Goodbye to a special goat- we ❤️ you Don Pedro!
15 years ago our oldest daughter Lila sat us down and told us we had better hurry up and get her some goats because "we were farm" people and she needed to tell her kids she grew up on a farm. She was in middle school. We had no experience with goats, but followed her advice and brought home two pet goats and some chickens for her sister that summer. Don Pedro was one of them and he has been with through every step as we discovered Lila was 110% right. In the years since, we learned how to care for, breed, birth, and milk goats. Lila and her sister Tess grew up on a farm and now we have three grandkids who also can say the same. Max, the oldest, frequently comes over to hold and sing to the new babies. Donnie P. has greeted every visitor at their car, and made a sweet first impression. He was a free range goat, spending the day waiting for new friends outside the shop, or watching the Patriots with my brother and Chris in the garage and stealing tortilla chips, or supervising all farm work, or watching over the new goat kids each year like a patient uncle.
The part of this video where he is watching the kids from outside the barn was taken just an hour or so before he had what we believe was a stroke. I am glad he did not decline slowly, he was to epic for that. He spent the morning wooing our Air BnB guests, checking on the shop, and soaking up the sun.
Life on the farm is always a mix of heart ache and joy, but this one is especially tough. I hate to share bad news, but I know those of you who follow the farm closely would want to know he died. There are no words. Just a big warm space filled with all the love he brought to the farm and so many hearts. He was not A goat, he was THE G.O.A.T. 15 years was not close to enough time! We are so grateful to him for being there for Chris and me through every moment of creating the farm!
Our friend Joanne shared this quote awhile back:
“The Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert talk about the two ‘hungers’.There is the Great Hunger and there is the Little Hunger. The Little Hunger wants food for the belly; but the Great Hunger, the greatest hunger of all, is the hunger for meaning...
There is ultimately only one thing that makes human beings deeply and profoundly bitter, and that is to have thrust upon them a life without meaning.
There is nothing wrong in searching for happiness. But of far more comfort to the soul is something greater than happiness or unhappiness, and that is meaning. Because meaning transfigures all. Once what you are doing has for you meaning, it is irrelevant whether you're happy or unhappy. You are content - you are not alone in your Spirit - you belong.”
Laurens van der Post
I credit Don Pedro with giving our life so much meaning, like our kids, as Farm ambassador, he helped steer the farm in directions we never expected! I am grieving now, but I know it is a blessing to be reminded of how intertwined love and loss are. Live is not about being simply happy, contentment of the heart comes from feeling engaged and human in all its muddled glory. Dearest Donnie P.—We owe you for giving us all of that!