Farewell Melissa and Tom

Those who followed my blog at 360 know I use to spend a lot of time at our pasture and frequently made entries about our goats. I've been less involved in the day to day activities during the past year or two. I don't even know exactly how many goats we have at this point, but I do try to keep tabs on some of the older goats... ones with names and distinct personalities. It saddens me to report that we lost Melissa and Tom this week.

Tom (along with Ma and Jolly) was one of the first goats we bought. They were purchased while we were still clearing our pasture in order to help with the brush. We think Ma and Tom were about a year old when we got them and never were sure of Jolly's relationship to them. As we added goats to our herd, Tom established his dominance and remained "top dog...er, goat" until the end. Despite a few run-ins with him (see my "Killer Goat" entry at 360), I was quite fond of Tom and will miss him. My husband saw that he was dead Wednesday morning , but couldn't get to his body because of all the water. Sadly, the buzzards had already started in by the time he was able to bury him yesterday and he wasn't able to verify the cause of death. We're assuming he drowned.

Melissa and DR were Shelley's first set of twins born in July of 2005. They were handled often as kids which made them more like pets than just livestock. DR was sold when they were about a year old. Melissa remained here and had several kids of her own. Melissa's body was discovered yesterday morning in one of the cows' watering holes and had obviously been chased there by dogs (dog tracks led up to the water). Goats do not like water as it is, and with the remnants of Gustav... well, there was a lot more water than normal.

I've taken many pictures of Tom over the years. The one I've used here is the most recent, taken two months ago. The photo of Melissa (at the top) is one of my favorites. It was taken in September of '05 when she was about 2 months old. I'll miss those goats.