Hannah Belle's New Leaf

When my daughter Hannah Belle was a young mother, let's face it, she wasn't very good at it. And she didn't like it much. It was a lot of trouble.

So most of the time what she did was just go do what she wanted, leaving her two sons in the care of the farmer or anybody else who happened to be standing around. To the boys she would say, "Love ya! See you when all the bars close! Bye!"

And then she would be on her merry way, hopping over the stall wall to see if the grain room door was open, feasting on carefully tended rose bushes in the lawn, eating the leaves of expensive pawpaw trees imported from Virginia, kicking at the kitchen door to see if it would open, and so on. All the things any self-respecting goat feels obligated to do.

Well, this was actually fine because her two boys were very lighthearted and spent a lot of time frolicking with the other babies, and they only really noticed that they were essentially orphans when they started wanting milk. Which of course was all the time.

But anyway it wasn't too bad.

But now Hannah Belle is older and wiser and with her second set of kids - beautiful triplets - she has completely turned herself around. She will probably be voted mother of the year, not an honor to which I personally have ever aspired, but then there is no accounting for taste.

To tell you the truth, I think she is overdoing it a little. Go out, have some fun, eat a few blueberry bushes if you can sneak into the garden, that's what I say.

But not the new Hannah Belle. All day she stays with her kids, nuzzling little Peanut, cleaning big little Goatzilla's face, letting little Boxcar Betty use her for a trampoline. It's almost a little much.