Edwina Cleverbrain passed away last Saturday. She was around 9 or 10 years old. We miss our beautiful grey goat, also known as lady E or the fairest of the fairies (zana zanelor). She will be remembered for the rest of our days. After Edwina (and Devina, who has been gone for a number of years now), my children believe that all fairies are goat-like. After all, why should they look like humans? When James was little, and he'd see goat poop anywhere, James would say "caca zana zanelor".
I find it difficult to write about her departure since we loved her so very much. Mihai started this obituary. I am not sure I could have done it. Edwina had been the matriarch of our goat family. She leaves behind a family 10, which includes her three daugthers: Eva (3 years old), Edith (2 years old) and Emma (1 year old), and a kid, Emil, who is about one week old. Each of her daughters also have kids of their own. They are all male this year.
Everynone cried when Edwina died. We will miss you, Edwina! When you left, you took away a bit of our soul. Edwina was buried in the South China Sea, or at least that is Mihai's opinion of her final resting place. Although it brings little confort for now, her memory will stay with us fovever. Edwina is a caracter in our next book: Globe Waddling with Narcissus . My children imagine her as one of the fairies of the fields, who now spends her energy protecting the world.
What happened? When we were away, a neighbour fed the goats corn every two days. She is too old to feed them hay daily. When we returned for Easter the children and I moved the goats to another yard where they had some fresh grass. This seemed to have resulted in a deadly mix for Edwina, who was older, and perhaps had had a bit more corn than the others being a dominant goat. There was no autopsy. So, we will never know for sure if there was any added pathology beyond age and circumstances. It's a harsh reminder to not make sudden changes when one returns...
Emil has surrvived the past week with milk from Eva or Edith who are being held onto to feed him -- in addition to her own kids. Andy is dissapointed in their reluctance to help a fellow goat. However, Edward (my 12 year old) understands them: "Eva feels just like you would if you had to breastfeed Mihai." The reluctance is manifested in two ways: 1) all female goats run away when Emil gets close and 2) if they are force to feed him they struggle to get away or to bite him.
Even though our goats are very friendly, it is difficult to find anyone from the younger generation (under 50) to care for them when we are away. In addition to being great company, they are wonderful lawnmowers. Yet people perefer to cut the grass with electric or gas based mowers intead of interacting with goats. I still have a full time job in Spain. So, caring for them is a challenge.
