Lessons From A Goat

Broken feeders, stubborn animals, and the reality of figuring life out on your own

Sometimes life presents us with moments that bring about an awareness we may have held somewhere in the back of our mind but didn’t necessarily give a lot of thought to. Awareness is a good thing in that once we are cognizant of something, we can decide what to do with it. Today was one such experience.

This morning the naughtiest of my goats got her head stuck in the feeder…again. She exemplifies the stereotypical goat. She seems to lack instinct and doesn’t come in out of the rain, isn’t afraid of ANYTHING, and will walk right into your vehicle, house or even on your back.

I bring this up because these particular feeders they’re using now represent our third try at building feeders that can stand up to goats and minimize waste. I thought we finally won this battle, but naughty Nibbles has broken the feeders enough that she can now get her head (she still has her horns) caught because she thinks she needs to get the hay in the middle of the feeder as opposed to what’s hanging out of it.

I know, I digress from making my point.

My husband built everything on our property, including the goat barn. What he didn’t account for was the most efficient, reliable feeder. After he passed, my youngest son and I built 3 different feeders, and none of them held up to the wackadoodle goat.

It’s been money, time and hay wasted, and although I understand that it’s not uncommon with goats, this one has worn me down. We’re back to the drawing board. Kevin could look at a situation, devise a plan in his head, buy the stuff and build it from scratch all in a day. How wonderful if he could’ve passed that on to me.

Neither my son or I are skilled in carpentry. My son was telling me how upset he was that his dad didn’t teach him because Kevin was always too busy. That’s another post for another time, but my point is that there are so many times just in everyday living that things come up that our husbands used to take care of without question, and we’re now left handling those situations on our own.

There are days I miss Kevin in the obvious ways… and then there are days like this, when I miss him in the most practical ones.

The builder. The fixer. The one who could look at chaos and make it functional by dinner time.

Now it’s me and my son trying, failing, trying again.

And maybe that’s what rebuilding life after loss looks like—not replacing what was lost, but learning how to keep going even when it feels unfamiliar and clumsy.

Even with a goat named Nibbles defeating us at every turn.

The part that struck me later was the awareness. It’s one thing to recognize, this is hard because he’s not here, but it’s another thing to decide what to do with that realization.

I could let it stop me. I could decide this is one more thing I’m not equipped to handle and walk away from it altogether. Or I could let it remind me that I’m in a season of learning: one I didn’t ask for, but one I’m still capable of growing in.

Awareness always hands us that choice, not always in a big dramatic way, but in small, everyday moments like standing in a barn, looking at a broken feeder, wondering if we have it in us to try one more time.

Sometimes deciding what to do with it simply means we try again. We can ask for help. We can do it imperfectly. We can take the next step without knowing if it will work.

Sometimes it means we give ourselves permission to do things differently than they were done before. But either way, the awareness doesn’t have to become another weight we carry but a turning point where we decide that this is hard, and I’m still going to keep going.

The truth is, so much of this life after loss is about exactly that— not getting it right the first time, but not giving up either.