Woman Shorn

And she said unto him, "If I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other farm animal. Plus you can't cut hair very well."

“The winds of change are at first a breeze and then a whirlwind,” Kit pronounced quietly, but forcefully, with the dignity of a queen who had been exiled, but expected a prompt re-enthronement from a fate sympathetic to her plight.  She was confident, but worn down, wearing this fatigue on her tired face.  Not the kind of tiredness that you wake up with after a poor night’s sleep, but the kind that is thrust upon you by outside forces day after day like barnacles on the bottom of a ship.  Nevertheless, while we spoke her graciousness never left her.

She looked up to the heavens, “Not all breezes turn into whirlwinds, but when they do, worlds are turned upside down; right is made wrong; wrong made right; the order of the universe, disrupted.”

“It was divine design,” she continued, “that made me who I am and it was divine design that brought me here to lovingly guide this herd and keep them out of danger.  That is why I cannot allow others, strong though they think they be, to usurp authority and bring chaos into our community, wool or no wool.  Though let me be clear, I do not begrudge Brie, the strong-willed white goat, the power that is in her.  In my infancy, when my capacities were necessarily limited, she played an important role, preparing the way for my leadership, but–” she stopped abruptly.

“Have I told you about how I came to be, I mean, how I got to this station in life,” she asked without pausing for an answer, “It wasn’t by my own merits.  No.  Most definitely not.    I was born a lowly Icelandic lamb in the West Virginian mountains of two polled parents (that is to say they were hornless).  My father was a bit of a philanderer, though it shames me to say it, and my mother, poor dear, couldn’t bear the sight of me.  She was so certain I’d die–I was premature–that she refused to give me milk.  The shepherdess, a kindly woman, took me in and nursed me herself (with a bottle, mind you) or found wet nurses from the herd to provide for me.  Even with this extra attention, my future was uncertain.  My little body frame, awkward and weak, was so oddly shaped that the first name I had in the whole, wide world was ‘Peanut.’  But fate took an interest in me and preserved me.”

Kit and a Kindly Gentleman

“Shortly thereafter, some kindly gentlemen came to the door of the shepherdess, the kindly shepherdess.  Though I was but a wee one with a brittle-looking, peanut-shaped body, both the gentlemen and the shepherdess saw greatness in me.  Inspiration struck all around that day and it wasn’t long before I was being brought home in the backseat of a Toyota Corolla.  Though it was far away and I hadn’t been there yet, I already knew it as home because at heart I felt that it was.”

“And it was.   It was.  It was.  It was.  In more ways than one.  Fate had found me.  It had preserved me.  And here it lifted me up.”

Kit (front) and Kaboodle (back)

“It wasn’t like that at first though,” she quickly interjected.  “I was still the same, premature, little Icelandic lamb.  Kaboodle, my younger half-sister who came with me from West Virginia, must have been twice my size.  And when I arrived, there were two Nigerian goats that were even bigger.  They call them “dwarfs,” but they didn’t look like that to me then.  They were older in age and more developed and Brie was leading the pack–well, technically herd.  Brie is a goodhearted goat, but a hard leader.  Like I said, she is strong-willed.  Once she feels she has the power, she wildly, to put it mildly, pushes her weight around, often straying from leadership to tyranny.  I remember all too vividly brusque head bunts at the side of my stomach as I was only trying to eat a little grain.  She lacks the temperate nature that is requisite for all wise leaders.”

“Looking back though, I think even this time of hardship was necessary for my growth and development as another requisite for wise leaders is experience.  Brie forced me to stand up for myself to push back.  And push I did.  For all Brie’s head-bunting, she could not halt the hands of fate for fate had selected me to be above her and above the herd.  As time pressed forward, I grew and developed and became wiser.  My body lost its peanut appearance.  My face became more pronounced.  And my wool made me appear even stronger and fearless than perhaps I was.  Perhaps, most proof of fate’s hand in my ascendancy was my burgeoning horns.    Me, the progeny of two polled parents, suddenly sprouting two sturdy curled sabers atop my head?  Unheard-of!  The gentlemen farmers were perplexed.  They had purposely set about having a herd of non-horned animals.  The shepherdess scratched her head, insisting it was not possible.  Nevertheless, there they were.”

“With all of these physical and mental advantages coming together all at the same time, the other ladies of the herd donned a new respect for me.  Kaboodle, already a loyal sister, became even more so.  Eliza, always an independent goat, simply made note of the change in leadership.  Brie also acknowledged her inferior place in the herd and withdrew with, what I must say, was admirable dignity.  There seemed to be a tacit agreement in place of my leadership over the herd.  Things were settled.  Things were right.  There was order.  Unfortunately, they wouldn’t remain so,” Kit glanced over at Brie who strode gleefully and confidently across the yard, a new brilliance radiated from her.  It was the brilliance of prospective triumph.  The tiredness on Kit’s face became more apparent as she turned her head towards her newly shaven back.  She winced a little and resumed speaking.

