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.

Welcome Home, Baby Belle

Well it is very funny how things turn out sometimes.

Last year Hannah Belle had two kids, a buckling and a doeling. A nice family wanted them.

"What are you going to call them?" the farmer asked. The family said that they were going to call the boy Charlie. And they would call the little doeling Belle. The farmer did not say anything, just nodded. Charlie and Belle. We did not know it then, because how can you ever know anything until it happens, but they would be Hannah Belle's last surviving kids.

For one year Belle and Charlie lived nearby. And they were fat and happy. Charlie was a wether, and he lived the Life of Riley. Everywhere Belle went, Charlie went. Everywhere Charlie went, Belle went.

Then one day the family called the farmer and said that they were moving to Hawaii.

"Hawaii," said the farmer. The farmer hates hot weather. The farmer would rather move to the Moon than to Hawaii.

They wondered if Charlie and Belle could come back to live at the farm.

If you are ever wondering do we have any strict unbreakable policies, any edicts set in stone, the answer is yes, we have two strict rules. One: No wethers. Two: No returns.

I felt a little misty-eyed for the two darling tots, but what is the point of having strict rules if everything is always an exception. Anyway, somebody else would probably want them, they are extremely good-looking and personable like all my relatives, so que sera, sera. And so on.

But apparently it is true what they say: the exception proves the rule. And the proof of that is the two new residents at Herron Hill Dairy.

Welcome home, Charlie.

Welcome home, Belle.

Good Goatiquette

I would like to just say a few words about good manners because good manners are the foundation of any civilized society even a human society will not function correctly without good manners. For a goat society good manners are the only thing between us and complete chaos.

For example the Crackpot Oregonian was sharing a stall with Blue and she was bullying Blue mercilessly, as I already reported. Blue is the type to take things lying down. Or to get up and move. She is a peace-love-and-understanding goat. Not my style, but whatever.

Anyway Abby had trumped Blue and she would not accept victory gracefully. Instead she continued to bully Blue when Blue was already fully bullied. This is not good manners. She should watch how Wronny does it. Wronny has no problem with anybody who obeys her. She does not waste time and energy t-boning the obsequious.

But Abby was drunk with power and she kept on. She went to the limit. And then she went over the limit.

Blue has a long fuse. But it isn't an endless fuse. And yesterday when the farmer was at a goat show Jen was watching the farm and she called the farmer to report that she had had to separate Abby and Blue because Blue was thrashing Abby within an inch of her life.

Our farmer is weak-minded and gave a distracted response from ringside - "oh, I see, okay, that's too bad," - and made a mental note that Jen must have Blue and Abby mixed up even though Jen is not weak-minded like the farmer.

The farmer came home and discovered that in fact Blue had finally turned into the Incredible Hulk, and Abby had reaped the whirlwind, which could have been avoided if only she had had good manners. Well, what can you do, she was born in a barn.

Meanwhile, back at the goat show, a parade of beautiful Poppy Patch does took the Senior Nigerian show by storm, picking up one after another of the grands and reserves in the three different rings. The beautiful Mae West won one ring, Angel won another, Duchess won the third.

The farmer had come with the farmer from Minter Bay and four goats, all from the Cora Belle family, two daughters and two granddaughters. Wedding Belles was the only senior and she did very well, coming in second in two rings.

Then the junior show began and Cora Belle's daughter Hazelnut waltzed out into the first ring, where she was one of a very few junior kids who actually appeared to walk rather than sproing and scream and turn magically into an indignant living dust mop collecting shavings along the floor. She won the grand champion, and her niece - Cora Belle's granddaughter Coraline - was the reserve.

Now if a person didn't know any better or didn't have good manners, they would go ahead and put Hazelnut in the next ring to see if she could win again. But what would be the point of that, anyway, since only one junior win would count. So Hazelnut was scratched out of the other rings and a lovely dry yearling won the second ring. How nice.

Then came the third ring, and, what do you know, Coraline won the grand.

So that is how good manners works.

If you have bad manners, you only hurt yourself. Once you have won, it is best to leave the ring and sit smiling at ringside, filling the air with gracious humble dignity. Do not continue thrashing your opponent. Thank you.

