We spent the weekend in Seattle- going to a Scion car show, a Mariners game and to the hydroplane races. Sunday morning on the way to the races Tom received this picture on him cell phone with a text message about two goats that had been abandoned on a mountain that his daughter wanted us to save. The message had been sent the prior afternoon, but Tom’s crappy cell phone didn’t get it until the next morning.

After a while he was able to reach his daughter Jaylene who said that these two goats had been dropped off on the mountain by her mother’s cousin because she was tired of them. They were friendly but scared. Jay had given them each one gallon of water, and she felt like they were in eminent danger of being eaten by a cougar or coyotes. Her grandfather who lives on the mountain had threatened to shoot them also because they were eating his flowers. So anyway Tom agreed to get them. We were hoping that Jay could get them in her Subaru for us, but she said they wouldn’t fit.

So after the races were over we made it through the traffic and drove home (which took 3 hours total). We grabbed some more appropriate clothes, collars, leashes and goat grain and headed another 30 minutes to and up this steep mountain. When we got near the top we meet Jay’s uncle who said he had just heard the goats near his place. So we walked around his place and then Jay’s grandfather’s place shaking the pan with goat grain without any luck. He also said that the goats had been there three weeks, that the grandfather had wanted them to eat down the grass, but when they were released they just took off. They hadn’t seen them again until the day before. They had heard that they had been spotted at the bottom of the mountain.

We then drove up the mountain toward the cell tower and ran into three guys taking target practice. We asked if they had seen two goats, and they said they had down on the res at his uncle’s place. His uncle was having a birthday party and the goats had joined in. The kids had put them on leashes and were petting them. They had asked up and down the street if anyone knew whose they were.

So we headed back down the mountain and another mile onto the Nooksack reservation. It was my first time there, and it was quite nice. We found the house with canopies and chairs set up out front with people still having the party and two goats tied up. The uncle greeted us, and it turns out he went to school with Tom. So they caught up and then we loaded the errant goats into the back of the truck and took them home. The uncle had said that he had called “CPA” to pick them up but was also considering giving them to a Mexican at work for BBQ. We felt like we’d got to the goats just in time. These goat probably thought they were in goat heaven having a large mountain to browse and people to give them potato chips, but I don’t think they realized what danger they were in, particularly when the fall hit. Anyway this is the story of our wild goat chase.