I've done so much inner work and this memory still gets to me. I don't know if it's the doubts of whether I did the right thing letting these goats live or letting them go so quickly instead of keeping them myself, the sadness because I did develop a love for them or guilt that there was a relief hidden in the loss - that I had an excuse to get out of the milking and breeding and weekly stall cleaning responsibilities I hadn't asked for. Always more work to be done and maybe the work isn't to get to a point where I don't have all these unanswered questions and unresolved feelings that make me still tear up, but to be OK that they exist. To be OK that there is not always one "right" answer, things aren't black and white and be grateful for having such deeply feeling experiences and memories. Because what would have been the alternative, being bored? I certainly can't be OK with that either.

Here is the next chapter! The beginning of year SIX.

We had started watching the new season of Homestead Rescue wondering when we were going to see our own faces on T.V., when our episode was going to air. It felt so surreal that we were going to actually be on T.V. all over the world. The whole experience of filming the show somehow felt completely separate from actually being on a reality show for everyone to see. I had so many nervous thoughts swirling around. What would actually make it into the broadcast that is aired? How would we be portrayed? Did I say anything that would make me look stupid? Would I look as haggard and wrung out on camera as I felt after the last few years? We started to get sneak peaks at our upcoming episode on the commercials and knew it was getting close. 

One dark January evening after finishing dinner and evening chores, the phone rang. It was the vet about the goats’ test results.  Immediately he said the results were not good.  I quickly sat down and grabbed a pen and paper as he started spouting out long scientific names of the findings more quickly than I could make sense of it. Caseus Luc what? Lentiurus? Some kind of tuberculosis?! CAE and the dreaded pseudomonas. The same bacteria that he assured me was inaccurate when I had my own milk sample tested. This goat didn’t just have a deadly bacterium in one of her udders, each of the two goats came with their own separate list of diseases. I tried to hold it together and listen to what the vet had to say with silent tears streaming down my face.  

He insisted they needed to be put down due to the risk of spreading the diseases and gave me a quote right then to do it. It was going to cost extra because of the bio-security risks and the “body care” that would be needed for this level of bacteria to ensure it was eradicated and couldn’t spread.  I hadn’t even had a chance to emotionally process this news and I was already facing the logistics of spending the money to pay for this or even how to transport these goats to the vet's office to be put down since we didn’t have any kind of livestock trailer. Still in shock, I had to ask the unthinkable, “Could we do it ourselves?” The vet didn’t entertain the idea and insisted I schedule an appointment for the goats’ demise right away.  I just couldn’t do it and needed time to process.

When I hung up the phone, deep heavy sobs burst out of me.  I had poured so much into making things work with these goats, refusing to let this gift become a failure. We had named them. One was Luna, the goat in milk, picked by my 3 year old son as she reminded him of a big white moon and the other Buttons, for her little button ears. They had stopped kicking and head butting and had become a loving part of our family and food supply. 

When I regained my composure, I passed the news to Anthony and starting googling to confirm the names of the diseases I thought the vet said. The vet made it sound like a death sentence and the internet didn’t make it sound any better.  Incurable, contagious and highly advised against breeding, everything I read sounded like these goats should be oozing from their skin and on the verge of death with everything they had, but for the most part they were still happy, healthy-looking goats. 

I didn’t want to spread the diseases to our land or any other goats in the future. I certainly couldn’t risk passing anything to my family by continuing to drink their milk or watching them die a slow and miserable death, but I also hated to put these goats down prematurely when they still had so much quality of life. I had worked so hard and yet again no matter how much effort I put into it, it was a complete failure. A waste of so much time, money and energy. And now exactly as I didn’t want to happen, lives of animals were on the line.

I slept terribly wrestling over what to do. The next morning I took care of the goats as I always did, looking them tenderly in the eyes as they nuzzled me for food and scratches. As I moved through my chores, I stopped and stared at the crumbling pond, the fear of a full breach and worse catastrophe still looming. I felt completely overwhelmed. This show was supposed to be our angel, a solution that the manifesting gods surprised me with just when I was about to leave. Why were things even more messed up, with us having more problems now?! I couldn’t blame anybody from the show for what was happening, but I also didn’t know what we were going to do now. Our show was scheduled to air in just two weeks, the whole world about to see the heartfelt story of saving our homestead when in the current reality it was turning into a disaster.   

Anthony passed the news about the goat diseases to the prior owners, assuming that is where the diseases came from, so they could assess the risk to the rest of their herd. The prior owners of the goats decided they would rather get the goats back than have them put down. At first, I felt hesitant to put these loving animals back in the hands of people who maybe weren’t taking the best care of them to begin with and also would risk spreading the diseases to their other goats, but the alternative was bleak. This at least meant they could continue to live out their lives until more severe symptoms arose. I did not want to see these goats put down as the vet insisted, but we also could not support the water needs for these goats, let alone potential care and costs for maintaining these clinically “sick” goats if their symptoms got worse as we were assured they would. So, I said yes and we agreed the prior owners would pick up the goats a couple days later over the weekend.

As we prepared to say goodbye to our goats, the heavy rains finally stopped. Nearly avoiding a pond catastrophe, it was just the break needed to stop the inflow of water as the lower wall of the pond began to spring small leaks and very slowly begin to drain the water pressure. The clouds parted and the sun returned as it always does. Just like that we had the warmest Saturday in January that I can ever remember. I spent much of the day outside soaking it in, letting the goats out to spend some time with me and eat some green grass on their last day with us. I swear I could see them smiling at me and I cried as they nuzzled me knowing they would soon have to return to their old life, just when they had gotten used to us. I asked Anthony to take a picture of me with the goats before they were picked up and I smiled big for the picture as if my heart wasn’t breaking.  Life can go from falling apart to beautiful blue skies and back again in no time.

Exactly one week later, our episode aired on Discovery Channel. Rob and his family and my parents came over for a watch party. We got to see how the episode all came together right at the same time as the rest of the world, no sooner. What I thought was going to be a celebration, a cheers to the experience and our solutions, was almost hard to watch. It was strange to see us re-experience what was now in our past when the future had so recently held a new hand of cards for us.

The episode was fine, bleh kind of, and I was relieved nothing really made us look bad. It was a sort of closure, the end of the process, yet I struggled to reconcile it all.  From the nerves and excitement of interviewing and filming to the current knowing that so much of it didn’t work out. It was hard to see myself full of hope and excitement while simultaneously feeling the deep loss of another disappointment and having to answer to the flood of questions and congratulations messages that were coming in. I just went numb. I had been abstaining from alcohol for the 45 days prior to the episode, trying to better manage my stress through the pond crumbling and the devastating news of the goats, but seeing this show air and people I knew from all different places in my life reaching out to congratulate us and ask how it was going was just too much. I pounded beers that night, throwing sobriety out the window. I beat myself up for thinking that a reality T.V. show could ever have been a solution instead of just bringing more problems.

As I'm finishing putting this email together, I just burst out laughing at the absurdity of the kind of failures that I have. Not normal failures like "Oh, milking goats is harder than I expected and they need extra care and I'm giving up. I failed. The shame." But instead I get deadly bacteria goats, hazardous waste goats. Perspective gained, inner work another notch clicked forward. Humor and acceptance of the situation acquired.

Missed an earlier part of the story? You can read all of the chapters I've shared here: https://bit.ly/drowningwithoutwater