The Circles that you find...

We have all become very concerned about Clara Belle.

Her brother went to his new home and Clara Belle has been forced to drink all of Iota's milk. We didn't get the results back yet, but judging by her waistline I think it must be about 10% butterfat. In fact I was going to suggest if it isn't too late maybe her name could be changed to Butter Belle. Or possibly Beach Belle.

By this time she is about twice the size of Midget, who is quite a bit older, and she shows no sign of slowing down.

"How adorable," the visitors say when she comes stampeding toward them to be picked up.

"Oh dear," they say, when they try to lift her.

"Try this one," the farmer will say, and hand them Mango, who weighs about two pounds, or LGO (the little gray one). Even Clover weighs about half as much as Clara Belle.

Meanwhile Coco and Coffee have retained a surprising amount of Nubianity, considering that by this time they are only 1/16th Nubian.

Yesterday when everyone came into the barn for dinner they all ran into the usual stalls, except Coco who started running in a circle and jumping off the milk stands in the aisle. She went around once, and then twice, and then three times, and by that time the farmer had closed all the doors to shut everyone in and just stood staring at Coco.

Even Pinky was perplexed and asked Coco what she was doing.

"I am running in a circle! A circle goes around and around," she answered, panting. "Forever!"

The farmer snatched her up and dropped her over the stall door, or I think she would still be out there putting her views on geometry into action.

I hope she doesn't start trying to run in a trapezoid. Or a parabola.

We continue to be sobered by the circles that we find in the windmills of the Nubian mind.

Wronny's Kids....

....Still did not get born.

"This is a little ridiculous, Wronny," said the farmer, showing Wronny the calendar where it was marked in ink that she was going to kid in March.

"It is MAY now."

Wronny chewed her cud impassively.

The farmer showed a list of names of people waiting to take cheesemaking classes where they milk the professional goats and then make cheese.

"Do you want these people to have to milk Cherry?"

Wronny chewed her cud impassively.

"Or perhaps you think they would like to milk Iota?"

Iota's style of milking is that she gobbles the food as fast as she can with one half of her mouth while at the same time emitting a constant only slightly muffled high-pitched scream with the other half. This is really an astonishing trick, it is like something you would see in Las Vegas. Not on the Strip but maybe out on one of the side streets. Pretty far out, actually. In the desert, maybe.

Also while screaming she kicks one of her back legs in a sort of sidestroke motion so that she looks like a little white frog.

The funny part is that she has improved almost 51% since she started: in the beginning she wouldn't eat at all and just devoted herself to kicking both legs and splitting everyone's eardrums with a completely unmuffled banshee howl.

"This is why Nigerians get a bad reputation," the farmer said darkly to Betty, like it is Betty's fault because Iota is her daughter. Betty chewed her cud impassively. "She gets that from her father," she told us when the farmer went away.

"I want those kids on the ground, Wronny," the farmer blathered on. "And no more false alarms. Stop pretending to wax over and loosen your ligaments. Do you hear me?"

Wronny chewed her cud impassively.

Meanwhile while all the charts were being reviewed Poppy popped out a set of triplet doelings without any sermon from the farmer and after a short stay in the delivery room they were ushered out to mix with the other  mothers and babies and this was an occasion for another lecture.

"I do not want anyone bothering Poppy," the farmer harangued the other mothers. " She is very shy and sweet and I do not want any of you monsters bothering her or her triplets. Does everyone understand me?"

Betty, Iota, and Cherry chewed their cuds impassively.

An hour or so later the farmer came out to check the baby stall and Poppy had pinned the other mothers to the far wall with a series of masterful head flips, backed up by skillful earbiting and Sugar Ray Leonard style body blows. Poppy and her triplets lived inside an imaginary line that cut the stall in half. The other mothers and kids lived in the other half.

The hay feeder and the water bucket - you guessed it - were on Poppy's side.

You never know what motherhood will do for someone.

"Hmm," mused the farmer. "Maybe Poppy could train Iota how to milk properly."

Milk Master Midget

Well the milk test day has come and gone.

Here is what happened.

Coco Plum slept the whole day since she was planning to do that anyway.

Coffee Bean escaped from the barn but since she is part Nubian she did not know she had escaped and she ran back in and was reapprehended. But since she is part Nubian she did not know she was reapprehended so she was just relieved. She would not take a bottle but drank freely from the farmer's elbow. Since she is part Nubian she did not know that there is no milk in the elbow.

Write this down if you are making a chart or something: there are no (zero) mammary glands in the elbow.

Anyway the mind is a powerful organ even in a Nubian and after drinking her fill of elbow milk Coffee was convinced that she needed a nap and she nodded off as usual.

Cubby and Clover guzzled freely from the bottles that were provided. For a while it was feared that Cubby might explode.

Horatio drank sparingly, just enough to get by. Clara Belle drank only a little, but gobbled extra hay.

At 9 a.m. Midget guaranteed that his gallbladder would explode if he were not reunited immediately with his beloved mother. He sang heartbreaking spirituals to himself to keep hope alive. Nobody knew the trouble he had seen. How could they?

At 10 a.m. Midget refused the bottle. "I will never drink from that bottle!" he screamed.

At 11 a.m. Midget refused the bottle.  "Please come and take me!" he beseeched the sky. "My suffering is too great for this world!"

I felt like clapping. It was quite a Passion Play.

At noon Midget refused the bottle. At 2 p.m. Midget refused the bottle.

At 3 p.m. Midget guzzled exhaustively from the bottle with a speed and dexterity not seen since the days when Tangy was a bottle baby. It was feared he might explode. A murmur of awe went up from the gallery.