Congratulations to Hazelnut. Congratulations to Coraline.

Congratulations to Blue.

The Empire Strikes Back

Betty went ballistic and she has teetered back on top. If the rights can be sold to ESPN, the farmer is thinking of putting her in a stall with Abby for the day so that they can work it out once and for all. Wronny is in the back with the big milkers so the Crackpot Oregonian would not have her big hired goon to look out for her. (That is just an expression Wronny if you are reading this.)

Willen shed out the winter coat that was making him look like a woolly fat pony. Now he just looks like a fat pony. Or possibly a glossy palomino seal. All the horses have been mysteriously good, so the farmer is getting very suspicious.

Blue's two daughters were too pretty to keep and one has already gone to a new home. The public has been trying to buy Crumpet but so far the farmer has not cracked. Fritzi and Frodo, the brothers with another mother, are living a happy, carefree life now that they traded in their old earbiting dam (Winjay the Hun) for a kindly new cookie-baking dam (Saint Penrose.)

My mother and my daughter and I have been passing the days sunning ourselves. The paint continues to peel. The cabana continues to fall apart. Jinxy continues to get cuter. Moldy, the last of the Nigerians to kid, continues to grow bigger.

And the grass continues to grow.

Long Live the Grass, without the Grass there would be no Grass Babies.

Psych Ward

Everyone has gone crazy. Abby is on a rampage to try to move up the Nigerian ladder. She thinks because she had four kids she is four times as important as anyone else. Crumpet hardly even counts, she only weighs about six ounces. But anyway Betty is losing her grip on power. Winjay has another bat in her belfry, it is a real cavern of guano up there, and then there is Wendell.

I forgot to mention Wendell came from a puppy mill and he thinks his stuffed moose is his mother and when his screws come loose he tightens them up by suckling for hours on his Moosey Mother. It isn't even a stuffed dog. It is a stuffed moose.

The sad part is he thinks it's normal. He thinks everything he does is normal. Sad.That's what happens when you are raised by stuffed animals.

Anyway back to more important topics, we are trying to encourage Betty to hold onto her throne because we have all taken a vow NEVER to be ruled by crackpot Oregonians. We are THE BABY BELLE FAMILY.

Unfortunately all we can do from down below is watch, and Blue has already kowtowed to Typhoon Abby. It is up to Betty now to hold her ground.

PUT YOUR HEAD DOWN, BETTY!


THEY WILL NEVER TAKE OUR FREEDOM! 

Our Little Comet

We had a very sad day yesterday. We lost Jammies' little daughter Buckles. She was only here a short while, but she had a big spirit. She blazed through the world. Goodbye Buckles.

Cate Moss

Well it was finally picture day and all the babies paraded out. Some of them did not have names yet, including Pinky Jr.'s two daughters, who were born with no trouble and lived their whole lives (a week or so) without causing any trouble. Both were leggy blondes, like their mother, and shy and retiring like their mother.

It was decided the first one would be called Pink Champagne. She came out and was photographed and then was put away. Then her little sister came out. Her little sister is long and elegant with legs like a thoroughbred filly and a beautiful photogenic face and thin as a rail and it was decided her name would be Cate Moss. Cate with a C, because it is a C year.

"Why don't you give her a bottle?" said the photographer, who had come over from Minter Bay.

"Oh she does not take a bottle. She is not a bottle baby," the farmer pronounced.

"She looks like she wants a bottle," said the farmer from Minter Bay.

"She is not a bottle baby," our farmer repeated, slightly more loudly.

"But she looks like she wants a bottle. "

Since this appeared to be a stalemate the farmer went and got a bottle to demonstrate that Cate Moss is not a bottle baby. Cate Moss drained the bottle in 15 seconds without taking a single breath.

"Wow," said the farmer.

"There, you see," said the farmer from Minter Bay with some satisfaction.

"She is not a bottle baby, though," the farmer repeated dully, refilling the bottle with milk.

Since then Cate Moss has had six bottles, and she stands at the gate waiting for the farmer every morning.

In spite of the fact that she is not a bottle baby.

