Where Yogurt Lies…

We had two goats for six years.

They were twin 6 month old sisters that we bought from our local children’s zoo to be companions to our pony.

Our then 2 year old wanted to name them 6 and 7…we persuaded her to change the names from numbers to something sweeter.  She then came up with Yogurt and Tulip.  Tulip kinda stuck with her because one of the sister goats was named Tulip from the zoo staff.  Yogurt’s original name had been Ivy.  The two year old changed that to Yogurt.  It was perfect as she had a white spot on the top of her head…like a dollop of yogurt.

Yogurt died last December.  We think the horse stepped on her and broke her ankle.

Yogurt and the horse were best friends.  Yogurt would often stand right underneath the horse.  So, really, it was inevitable that she would get stepped on by her friend.  Her 800 pound friend.

Yogurt was a goat that didn’t like to be handled much.  I had to chase her around just to grab her to look at the ankle.  When I finally caught her, her ankle just flapped back and forth.  Trying to fix her ankle would have been more trouble for her than she would have liked I think.  And with her age, it may not even have healed well or at all.  So, we opted to put her down.  Man-Farmer cried hard.

We buried Yogurt in the back pasture.  We were lucky that the ground hadn’t had any snow and it wasn’t too hard when Man-Farmer went to dig a grave for a goat.

My dad made a marker for her and I wrote Yogurt’s name on it with paint.

Now that summer is here (well, it’s officially spring, but it’s 90 degrees today!) the grass in the pastures is lush and green.  Except for Yogurt’s grave.  It’s dirt.

Tulip has decided that it’s the perfect place to lay down at.

Tulip loves keeping cool in the dirt and we have found her stretched out on her sister’s burial spot.

I know I’m anthropromorphosizing here, but I like to think she’s sitting there to get closer to her twin sister who’s no longer here…telling her about the coyotes who have been howling behind the barn lately and about the newest group of crazy chickens running around the barnyard.