The Hard Hat on the Goat
A safety training day at my Dublin dairy turns into a photo shoot when the barn goat finds the box of yellow hard hats on the table.
Once a year we have a safety training day at the dairy, with a folding table, a stack of pamphlets, a video from the insurance company, and a box of donuts that disappears by nine. I am in charge of it. It is not my favorite day of the year, but I take it seriously, because I like everybody going home the same way they came in.
That year, the safety officer brought a fresh box of bright yellow hard hats for the crew. He set them on the table by the door and went to set up the projector. While he was fiddling with the cord, our barn goat, Mortimer, ambled into the room. Mortimer is a mild creature with a long beard and a habit of investigating anything shiny.
He looked at the hard hats. He looked at the safety officer. Then he carefully lowered his head and nudged one off the table, and it landed neatly on his horns. It fit like it had been made for him. He turned and walked slowly down the center aisle with the yellow hat bobbing, like a very small site inspector on the way to work.
The crew froze. Nobody wanted to laugh in front of the safety officer. Then the officer himself turned around, saw the goat, and burst into laughter so hard he had to lean on the projector. He said it was the best demonstration of proper head protection he had ever seen, and he took a photo. The photo went into the company newsletter, with Mortimer labeled 'Safety Champion.'
The training went on, and I will say everyone paid attention. Nobody wanted to be outdone by a goat. We keep a hard hat by the feed room door now, fitted to his horns, and he wears it for visitors. For good guidance on working safely around animals and equipment, I recommend the pages at farm safety resources, and for more of my goat stories, check farm.FM.
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