Gypsy's doings

Hello to all!

Man, breaking a shoulder really does put a dampener on things! I have always wondered how sporting people can get straight back into things after doing something like that. I still don't know. All I know is: A) It is bloody painful; B) it is frustrating C) finding out just how much you used that shoulder beforehand is extremely painful and D) I can't really type one-handed.

This little problem came about courtesy of my delightful husband and our extremely enraging, irritating, perfect escape artist goat, Gypsy. May as well add my brother into the mix; the @$#% gave her to my daughter as a present some 17 years ago. We should never go to hell; that damned goat has created it here on earth.

Gypsy is a feral goat. Well, sort of. My brother breeds them as a business, along with his sheep and cattle. His excuse for giving her to us: Meg needs a pet, blissfully ignoring the fact that the girl(back in those days!) had a couple of pet cows, two dogs, two cats and a guinea pig, which my other brother had supplied, also assorted chickens around the place, supplied by "friends".

Anyway, back to how I got my shoulder broken. Thanks to having a stroke 2 years ago, I am still not very stable on my feet. I am much better than I was, but not brilliant. So when my husband yelled to help him get our escape artist out of the garden, I staggered outside, to see Gypsy almost poking her tongue at him from a palm tree he absolutely loves. It's low-growing, so EVERYTHING loved getting under its leaves. It has a regular community there, including, at different times of the year, some very unfriendly inhabitants.

He dived. She dodged. He zigged, she zagged. This was good fun. For Gypsy anyway. Not for my husband. He was out of breath and red-faced. "Block the bitch!" He roared at me. I attempted to. What I forgot was that that particular area of the yard has a hole where a tree has fallen down and is now covered in grass. Very deceptive. When my foot hit the hole, I tilted and grabbed for something. That something happened to be Gypsy. She bolted and I went down. Straight on my shoulder.

I knew I'd broken it. I had no feeling at all, and nothing in that arm worked. Which wasn't the worst of it. Try imagining explaining how I had done it to some very lovely but bemused nurses and doctors at the hospital. No doubt I kept them in stitches for days.

Gypsy is still alive. While my husband was panicking over what had happened to me, and threatening at the top of his voice to shoot her, the little bitch walked straight up to the gate and stood there, waiting for someone to open it. It took me a while, and the trip to hospital to calm him down, but she is still getting where she should not be.

Whoever decided to name that goat Gypsy should have called her Houdini. Unfortunately as a kid, she was very cute. She still is not very big, but her brain is. That goat can outsmart any human any time she pleases.

So that is why I haven't been here for a while. But I can use my shoulder limitedly again, and my hand does no longer resemble a catcher's mitt.