The Repairman

We have a LaMancha buck named Xcellanti. Nobody would know how to pronounce that name even if we ever said it. But it doesn't matter because he is called Junior.

Junior loves his work and he is very handsome.

Junior never says anything but if he did it would be, "I can fix that."

Some of the does here are not beauty queens. A lot of them, actually. They have things like droopy udders and bad feet and they're too small and they don't milk enough. And so on.

It doesn't matter what's wrong. Junior can fix it. 

Every year the farmer takes Big Orange to see Junior and says, "Junior, I do not have time to explain everything that is wrong with this doe. Just fix it."

Junior says nothing. He just starts right in fixing.

Disaster Looms

It has gotten very boring here with relentless good weather and no mishaps to speak of since the well. There is plenty to eat and the apples are falling off the trees. The tractor is running fine and the barn is stacked to the rafters with hay. A boatload of carrots came in.

The living is easy, very easy, a monkey could do it.

 This can only mean one thing: catastrophe approaching, from the East probably, on little cat's feet.

From the Police Blotter.

Sheesh, can't you take your goat for a walk at midnight in your jammies any more?

Fair Warning

Good news, my enemy Abby's twin won the Kitsap County Fair. This means Abby will go to the state fair instead of me. Pinky is going to the fair as well. Terra is the prettiest dry yearling but since she got her hair shaved she has been walking around in a state of clenchment, with her legs shut tight together and her back roached and overall she looks like a poster for bad posture or possibly even rickets.

So Iota will go instead, unless she clenches after her fair haircut. She's not much of a clencher though, the Betty daughters are almost as relaxed as the Pinky family, so I think she will get stuffed in the trailer with the rest of the 'volunteers'.

Pinky of course doesn't care about anything, she could be sent to substitute teach at the state prison tomorrow and she wouldn't care, as long as there was enough alfalfa there. She's like the honey badger.

Blue is looking SO pretty (as the farmer repeats ad nauseam) but she has done the same magic trick as Betty and Hannah Belle and somehow shut her milk off as soon as she got her fair haircut. She only dribbles out enough to keep the farmer trying to milk her up, it's very cunning the way she does it, I made a mental note of it for future reference. She still gets full service dinners on the milkstand twice a day, but every time the farmer threatens her - "you will not be going to the fair if you do not get your milk back up."

Blue looks around in fake dismay, oh dear, say it isn't so, it can't be true, and keeps gobbling.

Here Comes the Bride

She is kind of pretty. For a Nubian.

Jiggety-Jog

The things that happen are strange. But the things that don't happen are even stranger.

Jammies was supposed to have her kids in the spring. But she wasn't bred so she didn't have any kids. She was just fat.

Blue's daughter Lainey went to Minter Bay to live and she didn't fit in there. She is a born misfit. First of all she is about the cutest thing you have ever seen, she looks like a blue-eyed hood ornament, but she is a midget and she is polite and shy and that always puts her at the end of the line where there is never any food and certainly no friends. She has never had an underling. You cannot get anywhere in the herd without at least one underling.

So the farmer thought, uh oh, if she can't hold her own at Minter Bay where the goats have such lovely manners what is she going to do here on the Island with Lord of the Flies goats like Tangy. So the farmer thought it could be a world class disaster, but after all this is her home, and so the farmer went and got Lainey and brought her back, worrying all the while what might happen to such a little goat in such a big world.

And Lainey did catch Hell for several weeks, even from her own mother who wanted nothing to do with her since she had new kids. But Lainey was used to that. And she went with the flow. She started following me around and admiring me, so I could see at the least that she had good taste, so I let her sleep with me sometimes.

And then Blue looked at her one day and said oh wait a second I remember you. And Blue stopped t-boning her.

And Wronny our herd queen has funny ideas and like any good ruler she doesn't just concern herself with the predicaments of the high and mighty, but also intervenes in the squabbles of the low and inconsequential. For example she stopped everyone from picking on Moldy and Abby, who knows why. She won't even let me enjoy a nice fight with Abby, as you know.

And when Tangy backed up one day in preparation for steamrolling Lainey whom she most likely never would have caught up with anyway, Wronny brought the hammer down and rolled Tangy down the hill, literally, in a cloud of dust. Tangy got up shaking her head, and everyone turned away politely, chewing their respective cuds, and made a mental note to leave Lainey alone.

And before you know it, we looked out one day and saw Lainey head-butting her little half-sister Blue Jay, who got her name because she is a terrible pest. It almost looked like she might have an underling.

So don't listen to what they say. You can go home again.

Pumped Up

Yesterday there was a big celebration because the well pump went out and the whole thing had to be pulled out of the ground and the pump and all the piping and the check valves and the bleedbacks and every other gold-plated thing on it had to be replaced and it cost the farmer an arm and a leg.

We were all dancing in the streets because just two days before that our ship had come in and it was loaded with alfalfa from Eastern Washington and we all knew good and well that if our ship had come in three days later it would have been cancelled and that money would have gone down the well. But you can't return hay so it is here to stay.

And we were dancing in the streets but trying to be polite about it because there was a somber air about the farm as Welly the well pump was fished up from 175 feet under and laid to rest. Goodbye Welly and thank you for holding on an extra day, and I'm sure the farmer did not mean any of the curses that were raining down on your head or perhaps meant them in a friendly way the same as when Hannah Belle got stuck in the panel gate (the second time, not the first.)

RIP.

The Buttinskys

The public is very cynical and several members have inquired whether I 'thought' I really won my fight with Abby the duck-footed Oregonian. I tihnk it is pretty apparent who won the fight even though only a few excerpts of it have been shown since it was a three-hour battle that I won. Or in any case I would have won if Wronny the self-proclaimed herdqueen hadn't made me stop fighting for no apparent reason except I guess she was probably afraid that the little duckfoot would be injured as you can see in this video. Wronny and her henchgoat Pinky think they are a big slice of pie and they go around telling other people what to do. What kind of fight is it when a big 175 pound bossy-boots has to come in and help you and go two against one and then three against one when her nitwit henchgoat lumbers onto the scene. So as far as who won the so-called fight which was really a stroll in the park from my point of view I think anyone would say the one who won was the one who did not need help from the henchgoats and herdqueens of the world. Thank you.

Also ps don't worry Wronny can't read. As far as Pinky she can barely walk and chew cud at the same time.

Fight Club

Baby Belle Jr. vs the Web-Footed Oregonian.

Today and Every Day

It was a year ago today we lost our great friend Atticus. A lady stopped by a little while ago and asked if the farmer still thinks about Atticus sometimes.

"Yes," the farmer said. That was all.

Every day.