Good News.

There has been so much bad news this year that it was just decided by the management that there would not be any more until further notice. And if there was bad news it would not be printed or mentioned or referred to until the bad news embargo had passed completely which could take a long time possibly forever since the bad news quota for this year was filled before the end of March.

Okay so the announcement came that the second round of hay was being baled and some of the people who were supposed to help suddenly had other plans and impetigo and hyphema and throbbing bunions and several kinds of palsy and surprise birthday parties and so on and the size of the Hay Team dwindled to a very dismal level but was this bad news? NO.

A team of crack hay specialists from Korea flew in to take the place of the indisposed and the fainthearted and also the farmer's pal from Longbranch pitched in out of the blue and the hay practically marched into the barn. The hay trailer did not get stuck halfway up the driveway - that would never happen - and it did not have to be partly unloaded to get it unstuck, and there was no cussing or yelling, that would be unseemly, and after the Hay Team finished stacking The Hay in the hayloft there was enough left over to make a beautiful Hay Nest for Moldy's little son Chance in the back of old Brownie.

There is always a chance that things could have gone a little bit better, but really I don't see how in this particular case.

Yes, the chariot is a-coming. And no, I don't want it to leave me behind.

TV CFN Penrose Point

That was her name.

You always know there will be days like this. But that doesn't help when they come.

Yesterday the farmer found Penrose lying slumped against the fence behind the barn. She looked like she had just fallen over. Like maybe she had a heart attack.

Last week we were laughing because everyone is growing out their beards but Penrose can't grow hers out even though it is a nice one because every baby here comes and stands under Penrose's chin and chews her beard down to the nubbins so it never gets more than an inch long. Because she won't shoo them away.

She was never sick a day in her life and we don't know what happened. Probably her heart was too big if I had to guess. The last thing she did was give some extra milk for Moldy's little son Chance.

She came here from Walla Walla in the back of an old Ford pickup truck with my grandmother Baby Belle when she was a kid. She looked just like an ordinary run-of-the-mill Toggenburg. But she wasn't.

Penrose was nine years old.

Waiting for Helena

Ok we are taking applications for a new farmer the one we have is stove in from bucking hay and the worst part is the hay season is nowhere near finished. If you want to apply send an application. The job description is very hard work very long hours very low pay, the benefits are few and limited, the drawbacks are many and numerous, the qualifications are doesn't panic easily and isn't afraid of goat berries. Slow-moving and dull-witted would be nice. It is what we are used to.

In other news there was no mention made for a long time of Moldy's son Chance. This was because there was fear of jinxing him because this has been the kind of year where every little fly in the ointment seems to turn into big trouble. Anyway when Chance was born he was a spindly little runt and he didn't do very well. From that unpromising starting point he suddenly went downhill fast, getting sicker and sicker and weaker and more lethargic until he hardly had the strength to hold his head up.

Lori took him and put him on two hour bottle feedings all through the night and the farmer gave him two kinds of special medicine and a dose of vitamin B and selenium and gradually gradually gradually he started to get better. And yesterday for the first time ever he ran and skipped like a real baby goat although he weighs about as much as a hamster.

You would never want to say someone is out of the woods. That would be bad luck. And anyway the woods around here are very dark and deep. But he did run and skip and it was a good time for a small miracle like that because everything else was going to hell in a handbasket. In fact if Betsy ever has her kids, the last kids of the season, and one of them is a girl, she is going to be called Helena Handbasket. Even though it is a C Year.

So now that Chance looks like he might be back on the rails we are just waiting for Helena. Come on out, Helena. Your handbasket is ready and waiting.

The Festival of Hay and Profanity

It has been a hair-raising week. Moldy had a little son his name is Chance. She is devilishly attached to him and bursts out screaming if she can't see him for even an instant.

All the helpers disappeared just in time for the first round of haying and the farmer was picking up hay alone and the tailgate on the truck was broken and you would not believe the cussing that filled the air. It was a symphony of cussing even I was impressed and I have heard some cussing in my day.

Fritzi and Frodo went to their new home and for some reason everybody got upset about this even though they are just two little LaMancha wethers. Penrose couldn't help it she gave the farmer a lot of accusing looks since she had adopted Frodo and was feeding him when nobody else would and she kept staring at the farmer after they left as if to say "et tu, farmer?" and this did not improve the mood of the place one iota and then Betty got into the wrong pasture and all in all it was a good week to take a black Magic Marker and just cross all seven days off the calendar and don't look back and I think that is what we will do so please don't ever mention this week again and if you have to make a comment try to be sure that your comment is pleasant and cheery or maybe just a little poem you wrote about the sun coming up in the morning with rays of golden joy and nothing about sorrow or heartbreak or broken-down machinery or hay.

Thank you.

Cory Anderson and the Surfing Goat

On Saturday Chella had a little drab baby it was a girl of course since Fred only has doe kids and it popped out without causing much trouble. It isn't flashy like the others it only has one or two spots and it cries a lot for no apparent reason and it is constantly falling asleep just when everybody goes somewhere else and then waking up and bleating like a Highland sheep.

Its name is going to be Coriander but everyone calls it Cory Anderson which doesn't make any sense. The baby is not smart enough to have a name like Cory Anderson. It needs a name like Spot. Right now I can see the baby looking around blankly whenever anyone says Cory Anderson. Coriander was bad enough. No one consults me or these problems wouldn't happen. 

Okay anyway yesterday the farmer went to feed down below and there was a little goat waiting at the gate when the farmer came out and the farmer yelled, "Terra Belle! I have just about had it with you jumping over that fence and you better get back inside right now or you won't get any dinner."

Terra Belle, Hannah Belle's two year old daughter, has been jumping the fence that didn't get fixed and parading around the pasture looking for snacks.

The little goat ignored what the farmer said, not out of rudeness but because it wasn't Terra Belle. It was the new Baby Belle. It had gotten out of its pen somehow and come up to the gate. Charlie was running the fenceline and bawling. He was still locked in the pen.

Our farmer is weak-minded as you probably know and just went on about the feeding, pulling the tractor with the feed bucket and the hay bales into the pasture and shutting the gate and driving down to feed everybody and the new Baby Belle ran alongside a few steps and then did a very nice grand jete and landed in the tractor bucket about three feet up in the air and commenced eating the grain in the feed bucket, not minding that the tractor was heading downhill at a pretty good clip.

"You better get out of there Terra Belle, " the farmer yelled. "You have never done that before and I do not want you starting now!"

The farmer went blathering on down the hill still yelling at the new Baby Belle and wiggling the tractor bucket up and down to try to dislodge the intruder but the intruder held fast, head down in the bucket, surfing along unfazed by any of the farmer's threats and promises.

The farmer doesn't know it yet, but we are going to need a new horse trailer.

The one we have won't hold this girl.