This Weather

Around here people never get tired of talking about the weather when it is nice. When it is not nice nobody says anything. They just trudge around with their mud flaps out. But on days like the last few days everyone says, This Weather!

Can you believe This Weather?

How do you like This Weather?

This Weather!

Then the other person says, I KNOW!

or Isn't It Something?

They never get tired of it. They say it over and over.

I think it is because of this weather but yesterday I went into heat again. I felt it coming over me and I struggled against it but I was powerless to resist. I gave in and started screaming at the top of my lungs to signify that I was interested in gentleman callers - this is a good system, I don't know why people don't do it this way - and the farmer came running out of the house and picked me up and scurried to the car and stuffed me in a green dog crate and peeled out the driveway off to Minter Bay Dairy Goats.

We got there in record time - I think the screaming helped move things along - and we drove right to the drive-up buck window and the farmer got me out of the crate and carried me to the buck pen and inside there was the most darling little buck.

He looked just like a china doll! A little teacup buck like you might get in a cereal box! I mean adorable!

CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS WEATHER? I screamed at him.

I KNOW!!! He blubbered. ISN'T IT SOMETHING??!!

By this time I was ready to go and the farmer grabbed me and stuffed me back in the crate and we peeled out back to the farm, doing a donut in the field around the Minter Bay guard llama, who made no effort to check our IDs or anything else.

NICE TO MEET YOU! I screamed to the tiny buck. SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!

T Minus 9

Walker the Talker has been hanging around with the three little wethers. They rush around in a wether pack investigating food sightings. He took Bennett's advice and got his blue back.

It was a beautiful day, probably one of the ten most beautiful days of the year, and that helped.

Willen's long vacation is finally over. A good rider has been coming to ride him. He pretended he only knew how to stumble around like a 3-legged donkey for several days but it didn't take long to outsmart him. Today he was cantering all over and actually sweating. Tomorrow, who knows, maybe he will leave for Churchill Downs.

If anyone ever tries to put a saddle on you, take my advice and collapse on the ground in a dead faint. Moan and slobber a little bit too if you can. If that doesn't work, do a big Frankenstein limp.

The kidding countdown starts today.

Moldy is supposed to have her kids on February 27. She is already talking about it. Today is February 18, so it is T minus 9. Hurry up, Moldy.

Walkie Talkie

Walker the Talker is the handsomest minimancha wether in the world and he has a very high opinion of himself.

He thinks he is the handsomest minimancha wether in the world.

He likes to give his input on anything you are doing. "What are you doing?" he is always asking, even if you are asleep or possibly having a personal moment to yourself to think about pea hay.

Who invented pea hay? How did they think of it? Was it the same person who invented ginger snaps? Where does that person live? Near here?

Walker doesn't care how busy you are thinking about pea hay. He butts right in. He talks so much is why he got his nickname, Walker the Talker. For short we just call him Walkie Talkie.

If Walker sees a camera he runs over and stares at it until it takes his picture. Then he turns slightly so that his picture can be taken from another angle.

"Look at my eyes," he is always saying. "They are sky blue. That means they are as blue as the sky."

Anyway Walker has always lacked humility, unlike me.

Until yesterday.

Walker had gone to his new home where he was going to eat brush and be a friend to another goat. Then the phone rang. It was the people who got Walker and they said their dogs were trying to kill him. Maybe the dogs got tired of hearing his opinions, I thought.

Well the farmer has a policy of no refunds or exchanges. And also a strict policy of no wethers. So I was surprised when the farmer went and got in the truck and drove off and came back with Walker.

Walker got out and he was fine, there was nothing wrong with him. The dogs did not do a very good job of trying to kill him.

But he was humbled.

Zane Grey went over to give Walker a friendly t-boning and the farmer caught Zane Grey and picked him up.

"Just leave him alone," said the farmer. "Just leave him alone for today."

For the rest of the day Walker did not say anything or give any of his opinions. He walked along quietly behind the farmer, not letting even an inch of daylight get between him and the farmer.

His eyes did not even look that blue any more.

The Loneliest Number

We had the warmest January ever after one of the coldest Decembers ever. It was my first one so I don't really have anything to compare it to. But everyone was complaining it was too cold. And now it is too warm.

It is soppy and mild and last night the frogs started singing, all at once like they always do. Usually they don't start singing until March or April. But last night they started in, all together like a marching band.

The farmer went down and got Peaches and took Peaches up to the barn. Peaches has to go on solitary because she never gets enough to eat when she is in with other goats, even if one of them is in love with her, like Cowboy is. So while Cowboy wasn't looking the farmer came and got Peaches.

Cowboy heard the gate close behind them and he came running.

He started crying and threw himself against the gate.

"It's ok, Cowboy," the farmer said. Cowboy picked himself up and threw himself against the gate again.

