Saturday, January 23, 2010

Pink and Pinker: Cranny Dwellers

We have two pink goats here. One is very sweet. One is very pretty. Both are very dumb.

One of them is Tangy's daughter. Tangy is Big Orange's daughter. The other pinkling is Big Orange's daughter. Both of them are Junior daughters. And Tangy is also a Junior daughter.

So just among the three of them, they could have a gigantic family jamboree, because they are each other's mothers and daughters and sisters and half-sisters and cousins and nieces and aunts. All they would need is potato salad for a great big Pink Family Picnic.

The farmer says that this type of breeding is called line breeding. When it works.

When it doesn't work, it is called inbreeding.

In the case of Tangy's pink daughter, we have been calling it an accident. Accidents do happen, and they do not always wait to happen. Sometimes they happen right away. These are the impatient accidents, or IAs. They result in IA babies. As opposed to AI babies.

So Tangy's pink daughter is an IA baby. She is the sweet one. Big Orange's pink daughter is not an IA baby, but curiously this has not elevated her IQ even a single point.

Here is what she does every night: when the babies come in from the field they all run into their stall for dinner. Even Tangy's pink daughter is able to find her dinner and eat it.

But Zapricot, Big Orange's pink daughter, runs into her stall every night and then immediately runs into the little cranny behind the toe board which the farmer was supposed to fix some time in 2006. This cranny is about 16 inches long and 5 inches wide. There is no room to turn around. Even newborns have gotten trapped in there, it is so small.

I got stuck in there once and I set off my scream alarm that brings people running from two counties.

And here is the key element: I DID NOT GO BACK IN THERE.

And yet every single night Zapricot runs in there and gets stuck. She gives one or two meows, then lies down and goes to sleep until the next morning.

The farmer says, "I am going to have to fix that cranny."

Everyone says, "oh really, when?"

If Lori is there she says, "shall we get her out?"

The farmer says, "oh no, she will figure it out."

Everyone says, "oh really, when?"

Some are pink. And some are pinker. That's life in the cranny lane.