The Staring Circle

It has been a beautiful August here, no rain except a few sprinkles and not too hot, only in the 80s or so and sometimes in the 70s. The farmer got out the clippers and has systematically been shaving the fair candidates to see what is in there under all that hair. Blue Jaye was shaved and she looked beautiful but she isn't making much milk. Clara Belle also looked beautiful. Clover did too.

Marti was shaved and sometimes she looks pretty good, sometimes she has the topline of a brontosaurus. She just keeps rising like a loaf of bread dough and she can't always be punched down. One day the rear is too high, the next day the front, the third day she looks good.

Sandy was shaved and she looked surprisingly good except for her head, which looks like a miniature donkey's head, with a wattle on each side only one wattle is under her ear where it is supposed to be and the other kind of dangles lopsidedly along her neck which isn't a good look. Also they aren't the same size, one is a grape and one is more of a ping pong ball. When everyone saw what Sandy looked like under her hair we cleared a small circle around her for staring and now she travels around with her own little buffer zone, the staring circle, which no one ventures into.

"Oh dear," said Abby, when she saw her daughter Sandy in her hairless glory. Pebbles did not get shaved because she did not settle so she won't be going to the fair. Pebbles is the pretty twin. Sandy is the unsung twin, and there was quite a chorus of unsinging when she came out of the cutting salon in the barn.

"Is she adopted?" asked Crumpet. Crumpet is one of Sandy's little sisters.

Derringer, one of Clover's daughters, also got a haircut. "Hmm," said the farmer, when Derringer came prancing out.

This does not bode well for Derringer. Usually when the farmer says "Hmm," the farmer then says,  "I don't expect her to come in last." And sure enough, a few minutes later the farmer remarked to The Terror as Derringer went pronging back to the Pear Tree Pasture, "I don't expect her to come in last."

The Terror was busy eating hoof clippings and didn't say anything.

For Derringer, sadly, this probably means a lifetime of goat shows, unless she has the good sense to grow her udder out in the shape of a chandelier, which is what I did, and I have never been anywhere near a ferris wheel and I wouldn't know an elephant's ear from a corn dog.

Anyway the farmer allowed that we might get a couple of ribbons at the fair.

"Especially since we have a secret weapon this year," the farmer explained to The Terror.

The Terror was asleep by now, and didn't say, "Secret Weapon? What Secret Weapon?"