Darling Clementine

See Clementine escape!
See Clementine run! Running faster!
See Clementine devour the newly planted vegetables!

It's been about two months since I came back from Lakeport, but I think about it and the animals often. Clementine was my favorite goat there, but it didn't start out like that at all. She was one of the bigger kids -- and so rowdy, always jumping over me, other goats, just to get some more attention. My attention-whore Clementine.

I don't know exactly how it was or when she won my heart. Maybe those times when she'd escape through a hole in the fence and run towards me. Or that time she escaped with Lisa and waited for me at the door of my trailer.

Clementine was the only goat who was all white. She had little horns that felt like nubs, and she always had a wet nose. I think about her on that one day, a week before I had to leave, playing on the patio table with Lisa, their hooves making thumping sounds on the wood. They liked to escape through the hole together.

And I think about her on my last day at the farm. I was in my car, engine on, waving goodbye to everyone outside. Clementine escaped again, running towards where we all were. Javier picked her up, and I said bye to her again through the car window. The last time I spoke with him, he told me she wasn't eating as much. I'm afraid to find out what happened. Sometimes, not knowing feels safer.

I just want to remember her the way I last saw her.