{"id":2782,"date":"2012-06-30T11:10:30","date_gmt":"2012-06-30T11:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=2782"},"modified":"2012-06-30T11:10:30","modified_gmt":"2012-06-30T11:10:30","slug":"sally-alexander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/sally-alexander\/","title":{"rendered":"Sally Alexander"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Primrose<\/strong><\/p>\n

We used to keep the goats for milk and meat, but now they\u2019re mostly pets.\u00a0 Mum says she has got too old to take the billy kids to slaughter. I never realised it was such a big deal, but maybe I\u2019d feel different now.\u00a0 We\u2019ve all got older.<\/p>\n

It was Mum who noticed the growth on Primrose\u2019s udder, when she was taking the goats out for their first day on the field.\u00a0 They winter in their shed.\u00a0 I came out in my pyjamas to check.\u00a0 I held Primrose\u2019s horns while Mum knelt down by her back end and tried to feel.\u00a0 She was feeling guilty about not having seen it before.<\/p>\n

The vet came later that day. I was busy inside and missed her knock, so it was Mum who took her round back.\u00a0 Primrose was back in her stall and not wanting to be disturbed, so they climbed in with her.\u00a0 The vet squeezed a mess of pus out of the udder onto the straw.\u00a0 She\u2019d brought an apprentice with her who took over holding the goats head while she showed Mum the injection sites for the antibiotics: One low on the flank and one between the back ribs.\u00a0 Right into the muscle.\u00a0 The one into her back made Primrose\u2019s back legs buckle.\u00a0 Mum said we wouldn\u2019t be trying that one again.\u00a0 She asked if she should squeeze the udder again and the vet said maybe it would help.\u00a0 The apprentice stroked Primrose\u2019s head and told her she\u2019d been brave.<\/p>\n

The vet left us with a collection of ready made syringes and a bottle of milky liquid which we had to measure out ourselves.\u00a0 Mum told me she couldn\u2019t face stabbing in the needle.<\/p>\n

Primrose is our oldest goat. We\u2019re not sure exactly how old she is, because she was one of Mum\u2019s rescues.\u00a0 She came with a small black haired sister, their owner claiming that they couldn\u2019t care for them any longer.\u00a0 The sister died soon after.\u00a0 She was in a stall with Primrose and we worried that it was Primrose keeping her from her food, but they\u2019d always been stalled together before.\u00a0 Primrose is our only goat with horns.\u00a0 She rubs and sharpens them against her stall door.\u00a0 By the end of the winter they are worn down to the quick and ooze blood.\u00a0 We also worried Primrose had battered her sister to death.<\/p>\n

The morning after the vet\u2019s visit, Mum and I went out to the field.\u00a0 I took the two syringes and Mum took a jug of warm water washed through with iodine.\u00a0 We divided our labours.\u00a0 The first needle went in relatively easily.\u00a0 I was frightened of hurting her and my hand shook a little.\u00a0 Goat skin is thick and it is work to push the needle through.\u00a0 She flinched and bucked a little, but Mum held her and I wrapped her tether chain around my foot to save her bolting.\u00a0 The second needle was larger and wouldn\u2019t take, so I swapped the needles over to get the medicine in.<\/p>\n

We swapped places as Mum washed the wound.\u00a0 Primrose kicked back, but Mum moved around and got a good amount of water over the udder. Mum said she\u2019d closed her eyes while I gave the injections.\u00a0 I told her I couldn\u2019t look at the sore.\u00a0 The teat hung dark and small.\u00a0 Neither of us offered to squeeze the udder.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sally Alexander<\/strong> lives on a small holding in South Norfolk.\u00a0 She is finishing her first novel and writes poems when things can’t be said in prose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Primrose We used to keep the goats for milk and meat, but now they\u2019re mostly pets.\u00a0 Mum says she has got too old to take the billy kids to slaughter. I never realised it was such a big deal, but maybe I\u2019d feel different now.\u00a0 We\u2019ve all got older. It was Mum who noticed the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2782"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2783,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2782\/revisions\/2783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}