I work from home on Mondays, and I had the foresight to call my boss last night and ask for the day off. I'm very lucky in that I can call at the last minute like that and take a vacation day. Of course I just get farther behind, but my boss told me, “It'll wait. It'll be here Tuesday.” She is a good boss.

So we ran out of hay about two weeks ago, and we've been buying one bale at a time. I realized when we bought the bale by the squeeze load it removes you from the cost of feeding. Also, buying a squeeze load is typically less expensive. Because the price of gas is rising, everything else that has to be shipped is rising in cost and that includes bales of hay. Our last squeeze load we paid $8.59 a bale. The last bale we bought a few days ago cost $15.00. Since my husband's business is not making much money right now we were to the point where we would have to use our credit card to buy hay. We do not want to go into debt further.

Buying one bale of hay for $15.00 hurts the pocketbook. My husband kept promising to call the guy who would take our goats off our hands. But then we'd buy another bale of hay. Finally, on Sunday when I was lying down trying to take a nap in preparation for the upcoming week, my phone rang.

It was the guy. He said he thought he had the right number, but did we call him about our goats two weeks ago? He wanted to make sure we hadn't misplaced his number. I told him we were still planning to call him, but we hadn't been able to make the call yet. We talked for a minute or two, and I went out to talk to my husband.

We decided to bite the bullet, call the guy back and make the arrangements. So I did.

And they came this morning, and they took our little herd away.

Three milkers, two bucks and four dry does.

They loaded into his livestock hauler well. They didn't seem afraid. They were all together. They will have a better life. Like I told my husband they were being Hollywood bimbos living here. Goats are livestock. They are meant to breed and have kids, and give milk and some of them are meat on someone's table eventually. Here the majority of them were lying around sunbathing day after day and picking daintily through the hay to get the best bits. The boys will be put to work, instead of being constantly teased by the smell of sexy goat women just on the other side of the fence.

And of course I had to have insomnia last night. My husband was home for once and we went to bed fairly early. I was probably asleep by 9pm. Our dog wanted out at 11:30pm and that was it. I laid there awake until 12:30am when I finally got up, thinking maybe I was hungry. I had some vegetable soup and spent two hours on the computer. I went back to bed by 2:30 because my alarm was set to go off. I am attempting to track my cycle again, and 2:30 is the magic hour for me. More on that later. I turned off the alarm, and didn't take my temperature (no point), but went back to bed and laid there until my husband's alarm went off at 4am. Finally I fell to sleep again, and got up at 8:30am. The man was due to come by at 10am and I wrote up some brief details on all the goats. Their names and dates of birth. Who was the mother. Who was the daughter. Who was the sister. I cried. And I cried some more.

They cooperated with being loaded, and they didn't seem scared. That means a lot to me. The man said they would take good care of them as I shook his hand. At that the tears started again so I turned and walked away.

I'm not horribly sad, it's not like I was closely attached to any of the goats. I managed to keep my distance emotionally from them, and they do require time and effort and energy of which I have little. I need to conserve as much as possible in healing. I definitely was not looking forward to summer morning milking at 3:30am.

I'm going to lie down and take a nap now. Thanks for reading.