The farmer put Peaches in a stall by herself with a large supply of hay. Peaches started right in eating. The farmer brought Peaches some extra grain. Peaches took a short break from eating hay to gobble the grain. Then she went back to eating hay.

The farmer turned out the lights in the barn and went into the house for the night.

We all sat there in the dark. We could hear Peaches eating her hay. In the background we could hear the chain rattling each time Cowboy threw himself against the gate. In the background behind the background, we could hear the frogs singing.

It's February. But it feels like April.

Car Inspector

Kind of messy in there.

Headroom is pretty good.

No tread on the tires. Looks like a banana peel.

How'd this scratch get on here? Shaped like a little hoofprint, hmm, that's funny.

You Can't Plant Me in Your Penthouse

Around here the reception is not very good. Things don't come in. Things like the phone, the tv, the radio.

Anyway every morning in the milk parlor the farmer turns on the radio. It is an old radio where you twiddle the dial. Usually only one of two stations will come in. One is a country music radio station and the other is news and talk. Both of these are fine. The milkers will tolerate either one.

But sometimes the farmer likes to test the waters, just to see if maybe a new station from who knows where will come in. Every once in a while something new comes on. Then after a few days it goes out and we go back to country music or talk radio.

Well a strange new station came in. It was playing soft rock, which we thought had been outlawed but apparently not.

The farmer left it on and set up the milk machine and put out the food trays and opened up the hatch for the milkers to come in.

Xie Xie was at the top of the ramp when Elton John came on, warbling "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road."

Xie Xie made a set of patented pop eyes and dismounted immediately off the ramp. Big Orange was behind her and followed suit. Next was Wronny, who came all the way up to the door and stood staring into the milk parlor with a look of shock and horror.

"You know you can't hold me forever," Elton John continued.

"Get in here, Wronny!" yelled the farmer.

Wronny backed away cautiously, like you would from a grizzly bear, trying not to show fear.

"Winnie! Winnie, get in here!" yelled the farmer, trying to reach through the hatch to grab somebody. Winnie would not even set foot on the ramp.

Pretty soon all the milkers backed away from the hatch, huddling in the opposite corner of the on-deck stall.

"What are you doing?" yelled the farmer. Elton John went off. Xie Xie cautiously put a foot on the ramp during the commercial.

"Oh," said the farmer, and turned the station back to talk radio. The milkers relaxed. The milking got under way without further incident.

Our farmer is not as smart as some farmers. But we make do with what we have.

Cowboy Ballet

As you know my father's name is Cowboy. He is very handsome and used to have a very distinctive quiff of hair but that has flattened down somewhat what with all the rain and the winter and him having grown to his full buckhood. But anyway as you might expect he is exceedingly handsome nonetheless even with deflated hair. His fantastic beard more than makes up for the wind having gone out of his forelock.

Oddly though he was always known as a sort of a pill. He fretted. He cried and he fussed. He worried. He always foresaw disaster. Everything that happened he seemed to think, oh dear that won't end well. He was a sort of an Eeyore type goat.

If it was beautiful and sunny he would get a look on his face: this won't last, or if it does it will scorch all the grass. I just know it. If it rained he got the same look on his face: well this will probably turn into a hurricane and blow the roof off my shed. I just know it. And so on.

Well everyone thought that was his natural personality. Except me, I didn't. Everyone else did.

"Isn't it funny," people would say. "Millie is so sunny and Cowboy is such a pill."

Because first Cowboy lived with the other bucks, and they always stole his food and made implied threats against him and actual threats also and genuine attempted t-bonings as well. Well that wouldn't do even though he was a fast runner so Cowboy moved to a private pen and shed. He had lots of room and nobody bothered him but he was in there all alone.

Well about a month ago the farmer put Peaches in with Cowboy for breeding. Peaches is a mini and she never really fit in with the big goats, but she was too big for the little goats and bullied them mercilessly. She was a firm disbeliever in the do-unto-others rule.

But anyway Peaches got in there and she seemed quite pleased with the spacious accommodations and in the end the farmer said, oh I will just leave her in there. So Peaches has been in there all this time and slowly slowly Cowboy has come out of his shell.

We were all very startled to see him kicking up his heels and frolicking the other day and doing some exotic spin maneuvers around Peaches, sort of the way Wendell does his "herding" maneuvers to impress the farmer, with a very foolish expression on his face that says, "look at me! Just look at me! Isn't it clever what I am doing??!! Have you ever seen anything like it??"

Every day he does it now and the funniest part is that Peaches is a dour little bag and couldn't care less. But Cowboy couldn't care less that she doesn't care less, he must be in love with her or something. He does his exotic spin moves two or three times a day, even the farmer laughs when he does it, plain as day he is saying, "Look at me, Peaches! Just look!"

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.