Who said raising livestock isn't fun?

Imagine, if you will, two young, 75-pound skittish male goats. Now imagine that they have to be loaded into a cage, in the bed of a pickup truck, to be taken to a livestock auction. Now imagine a pregnant woman and a man with a broken wrist trying to corner them in an acre of pasture and get them loaded up into the aforementioned truck, while a four-year-old shouts helpful instructions from the cab. Be sure to include a soundtrack of either the Keystone Kops or Benny Hill.

It was, um, interesting. Not quite as interesting as our next task - to separate one 125-pound adult buck, in, um, "full bloom", from his, er, "life partner." And then load him into the same cage as the two younger bucks. It was a long and lonely summer for the two adult males, and they spent the past couple months stinking up the neighborhood. Instead of white, they are completely covered in a kind of yellowish-brown hue, from spraying their own pungent urine on themselves and each other. They had their pink lightsabers drawn and were not in any mood to be separated.

We got them loaded. Don't ask how. And I got to drive them to the auction yard, with what can only be described as an all-male goat orgy in my rearview mirror. We trailed an invisible plume of goat stink and unfiltered truck exhaust, which must have left an indelible, malodorous film on everything within 50 yards of State Route 138 between Circleville and Hillsboro.

Oh, but I didn't describe the accompanying sound wave. Imagine the Tasmanian Devil cartoon character, with his voice dropped a couple of octaves, and filtered through a large spinning fan blade. Add one loud, unmuffled truck engine.

Luckily, our route led us through a lot of sparsely populated farmland. Even so, I'm pretty sure there are a few people along that route who are scarred for life.

Sorry, my camera's broken, so no pictures to go with this story.
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