I step outside right at sunrise when night creatures are still on the move. It’s a threshold hour, a groundhog slogs under the fence or a fawn startles, his mouth full of orange lilies. No one expects to see me, especially my neighbor’s unneutered billy goat who is standing on my gravel path. Of course I want to pet him so I miss something; the hardness of his horizontal gaze. He is challenging me. I consider myself a country woman, having stepped on a blacksnake once in my darkened living room. I shoo bears from … Continue reading Of Goats and Men by Sharon Ackerman →