Free The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir by Josh Kilmer-Purcell Page B

as she walked past us. “What’s that stick in there?” I said, noticing a pointy dark protrusion in the shadowy depths of the birth sac.
    “Probably a snout or a leg.”
    “Shouldn’t we do something?” I said, growing far more anxious than the mother appeared to be.
    “She’s just giving birth. It’s totally normal.”
    “Normal? She has a foot-wide bubble coming out of her ass. If I’d figured out that trick when I was a drag queen, I could’ve retired on tips.”
    “Goats give birth all the time,” Brent explained. “There’s no way that Farmer John could be here for every one.”
    We stood and watched in silence for several more minutes as the mother alternated between eating, bleating, walking around, and reclining. While she was lying down a third time, she let out the loudest bleat thus far, and then craned her neck around to inspect her hindquarters.
    “Can you see anything?” I asked Brent. Her back end was facing away from us.
    “She’s licking something,” he answered excitedly. “I think it was born. Let’s go in and check.”
    “Go in? Is that allowed?”
    “Why not?” Brent said. “I don’t see visiting hours posted anywhere.”
    We slowly climbed over the top rung of the pen and hopped down onto the soft hay-covered floor. Several of the other mother goats were startled and stampeded to the other end of the enclosure. But they slowly wandered back a moment later to sniff at our pant legs and sleeves. The youngest kids were bolder, crowding around our feet and nibbling at our shoelaces. The new mother remained reclining, licking at the small glistening jelly-covered shape behind her, which was struggling to stand up on its spindly legs.
    “It’s like Bambi!” I whispered excitedly.
    “Except not a deer,” Brent clarified.
    “Right. Not a deer.”
    We crept closer to inspect the newborn. Its coat looked to be mostly shiny black with several patches of white. Suddenly the mother stood, which severed the umbilical cord and assorted other birth detritus that hung from her hind end. She walked to the far side of the pen, leaving the newborn behind, steaming on the hay.
    “We startled her,” I said. “Maybe we should go.”
    “It’s okay,” Brent said, crouching down next to the newborn. It was roughly a foot and a half long, and in between futile, wobbly efforts to stand, it laid on its side, flanks heaving with its first chilly breaths.
    “It’s beautiful,” I remarked. “Is it a he or a she?”
    “How would I know?” Brent asked.
    “Well, that seems a topic that would’ve been covered sometime during med school.”
    Brent lifted up one of the kid’s hind legs.
    “I believe it’s a boy,” he said, reaching down to pet the slick baby kid. Two other kids, probably not more than a week or so old, came over to greet their new cousin. Not counting a heavily censored sex-ed video in sixth grade, it was the first time I’d actually witnessed something being born. I was shocked at how easy—and messy—it all seemed. The clumps of bloody goo surrounding the new kid looked a little superfluous to me. Was all that glop really necessary? If human beings could engineer a spotless McDonald’s take-out window, couldn’t God have done the same?
    Our perfectly pastoral moment was interrupted by another loud bleat across the pen. It was the same mother again.
    “What’s she doing now?” I asked. “Maybe she wants us to leave her kid alone.”
    As I spoke, another package of slimy goop fell from her back end and landed with a thud on the pen’s floor. The other goats continued with their munching, oblivious.
    “She’s had another,” Brent said, rising from his squatting position.
    “Just like that?” I asked, incredulous. “I thought labor lasted for hours.”
    “Well, I think she’s been in labor at least since I came out this morning.”
    “No, I mean ‘labor.’ As in ‘laborious.’”
    “Giving birth really isn’t that big a deal,” Brent said. “It’s