The goat...

Jen keeps telling me I should post the story of the goat who visited our airport on Sunday. So here goes. On Sunday my instructor, Erin, showed up at the airport to fly with a student. When she got here, she discovered a goat hanging out behind the aviation building. Not wanting the goat to accidentally go through a propeller, she called security and told them about the goat. Security, not really having a clue, called the school's rodeo coach. The coach told them the goat didn't belong to the rodeo team, so there wasn't much they could do about it. Apparently satisfied with this answer, security called Erin back and relayed the message. Erin, however, had the sense to realize that this couldn't be the end of the story, because there would still be a goat roaming the airport. And that's bad. So she told security to call animal control and have them escort the goat off the airport. Security made the call, but animal control said they didn't do animal pickups on weekends unless it was a matter of life or death. Security passed this info on to Erin who insisted that the goat needed to be removed from the airport. Frustrated, she then decided to go on her flight and let someone else deal with the goat.

Upon Erin's return to the airport from her flight, she didn't see the goat around, so she asked Steven (student worker at the airport who happened to be working at the time) what had happened to it. Steven told her that the sheriff had come and the two of them had chased the goat around in the sheriff's car for a while, trying unsuccessfully to catch it. The sheriff had eventually given up and left and, since the goat wasn't roaming around anywhere, the problem had apparently resolved itself. So Erin went to get in her car, when all of a sudden, she heard a telltale bleating. Sure enough, the goat had been hiding behind the aviation building. It was still on the airport and, according to Erin, was very stinky and had a broken jaw and a huge abscess where the break was. Erin called security again and told them the goat was still roaming about, but at this point the security worker was someone who struggled to understand english and nothing wound up being done about the goat. So Erin decided to take matters into her own hands. She called one of the rodeo guys and asked if he could help. He showed up with some rope and another rodeo guy, and they decided they'd rope this goat and stick it out in the desert as "coyote bait." They were hesitant, though, because roping an animal that doesn't belong to you is considered cattle rustling, and they take that sort of thing pretty seriously in these parts. But, in the end, they did rope the goat and take it away. And that's the goat story, as I originally told it to Jen yesterday.

Here's the update Erin shared with me this morning. Right after I left Erin's office yesterday morning, she got a call from security, letting her know animal control was here for the goat. Erin told them that she's gotten some rodeo guys to rope it and remove it for her, and apparently the rodeo coach is now in trouble for it, despite animal control's unwillingness to do their part to fix the problem until 24 hours after the fact.

P.S. In the aviation world there are these things we call notams. "Notams" is a shortened form of "notices to airmen" and that's basically what they are. Notams cover a pretty good range of topics. There could be a notam telling us that a radio navigation station isn't working, or that there's an unmanned rocket zooming around the vicinity of our destination airport (this one actually happened to me on Saturday). Part of our preflight work involves checking the notams to make sure there are no factors that will hinder or endanger our flight. One of the current notams that's been popping up for the last week or so, states that the airport in Bisbee is unsafe due to loose cattle. Apparently, we should be thankful that all we had was a solitary goat.