When you see a Milk Master, a true Milk Master,  you must tip your hat, one professional to another.

Well played, Midget.

The Sorrow and The Pity and the Deaf Ears

The farmer explained to the mothers that they would be going out with the fat ladies today and the babies would not be going with them because the mothers are going on milk test and they need to bag up.

The babies cried. And then the mothers cried.

The mothers went out and joined the scrum at the feeders and it was a beautiful day and the babies stayed in the barn. The mothers gobbled at the feeders, crying together in a low hum, with their mouths full. The farmer started sweeping out the barn.

Clover is the smartest one of the babies and she screamed at the top of her lungs when she saw the farmer. "I HAVE AN IDEA!"

The farmer just kept sweeping.

"CAN YOU COME HERE PLEASE!" screamed Clover. "I HAVE AN IDEA!"

The farmer backed the tractor out to go get the flatbed and hitch it to the truck.

 "I CAN TEST THE MILK FOR YOU!" screamed Clover. "I KNOW HOW TO DO IT! I HAVE BEEN DOING IT MY WHOLE LIFE!"

The farmer hitched the tractor to the flatbed. The mothers finished gobbling and started crying.

 "ALSO I REMEMBER NOW," screamed Clover, "I JUST TESTED THE MILK AND IT IS FINE. I TESTED IT YESTERDAY! IT'S FINE! A+!"

The farmer rolled the fencing off the flatbed and pulled it out to the driveway.

"EXCUSE ME," screamed Clover, "MIDGET IS HAVING AN ANXIETY ATTACK! HE IS A MAMA'S BOY!"

"THAT'S TRUE!" screamed Betty from the other side of the fence.

"AND I THINK HIS GALLBLADDER JUST POPPED!"

"I HEARD IT!" screamed Cubby. 

The farmer went and got the truck and hitched it to the flatbed.

"MIDGET JUST FAINTED!" Clover bellowed. "AND COCO IS HAVING A BRAIN HERNIA!"

The farmer got in the truck and drove away.

"I HOPE YOU ARE HAPPY!" screamed Clover. 

"I HOPE YOU ARE HAPPY!" screamed the mothers.

The truck disappeared, heading down the road toward Home.

The Most Beautiful Squirrel in the World

Life is full of mistakes. Every time you turn around there is some kind of mistake. Just yesterday I stood next to Betsy at the feeder. That was a mistake.

Years ago there was a mistake made in the Boxcar Betty family. That's because there is a rule of thumb. If you are in the Belle family and you are very special, you are supposed to get a Belle name. Hannah Belle, Cora Belle, Belle Pepper, Million Belles (that's me). But when Betty was born she tumbled out like a little pair of dice, just a black-and-white ball flashing polka dots across the straw, and the farmer said "Boxcars!"

That name stuck and she became Boxcar Betty.

She should have had a Belle name. But she didn't. So that meant none of her kids had Belle names. Because it was a rule of thumb. Duchess should have had a Belle name. And so should Iota.

And when Iota had her kids, they weren't eligible for Belle names, and they didn't seem particularly to need them because they looked like squirrels. So the girl was named Cloud 9 (Cloudy) and that seemed ok for a few weeks. But then she began to grow into herself, shaking off her baby funk. And she began to develop a certain type of personality that has been seen before here, a personality that reminds everyone of a certain someone. And she did not look anything like a squirrel any more, or if she did, she was the most beautiful squirrel in the world.

Luckily our farmer is weak-minded, and hadn't gotten around to sending any papers in, and yesterday the farmer said, hmm, I think you might need a new name.

And so here it is years later and what do you know. The mistake of Betty's name has been fixed. So you see all those mistakes you made don't have to be set in stone. They are only mistakes in your mind. Change your mind and you can fix them.

There's a new Belle in town.


Iota's Daughter

Milk Time!

We Love Our Work from herron hill on Vimeo.

We Aren't Mice

Well today it was a nice day. There was no ice storm. There wasn't any hail. It didn't really even rain. It was cold in the morning, but it was very nice in general.

So that is one nice day we have had this year.

Here's something funny. Betty the new herd queen has a set of triplets. One is Cubby, the friendliest little goat in the world. If he ever sees a person he runs pronging toward them and throws himself into their arms. Then there is Clover, the triplet girl. She is about the same as Cubby, maybe about 18% less enthusiastic, still way up there on the Friendlies Chart.

Then there is the little tiny one that looks just like Betty, only very pinched. His name used to be Midget, but now he is just called The Wart. Short for worrywart. That's all he does.

Worry.Worry worry worry.

If it isn't raining, he worries that it will start raining. If it is raining, he worries it will stop.

"We need rain for our crops." he says. (What crops? Is he talking about the goat berries?)

If it is time to go outside, he worries that there might be intruders outside. That's ridiculous, intruders come inside. That's why they're called intruders. If it is time to come inside, he worries that a cat might be waiting under the feeder in the stall.

"So what?" everyone says. "What is a cat going to do?"

"Cats kill mice," he explains, ominously.

"So what?" everyone says. "We aren't mice."

Today the farmer came to take all the babies outside, all seven of them. Six went pronging cheerfully out the door. Not the Wart.

"I'm not going," he yelled, from under the feeder. "I'm afraid I'll get separated from everybody."

Then when everyone had disappeared from sight, he ran screaming out of the barn.

Who is this kid anyway? His mother is the Queen, his father is totally chill. And he is The Wart.

Little dude, why not forget all that hassle and relax like Cubby and Clover? Like Cloudy and Horatio? Like the two little LaManchas, what are their names anyway? Have some Cherry Trance Milk and just relax.