Thor, Our Peaceable Ram

“The first breeze came with these new leaves, these new buds, this new heat that the sun spews forth.  These were the first signs of change, but I didn’t notice them at first.  Then Thor, our peaceable ram who resides in the pen next to ours became awfully congested and was having trouble breathing.  All day long, there was a loud, incessant panting.  It was worrisome.    One of the gentleman farmer’s treated him with medicine, but feared that the increasingly hot temperatures were exacerbating his condition.  Our billowy woolen cloaks are advantageous to us for a lot of things, but not the heat.”

“With a sense of urgency, the kindly human fellow took his automatic shearers in hand and slid it through Thor’s dense wool, reaping it like one would a wheat field.  In a relatively short period of time, Thor’s loud panting subsided and his breathing became more relaxed.  As I saw Thor trot happily outside of the barn, I was satisfied that we could all breathe easier now.”  Kit pawed the ground with her right hoof, looking like she was going to add something, but decided to refrain.  She stated simply, “Thor’s shearing was a second, stronger breeze and I should have felt it.”

“As time went on,” she continued, “the temperatures continued to rise.  It was becoming stuffy in our wool coats, noble though they are.  One day, the kindly gentlemen filled up a whole bucket of feed and placed it on the wooden milking stand.  Kaboodle, the fat one–the fatter one, the more rotund one” Kit qualified her original phrasing thinking it came across better, “barreled through the gate before any of us could get a chance.  But instead of hearing contented munching, I heard a lot of shuffling, frantic bleating, and human shouting.  Admittedly, there was some contented munching going on.  Nevertheless, the whole to-do sounded so chaotic that frankly I began to lose my nerve.  Yet when Kaboodle re-emerged safe and sound and full, though looking a little  like a cheaply upholstered couch, I forgot my panic.  So when the shaking-of-the-feed sound echoed again in my ears, I determined that I would be first out the door and onto the milking stand.  Munching contentedly, I wasn’t aware of much except for the food in front of my face, not even the shearer that was running up and down my back.  It was only when the shearer touched the back of my leg that the panic returned.  I was seized upon by a panic that was incomprehensible to me at a time.  I fought hard.  It required two humans to hold me down and finish the shearing.  Only now do I understand that the same fate that took interest in me, preserved me, and lifted me up, was now frantically trying to warn me of a potential downfall.  Being the herd leader, I had more to lose than Thor, Kaboodle, or any of the other animals in being sheared.  Looking down at the wool littering the floor, I began to understand that the whirlwind had just occurred.”

“I walked boldly into my pen as usual, but  a new self-consciousness had arisen in me.  The goats and sheep looked differently at me as I entered.  My wool had given me an appearance of fearlessness and strength.  In fact, it had almost doubled my size.  I was still the same sheep, but I didn’t feel the same.  I saw myself as I imagined they saw me: smaller, weaker, vulnerable.   Sensing weakness, Brie smirked.  Such a nice goat, why was she so easily possessed by the devil?”

“Gazing over the sheep and goats staring at me wide-eyed, I walked into the yard in the pen and calmly lied down in the corner.  The other animals followed me out of the barn.  Kaboodle moseyed on over and selected a spot in close proximity to myself.  Eliza darted back and forth a couple of times, unleashing some energy.  Brie, not lifting her eyes from me, walked right up to me, went up on her hind legs in her attack pose, and came crashing down at me.  I got up and moved out of the way.  She came at me again.  And again.  And again.  Relentless head bunts.  I had no choice but to run, so I ran, ran like I did when I was a sickly lamb.  Soon the entire pen was in turmoil.  Sheep were scuffling with goats.  Goats were scuffling with each other.  It appeared to be an all out civil war.  Every cloven-hoofed creature for itself.”

Brie and Kit Face Off

“And then he appeared, the benevolent farmer, the same one who sheared me, who , by shearing me, unwittingly started an uprising and undermined my God-given role as herd leader.  He opened the door and Kaboodle and I scurried out for a momentary reprieve.  That’s why I’m here now, catching my breath.  I forgave the farmer in passing–he knows not what he does,” she let out casually, suddenly becoming less formal, “and neither do you,” noting that I was the one who assisted in the shearing.

“Very well.  What is done is done.  I needed another challenge to be secure in my strength” she affirmed confidently but with the same weary face, “and on the bright side, it is much cooler without my billowy, woolen cloak.  In all honesty, I don’t know if I could have survived the summer with it, self-sacrificial though I may be.  That’s why I do what I do, why I serve as herd leader, you know?  Because I have the needed inner strength to sacrifice personal comfort for what’s in the best interest of everyone.  Because it’s the right thing to do.  Because fate wants it.  And about that Brie, she thinks this is a revolution?  She is wrong.”