Wednesday, April 14, 2010

spirit of joyjoy

We just heard some very bad news. It was about our friend Joyjoy who went to a wonderful new home with her twin Gracie several months ago. Joyjoy had an unforeseeable accident and she died. Joyjoy was a very adventurous goat and she loved to explore everything. She had a very strong spirit, you could always feel when Joyjoy was coming close even if you didn't see her right away. We were all very sad when we heard.

So today Zenyatta went to live with Gracie because Gracie was very upset. Zenyatta and Gracie are old friends from when they were babies together. So hopefully Gracie will start feeling better soon.

It made the farmer think because a very strange thing happened here the other day. We had a long day with all kinds of odd occurrences including a horse mishap and several trucks not working and we had to cancel our plans to get hay and the tractor got a flat tire and finally Blue Umbrella had her kids - two pretty little does, the first she has had - and by the time the farmer got around to milking the milkers it was ten o'clock at night and the farmer made a bad decision.

The farmer decided to leave Boxcar Betty and her two tiny kids, Pepe and Iota, in a little corner of the barn aisle instead of putting them in a stall. They were going to go back into the crush pen when the milkers went through to the milk parlor. And it seemed like a better idea than putting them in a stall with other goats when they were so tiny.

It wasn't.

When the farmer came out 45 minutes later after milking, Betty and her kids were gone. And just then the farmer heard Betty bellowing frantically down below in the back pasture. She was looking for her kids and she couldn't find them. It was pitch black and all the night animals were out, bats and owls and all kinds of creatures who could eat Pepe or Iota in one bite.

The farmer and Betty ran around yelling in the dark. No use. The farmer came in and turned the barn upside down: no Pepe, no Iota. The farmer went and got a flashlight and ran around again with Betty, not just in the back pasture but in the side as well. For twenty minutes they looked high and low.

Then suddenly Betty gave the farmer a squirrelly look and ran back up to the barn.

The farmer kept looking for a few minutes and then realized Betty was not bawling any more.

When the farmer got up to the barn, Pepe and Iota were just coming out from under a bookcase to get some milk from Betty.

"They weren't there before," said the farmer, even though no one was listening. "I looked under there before, and they weren't there."

Nobody said anything. "Someone must have been watching out for them," said the farmer.

Maybe.

Or maybe Spirit of Joyjoy.