In Search of the Silver Pellet

I am plagued by the question, can goats digest duct tape? -  but really it all started with Camp-Out Night. Trying to increase their appreciation for free-grazing as well as decrease the mess in the driveway, I recently left them overnight in their weedy fenced field.

Rats, Ellie, she dragged us into this prison again! Let's refuse to graze and just cry at the gate until she lets us out. I won't eat any weeds if you don't.

Lest you think me cruel, it was a warm, dry evening. How was I to know the township would set off all those frightening fireworks late in the night?

So traumatized was Emerson from this harrowing experience, the next morning during breakfast he lunged against the screen door in an attempt to be even closer to me. Don't ever make me sleep so far away from you again, Mommy!

No screen door is a match for eighty pounds of hooves and horns, and when flies began pouring in through the gaping, goat-shaped opening, generous portions of shiny silver duct tape seemed the obvious panacea, at least until my husband could make the necessary repairs that evening.

What I had not considered was that Mike's volleyball game would take priority over screen repair, and that goats relish the taste of duct tape even more than their new favorite snack (cherry tomatoes). The following morning as I stumbled for the coffee pot, I had two simultaneous thoughts: How did all these flies get in, and what is Elliot chewing on so vigorously? Then, seconds later, Hey, who took all the duct tape off the screen door? Caffeine kicked in at that moment, and as I rushed outside to pry open Ellie's mouth and retrieve the giant sticky glob, he gave a tremendous gulp and down it went, some four yards of the most indestructible substance on the planet.

Three days later, I still hover between panic and mild concern, imagining the monstrous blockage. Where could the stuff be right now? I feel for suspicious lumps; I watch him constantly. He's eating and drinking, so things are going in, and things are definitely coming out of him. He excretes mounds of raisin-like pellets all over the yard, same as always, but I'm still waiting for the pile that spills out glowing silver and slightly sticky. Where is the darn stuff?? Is it festering in his third stomach, or could he really have transformed that much duct tape into little brown pellets so effortlessly?

Maybe I have magic goats!