of alternatively developing awareness seem called for. Read more writing, or
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