Good Bye Celeste

We saw buzzards circling over the hill yesterday. With such a busy work week, and decreasing light in the evening, I was not getting up the hill until dark and couldn't look around the way I like. Then the White Boys disappeared last night and brought home a guest - a tiny yapping dog we couldn't get close to in the fog. Got the Boys locked up then got some shut eye. My internal alarm clock woke me up at 6, dark and foggy. When I took the inside doggies out they shot up the hill, Tanner ripping the lease out of my hand. I knew something was going on up there. Sure enough, Holly brought back a piece of flesh. I could tell right away it was Celeste by the color and length of her coat. I got Matt up and showed it to him. He thought it was a deer initially, but I knew better. Deer hair is spiky, this was smooth. I ran out to the barnyard to look for Celeste, but she was nowhere to be found. Matt went up the hill to look around and found a skull with backbone still attached but nothing else, in a cove in the apple orchard. She made a feast for whomever, probably my own dogs. Flesh is flesh and the White Boys are one step away from wild. I can't imagine they would let coyotes that close. I think Celeste was around ten or eleven. She's given me three beautiful black doe kids in the last couple of years. There's more to her story that I will tell another time when I am not hurting so much. Her daughter, little Velvet, is a constant reminder of her mother's beautiful blue eyes. Velvet's twin sister must be following another mother around now. I hope that doe lets her nurse or it will be a quick weaning. Fortunately, there is a lot of green grass still in the fields, along with apples on the ground. I hope Celeste died of old age. I like the idea that she died on the wild hill, the way a goat should. Colored goats are less domesticated than white goats and are a true throwback to the originals, running around the fertile crescent thousands of years ago. I have her skull, with horns, and will save it as a reminder of the twinkling blue/tan/green eyes that used to inhabit it.