I shoulda listened to Ernie

Last Friday night began uneventfully. The fact that it was Friday the thirteenth had come to mind but only fleetingly.

It was about ten p.m. and I had just finished washing dinner dishes. While starting my pre-sleep routine Ernie began barking towards the side door. Normally I would check outside to discover the source of his concern. This time I told myself to let it go, it was probably just another of the rabbits that hutch nearby.

As subsequent events revealed, my dissing him morphed into regret: the following morning I looked over at the neighbor’s property and counted only two goats, one female and the young ram.

In tandem they were entranced, staring in the direction of a derelict tree and cows milling about fifty feet away. Where was the second female that completes the triumvirate?

Something got sister goat?

[See the beautiful brown one on the right]

I couldn’t confirm that even after getting a better vantage point by climbing up on the truck’s tailgate and using binoculars.

A short while later I again went outdoors and looked in the direction of that tree. Surprised, I saw my neighbor. I waved and she began walking towards me. The lady told me that the (hundred- pound or more) goat had been killed during the night; she was convinced that it was one or a pack of coyotes since those predators have been decimating the family’s barn-yard animals for years. The killing of a full-grown goat, however, had escalated the skirmishing to a more serious level.

I commiserated with her and felt a twinge of responsibility from months earlier at not having killed a coyote on her property when I had the opportunity. [See May 25, 2015 article Real Drama: Who lives who dies ] And on Friday night if I had listened to Ernie I might have been able to intervene.

It was clear to me – with neighbor’s buy-in – that a determined effort had to be made to dispense with the killers.

Enter, the Solutionator.                     

To be continued………………