It was dark so I took a flashlight and went out. Nina, the girl goat was off grazing by the bath house but Ramsey, who is the one I keep tied up, was hollering. Gilbert, one of the neighbor kids, came with me to see what was the matter.
Ramsey had wound himself around and around a small tree and couldn’t move much at all. He had also twisted the rope so it was pretty tight around his neck. I started working on getting him untangled while Gilbert held the light for me…but then I realized what the real problem was.
Gilbert and I both began getting bitten by Siafu. You will know what siafu are if you read my earlier post. Ramsey was right in the middle of it and had been for some time. The siafu would have killed him if we hadn’t come.
We finally got him untangled, at the sacrifice of many, many painful bites, and pulled him away from the worst of it. This took us a while, and pretty soon Gilbert’s dad, Papa Gaspard, and little sister Berta, came looking for him. We explained what had happened, and Papa Gaspard immediately started helping us with the goat. We were away from the ants but they were still all over him. I wasn’t sure how to get them off. He was covered.
Papa Gaspard had obviously had some experience with siafu and animals before, because he knew exactly what to do. “Look at the feet first. If you can get them off the feet he will be able to get the rest off himself.” Sure enough, his feet were thick with Siafu - especially in between the hooves. I guess this is the strategy to take down a large animal. How do they know?? It took the three of us quite a while to get them off, and when we finally did I tied him up in a new location behind the house - and we all settled down for the night.
I hope this will never happen again.
1 comment:
It's like reading one of those missionary biographies and then one wakes up and shouts, "That's my daughter! "
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