Goat Song

So many things have happened on our farm!

A friend from California came to trade goats with us. This is mainly to increase genetic diversity in our respective herds. She took our delightful young buck Leroy, our majestic buck Jordan, and gave us Scotty and Red Hot Chili Pepper. Here’s a photo of Red Hot Chili Pepper (who I’m calling Chili):

She also took some of our does from this spring’s kidding, and left us Cauliflower:

And Saturday:

And Shallot:

We’re finally beginning to settle in with our new goats. I discovered that none of them (well, maybe one of them) had ever seen a dog before. We took Coco and Snoopy back to the back pen, as we often do on our walks, and each of the new goats did a double take. The goats who’d lived here forever barely noticed. But, the new goats are still trying to figure out what these beings on leashes could possibly be.

Speaking of new, the cows next door had a calf. The calf loves to come to our fence and stare at our goats.

This week our baby chick finally began living in the new chicken coop with the rest of the feather foots. He had been determined to remain in the feral cat shelter where he was born, until one night when Bridget (his mother) went into the coop. The peep insisted he needed to return to the feral cat shelter to sleep. There was a different broody hen in there, and we were about to close her in for the night when the peep ran in with her. So, we shut them both in. The peep kind of hopped around, but we thought he’d be alright.

The next morning he bolted out of that shelter and ran pellmell for his mother. That night, when Bridget went into the chicken coop, the peep hopped up onto the roost right beside her. He’s gone there every night since.

This week’s goat related etymology investigation is the word tragedy. A friend mentioned the origin of the word tragedy on Facebook, and I was compelled to investigate.

The word tragedy has two roots: tragos, which means goat - specifically a buck - and oide, which means song or ode. So our word tragedy originally meant goat song.

The song part of the original word is easily understood - tragedies were often sung or chanted. But what about the goat part?

The first tragedies were performed in Athens - at the annual festival of Dionysus. Some scholars believe that they were referred to as goat songs because a goat was the prize for the best play. Some scholars believe that it was because a goat was sacrificed at the festival. Many scholars believe that it was because the actors often dressed in goat skins - particularly when they were portraying satyrs or other half-goat half-human beings. (A satyr play always accompanied a trilogy of tragedies at the Athenian festival).

Here’s a quote from ToughtCo.com:

“Perhaps the ancient Greeks understood tragoidia in a more nuanced sense. As classicist Gregory A. Staley theorizes in Seneca and the Idea of Tragedy,  “[T]ragedy acknowledge[d] that as humans we are like satyrs […] tragic plays explore our animal natures, our ‘filthiness,’ as one medieval commentator called it, our violence and depravity.” By calling this genre a “goat song,” then tragedy is truly the song of humanity in its most debased state.”

I don’t especially appreciate the maligning of goats as debased or filthy - I find them neither of those things - but I like thinking of “goat songs” as a way of thinking of ourselves in all our facets.

Meanwhile, our soap production continues. Kat and I have put several new bars for sale on our website, and we are now fully immersed in making our Holiday Soaps. Two of my favorite new bars are SnickerDoodle Cubes:

And Raindrop:

In any case, please stop by our store: https://www.serenasoaps.com/. Or, if you’re in the Albuquerque area, stop by the Rail Yards Market this Sunday - we’ll be there. Indoors. I’ll post our booth assignment on Facebook.