The Goat Flu Incident

I have an unnatural fear of The Carolina Trader. Just seeing one sitting on a table in my house can send a sense of dread streaming through my consciousness. This may seem like a rather paranoid attitude, but I have good cause. Innocently disguised as a newspaper, this green-jacketed publication provides a forum for people wishing to sell everything from baseball cards to generators. My oldest son, who normally becomes bored so quickly he can't finish reading the cooking instructions on a pizza box, can spend hours perusing the contents of this periodical. Ultimately, the boy becomes passionately obsessed with the acquisition of some article profiled between its covers and that's exactly how I ended up with typhoid Nanny.

The saga started out innocently when Austin and his girlfriend found baby pygmy goats for sale in the The Trader and thought it would be fun to get a male and female to rear as pets. Shortly afterwards, little Nanny and Billy arrived unannounced at Camp Clamp on a frigidly cold January afternoon. Austin led me to believe the couple would be residing with his girlfriend's parents, so I allowed the cute little ruminants to spend their first few nights in my garage until a pen could be constructed on the grounds of their permanent residence. Concerned because Billy had a runny nose and crusty eyes, I lowered the sliding door and turned on the heating vent in an effort to keep the infants warm.

Several days later Billy's condition worsened and he joined the great goat herd in the sky. Within a week's time it also became obvious that Billy's much healthier counterpart wasn't going anywhere. Wishing to regain use of my garage, I finally moved the little female goat up to the barn and into a stall normally occupied by one of my mares who was enjoying conjugal visitation with a stallion at a nearby farm. Within a month's time, my out-of-sight, out-of-mind son completely lost interest in his newest acquisition and Nanny became Mom's goat. Nanny's care and feeding took its place on my morning agenda and I have to admit that our daily game of butt your head on the wall of the stall was entertaining.

Now I know I have a propensity for overfeeding things, but the pygmy goat sure did seem to grow at an extraordinarily rapid rate. Six months after her arrival the dwarf dainty was weighing in at over seventy-five pounds and nearing maturity, resembled a German shepherd on steroids. When my mare returned home we constructed a pen made from white picket fencing near the barn. Complete with a large doghouse for shelter, Nanny began residing in her new accommodations next to the riding arena, and thus became known as the cloven-hoofed keeper of the ring.

One morning while I was putting fresh bedding in Nanny's pen I noticed something resembling a volcanic cone erupting below her ear lobe. Since I was scheduled to leave for a horse show in Blowing Rock that afternoon, I quickly lanced and dressed the wound. My husband would be feeding the goat in my absence so I asked him to keep an eye on Nanny's boo-boo for any signs of infection. Not thinking anymore about it, I packed my bags, and experiencing something akin to pure joy left for a few days of solitude in the majestic mountains of North Carolina.

Truth be known, I love going to Blowing Rock for horse shows. The weather is cool, the setting is beautiful and I relish staying at the little Victorian inn downtown owned by two not so manly men named Scott and Chris. There's no place like home, but every now and then it's just nice to go some place where gun racks are not standard issue on riding lawn mowers and the upscale Exxon sells really good brie cheese in addition to expensive unleaded gasoline.

Back at the farm my husband was obviously taking his care giving job a little more seriously than normal and this temporary keeper of the herd decided to consult with one of my boarders who was trained as a vet tech about the boil on Nanny's neck. Intrigued by the eruption, she decided to do some research. Slightly concerned by the results of her investigation, she informed my spouse that Nanny may have a bacterial infection similar to typhoid that could prove fatal to humans in very rare cases.

If I died my husband would have to feed the goat, the dogs, the chickens, the horses, and our children everyday for the rest of his life. I firmly believe this realization created a sense of panic that totally rocked his world and I received a very ominous phone call from my significant other while I was enjoying a complimentary bottle of wine provided by Scott and Chris.

"Have you been suffering from any cold or flu-like symptoms?" he inquired without a lead-in, apparently convinced the dreaded goat flu was about to strike me dead at any given moment. Now, over the years my husband has asked me some pretty strange questions, but this one immediately soared above its predecessors. After garnishing a little more information, I reassured the poor man that I was feeling just fine. Taking comfort in his concern and the fact that no bacteria on earth could survive in my alcohol laden blood stream, I hung up the phone and returned home relatively healthy the next afternoon.

Nanny's boil did not prove infectious and she remains grossly overweight, but in good health to this day. Imprinted during her youth, the goat still views me as a bipedal parent and she enjoys an occasional stroll down to the house so she can visit the rest of her human relatives. I still return to Blowing Rock each summer for the same horse show that inspired the now infamous goat flu incident and much to my husband's relief, have yet to develop any cold or flu like symptoms while visiting there.