The farmer has finally had it with Hannah Belle. Hannah Belle is being moved to the kidding stall, like it or not.
And she better like it.
This means the LaMancha weaners, all of whom have been crying hysterically for four days as they adjust to a world without milk, will be plunged into a new reality show called "Outdoor Living."
Or, as I like to think of it, "I'm a LaMancha Baby, Get Me Out of Here!"
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
It Loved To Happen
Since March it has been believed that my daughter Hannah Belle might kid at any moment. She looks like one of those trucks going down the highway with half of someone’s house on it and an advance car (usually in the form of her chuckleheaded sidekick Miss Melly) leading the way.
Hannah Belle herself has remained calm and not tipped her hand about her plans, enjoying several pre-birthing spa treatments without ever actually having to do any birthing, which can be tiring.
In any case, she was on the chart with a date of June 5 pencilled in, since that was 5 months from the date of her last (of many) breedings.
When people would come over they would say, “oh, Hannah Belle Lecter must be having her babies soon.”
“Yes,” the farmer would say, “possibly.”
“She doesn’t look like she can go much longer.”
“No, not really,” the farmer would say.
And then a day and a week and a month would pass, with Hannah Belle getting larger and no kids appearing. Now it is mid-May, and it appears, like Rachel Alexandra, that she may actually go the distance.
If anything, she is starting to look a little smaller, which is one of the strange things that sometimes happens with Hannah Belle, who almost always has a set of beautiful triplets, except for one time when she had a set of beautiful twins. We have only ever had two sets of quadruplets born here, so we doubt she will have more than three.
We doubt it. We really doubt it. Sort of.
Because when it comes to Hannah Belle, I am proud to say that it pays to expect the unexpected. Or, to quote the famous philosopher Jackson Browne, “don’t think it won’t happen just because it hasn’t happened yet.”
Hannah Belle herself has remained calm and not tipped her hand about her plans, enjoying several pre-birthing spa treatments without ever actually having to do any birthing, which can be tiring.
In any case, she was on the chart with a date of June 5 pencilled in, since that was 5 months from the date of her last (of many) breedings.
When people would come over they would say, “oh, Hannah Belle Lecter must be having her babies soon.”
“Yes,” the farmer would say, “possibly.”
“She doesn’t look like she can go much longer.”
“No, not really,” the farmer would say.
And then a day and a week and a month would pass, with Hannah Belle getting larger and no kids appearing. Now it is mid-May, and it appears, like Rachel Alexandra, that she may actually go the distance.
If anything, she is starting to look a little smaller, which is one of the strange things that sometimes happens with Hannah Belle, who almost always has a set of beautiful triplets, except for one time when she had a set of beautiful twins. We have only ever had two sets of quadruplets born here, so we doubt she will have more than three.
We doubt it. We really doubt it. Sort of.
Because when it comes to Hannah Belle, I am proud to say that it pays to expect the unexpected. Or, to quote the famous philosopher Jackson Browne, “don’t think it won’t happen just because it hasn’t happened yet.”
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Primates - Go Figure!
Well, the farmer’s precious pet Winnie got very sick. She had milk fever and went down like a stone. She couldn’t walk, because she couldn’t stand up, and the farmer sat around petting her and giving her calcium and Vitamin B and swaddling her in blankets and fetching salal and huckleberry and fresh grass and leaves and all kinds of tempting treats.
I did not get my feet trimmed as had been promised, and Lucy did not get her haircut fixed. Tangy did not do any walking practice – Tangy walks like a swordfish reeled to the surface on a sportfishing tv show, hurling her whole body against the collar and flapping around in mid-air - and the compost pile did not get turned. Domino didn’t get castrated, either, but he didn’t mind.
All because Princess Winnie was sick.
Sometimes I do not understand the workings of the primate mind, because personally I think Winnie is a pain. To me, I say, c’est la vie, if a goat has milk fever and won’t get up to eat, then it doesn’t have much gumption which probably signals weak genes.
I have had milk fever but that is because I had triplets who were very hungry because of their exceptional genetic makeup. Whereas with Winnie, her triplets are perfectly ordinary, and one of them was even a runt, so again we get back to the weak genes, and honestly I don’t understand all the extra effort that could have been better used fixing Lucy’s haircut (looks like it was done with a lawnmower) or castrating Domino the-soon-to-be-wether who really has become a pest with his goatboy ideas.
But this is just one example of how the primate mind works.
Primates can be useful, they have those fingers for picking bugs off you and scratching that part near your withers where you can’t reach, but do not try to figure out what they are thinking. Even if you could do it, you would probably not want to know.
Winnie got better but obviously through no fault of her own weak genes.
I did not get my feet trimmed as had been promised, and Lucy did not get her haircut fixed. Tangy did not do any walking practice – Tangy walks like a swordfish reeled to the surface on a sportfishing tv show, hurling her whole body against the collar and flapping around in mid-air - and the compost pile did not get turned. Domino didn’t get castrated, either, but he didn’t mind.
All because Princess Winnie was sick.
Sometimes I do not understand the workings of the primate mind, because personally I think Winnie is a pain. To me, I say, c’est la vie, if a goat has milk fever and won’t get up to eat, then it doesn’t have much gumption which probably signals weak genes.
