Wednesday, March 07, 2012

A Formal Feeling



Well it is a known fact that you can't sit around reading Emily Dickinson poems all day long no matter how gloomy you feel because the fence won't fix itself and what about the gate. And what about Betty's triplets, they need names, real names not just Mouseketeer names (one supposedly is going to be called Midget, just because he is tiny and cute.) What about the half-finished feeder, how long is that going to sit in front of the cottage?

Enough is enough.

Anyway finally the farmer noticed that a few thousand things needed doing and trudged around mechanically not getting much done but at least moving.

Penrose caught sight of the farmer and came racing up to the barn, cantering right through the deathly mud patch at the top of the hill so that she came out the other side wearing two pairs of chocolate brown knee socks.

"What do you want Penrose?" the farmer intoned dully when Penrose poked her head over the stall door expectantly.

Penrose did not say anything but wouldn't go away and finally the farmer went and got her some grain and put it in the dish on the milkstand and let Penrose out of the stall.

And Penrose cantered spryly out of the stall and jumped up on the milkstand and began eating ravenously, only looking around occasionally at the farmer as if to say, "come on, let's get started, I don't have all day."

And after a few minutes of sweeping the farmer looked up and saw that Penrose had come into milk and wanted to be milked. Penrose is 9 years old and she hasn't kidded since 2007 and she hasn't settled since 2006 and once again she was back in milk, probably she heard Midget crying in the barn, most likely about the name he has been given, and that caused the milk to begin flowing into her udder because that is all it really takes for a goat like Penrose who comes from 400 years of purebred Swiss Toggenburgs.

Wendell sat nearby, licking his whiskers and quivering in unseemly milk anticipation.

And the farmer actually smiled and sat down and milked Penrose out and even said "I'll be darned."

It was a miracle.

The loaves, the fishes, the milk. Saint Penrose does it again.