#quailsprings

One day a professional goat milk taster graced the team at the Quail Springs farm with her presence. Swirling a sip, an awful thing happened to the taster’s face. Lips puckered, her mandibles seemingly separated as her tongue thwacked again and again. We feared the worst. “This is amazing goat milk,” exclaimed the renewed face. “Really, top quality – you can tell these are happy goats”.

Indeed, our goats are spoiled, spending a great part of their days grazing the hillsides that surround the farm. They rarely have any ailments at all; a common case of worms here and there, a migraine or a toothache, but nothing serious. The young-en’s and some of the old-en’s literally jump for joy as they hunt the finest hunks of cellulose. Of the bunch, there’s one that stands out. Honey, an older grandmother goat, would seemingly rather stay in the pen and be foddered than go out and work for her food. She’s put on quite a bit of weight over the years, and is frequently found lying down panting while her herdmates enjoy the great outdoors.

Honey the goat has been a chain-smoker since the late 1970’s, back when smoking was considered a healthy way to ensnare dust particles consumed during desert feasting hours. Same as human cigarettes except for the hardened filter designed to survive mis-bites during rumination, milkers and herders alike suddenly felt more connected than ever to their smoking brethren.

Marketed widely as “Goatboro Sticks”, the sticks were suddenly lighting up the paddocks. Of course, any health benefits were exposed as myth as science gained traction through the 1990’s. Pictures of faded, shriveled teats now covering all packs largely ward off the new kids, who perhaps smoke socially, during nights of heavy drinking. Honey, however, shamelessly addicted, still flaunts the teat-fading sticks as proudly as when she first picked up the habit; her grandma beard a forest surrounded by fire that never burns.  

This would all fine if it weren’t for the real forest blaze of 2007, which consumed thousands of acres around her grazing grounds. Sure, all of the goats coughed and coughed for days, but Honey was inflicted with a cough so severe that the most violent eruptions caused a squeaking sound from her rear. Strong-willed, as the years passed, she only grew ever more shameless. Once, during a painful breakup (her little buck Loin was slaughtered), she chainsmoked three packs of Goatboros to her face, and still felt the same.

Then came 2016, the election year that surprised us all. We all knew Bernie would cause great social change, but no one foresaw the cigarette crisis. Honey voted for the socialist that would guarantee the health-care of her charcoal lungs, and she even naively believed in his Plastic Surgery for All platform. What she didn’t know was that she would no longer be feeling the Bern of her Goatboro 100’s. Prices skyrocketed with new taxes meant to save us from ourselves, and Honey was left heartbroken and too far from the black market. The fine print would have enlightened her; Bernie had opposed all favorable tobacco legislation since the invention of the plant in the 1930’s.

So she did like the smart goats during drought years, she grew her own. It’s hard to say how many nutrient pebbles she deposited, but Honey worried if these eventual sticks would taste like her true loves. She hoofed three acres, loosening the hard pack soil as the cold turkey ate at her soul. Months passed. The plants grew as quickly as plants grow, though each day felt like years. The milkers would find her in the morning, chewing on baby tobacco leaves, her milk ruined, her addiction semi-quenched. Curing the tobacco felt like light years, her beard brightened.

Finally, the Thursday came when she manically rolled her first Honey Stick. It was no Goatboro, and quitting the sticks crossed her mind for the first time. This thought brought her peace – she could go on living alone. Ironically, it was this peace that brought her soul to rest, passing away deep in the clear night. Finding her lifeless body, the morning milker removed the Honey Stick from her lips. Lighting up the stick and taking a deep puff, the milker thought, “This is what Honey would have wanted”.