I have had milk fever but that is because I had triplets who were very hungry because of their exceptional genetic makeup. Whereas with Winnie, her triplets are perfectly ordinary, and one of them was even a runt, so again we get back to the weak genes, and honestly I don’t understand all the extra effort that could have been better used fixing Lucy’s haircut (looks like it was done with a lawnmower) or castrating Domino the-soon-to-be-wether who really has become a pest with his goatboy ideas.
But this is just one example of how the primate mind works.
Primates can be useful, they have those fingers for picking bugs off you and scratching that part near your withers where you can’t reach, but do not try to figure out what they are thinking. Even if you could do it, you would probably not want to know.
Winnie got better but obviously through no fault of her own weak genes.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Two More
There are two more of them now. LaMancha bottle baby monsters. Jessie's kids.
They don't have names either, Z is a very hard year, and they all look exactly alike except Pinky and that other one, Joemma, who is part Toggenburg even though she has no ears. The rest of them run around in a black blur, some are black and tan, some are black and cream, some are black and brown. They are all boring.
"Aren't they cute?" says the farmer, carrying them around.
Not really, I think. But what can you say.
To be polite, I try to pretend I am charmed by their puckish antics. Goodness! They're adorable! With their earless heads and their little monkey faces! Look at them knocking all the buckets over and dancing across the clean hay with their muddy footprints! What could be cuter!
Who has time to list all the cuter things than an earless-monkey-looking baby goat? Let's just start with a Nigerian Dwarf baby goat, maybe? By like 10,000 percent or so?
That brings us back to Hannah Belle Lecter, my daughter, who has been steadily achieving a more and more blimp-like condition. Each week Lori says, "she must be getting close," but since every year Hannah Belle is bred approximately 17 times (she enjoys breeding, what can I say, it's a free country) we never know exactly when she might kid.
But even I would say, as I see her lumbering across the pasture blotting out the sun with her bulk (not today, today it's raining), even I would say, "she must be getting close."
Mustn't she?
They don't have names either, Z is a very hard year, and they all look exactly alike except Pinky and that other one, Joemma, who is part Toggenburg even though she has no ears. The rest of them run around in a black blur, some are black and tan, some are black and cream, some are black and brown. They are all boring.
"Aren't they cute?" says the farmer, carrying them around.
Not really, I think. But what can you say.
To be polite, I try to pretend I am charmed by their puckish antics. Goodness! They're adorable! With their earless heads and their little monkey faces! Look at them knocking all the buckets over and dancing across the clean hay with their muddy footprints! What could be cuter!
Who has time to list all the cuter things than an earless-monkey-looking baby goat? Let's just start with a Nigerian Dwarf baby goat, maybe? By like 10,000 percent or so?
That brings us back to Hannah Belle Lecter, my daughter, who has been steadily achieving a more and more blimp-like condition. Each week Lori says, "she must be getting close," but since every year Hannah Belle is bred approximately 17 times (she enjoys breeding, what can I say, it's a free country) we never know exactly when she might kid.
But even I would say, as I see her lumbering across the pasture blotting out the sun with her bulk (not today, today it's raining), even I would say, "she must be getting close."
Mustn't she?
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Earth Day
It was Earth Day this week which gave us a good excuse to celebrate the force that through the green fuse drives the flower. Go flowers! But excuse me isn't every day Earth Day? Or is there a backup planet we will all be moving to?
If that's the case I hope there won't be so many bottle babies on it.
Especially of the LaMancha doeling persuasion, enough already with the earless terrors. This new one Pinky who is being called Zut Alors (she does look kind of French and believe me that's no compliment) while her real name is decided is perhaps the holiest of the terrors I have had to endure.
She was already pampered to death before she cracked her head open and after that she was practically carried everywhere on a satin cushion. Make a note of these two easy steps if you would like to create your own bottle baby monster.
Now she runs everywhere screaming. She pushes the other bottle babies off the slide. She fastens her jaws to the farmer's hand - or any hand that happens to be carrying a bucket of milk - like a lamprey eel. She t-bones anyone who tries to sit on the farmer's lap.
And then I get reprimanded for gently helping her find her way out of my stall.
"Don't hurt little Pinky now," says the farmer. "She's still recovering."
Oh please. Please.
If that's the case I hope there won't be so many bottle babies on it.
Especially of the LaMancha doeling persuasion, enough already with the earless terrors. This new one Pinky who is being called Zut Alors (she does look kind of French and believe me that's no compliment) while her real name is decided is perhaps the holiest of the terrors I have had to endure.
She was already pampered to death before she cracked her head open and after that she was practically carried everywhere on a satin cushion. Make a note of these two easy steps if you would like to create your own bottle baby monster.
Now she runs everywhere screaming. She pushes the other bottle babies off the slide. She fastens her jaws to the farmer's hand - or any hand that happens to be carrying a bucket of milk - like a lamprey eel. She t-bones anyone who tries to sit on the farmer's lap.
And then I get reprimanded for gently helping her find her way out of my stall.
"Don't hurt little Pinky now," says the farmer. "She's still recovering."
Oh please. Please.
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