Crumpet's Corner

Great, one of the new little Pebbles knockoffs is a teeny tiny hamster that squeaks like a chew toy.

The farmer carries it around everywhere, discussing politics and mysteries of farm living with it.

"But what does hydrostatic really mean? Do you know?"

The hamster squeaks like a chew toy.

"We know "hydro" is from the Latin, meaning "water," and "static" is from the dryer, meaning "too many socks," but does that really tell us anything?"

The hamster squeaks like a chew toy.

"Would you like some more milk, Crumpet?"

That's its name. Crumpet.

Great. Just great. At least two more months of this.

Behind the Headlines

Ok well Abby had her kids and they were quadruplets and they were all does, four little girls - an extra-large one, a large one, a medium one, and an extra-small one. Then the farmer went and took a nap and when the farmer came back one of them had grown a small pair of testicles. So one of them is not a doe any more. The others still are.

They are cute I guess if you like the Oregonian look. A little too Pebble-ish for my taste.

Meanwhile the actual Pebbles was not getting any attention since no one was interested in her any more, she was old news what with the impending arrival of her four (minus one) new sisters. So she made a hole in the fence and got outside the fence and then she couldn't get back in and of course she was out by our busy road, so she started screaming and running down the middle of the street. This had never happened before so we all stood and watched it with interest. There was a nice lady in a Jeep coming and she stopped, just as the farmer came sprinting onto the scene, boots flapping merrily.

It was interesting to see the farmer running because the farmer picked up quite a bit of speed, I was rather impressed. Anyway Pebbles was rescued and scolded and the fence was fixed and of course she got the attention she wanted, including a trip to the grain room and a peanut butter sandwich cookie, which doesn't seem like much of a deterrent to me when it comes to handing out punishment.

Note to self: break something, then run around screaming.

Ok on an update Winjay refused to take her kids back even though the farmer kept trying to get her to take them. She bit their little nubbin ears when they pleaded for milk and she tried to head butt one of them.

"Okay, that is IT!" yelled the farmer. "PENROSE!"

Penrose took them, big surprise, so now she has her Grass Babies back and she couldn't be more  pleased. She feeds them and keeps the public from stepping on them and then the farmer gives them a big bottle of Winjay milk twice a day.

Anyway, it is a good lesson to us all, you never know what you might find in the long grass, you just have to keep your eyes open and your hopes up.

Headlines Only

Overloaded Freighter Docks
Passengers have disembarked from the Good Ship Abby. Captain cited for exceeding occupancy limits. All souls safe. Details to follow.... 

Twin Bests Sister in WMOYA Race
Winjay strips Maddy (Sheriff of Crazytown) of (Worst) Mother of the Year Award. "Not even close," marvels bleary-eyed farmer... 

Cabana Looks Worse Than Ever
"How is it possible?" marvels bleary-eyed etc (see above)...

Pebbles' Brush With Death
Don't worry, it's ok now...

Willen Enters Fattest Haflinger Contest
"Why not?"

Grass Babies

Winnie is very sensible and cooperative and an excellent mother and a professional dairy goat anyone can milk. She is known for it. Her daughter Winjay is the opposite. Winjay's mind is a superstore of bad ideas. Aisle upon aisle of harebrained schemes and crackpot notions.

Today it came time for Winjay to have her kids. What did she do? Did she go up to the barn where there was a nice roomy clean private kidding stall waiting for her?

No. She went down to the old ramshackle cabana which is going to be demolished soon if it doesn't fall down by itself first which it is doing in stages. In addition to being so ramshackle that it would be considered ridiculously overdone if it were used on tv as an example of a decrepit goat shed, the cabana has been slowly filling up with goat berries over the last ten years and by now there are billions of them under the main floor, because everyone likes to lie on the main floor up off the ground and the berries fall through the slats. Overall it is an excellent system.

But Winjay did not go on the main floor which is what you are supposed to do. She crawled and wiggled and wormed her way underneath the floor so that she was lying on a carpet of vintage goat berries to have her kids.  The farmer came down and tried to wrassle her out but she wouldn't budge.

So the farmer went and got some towels and caught the kids as they came out and put them in the middle of the down-below pasture in the bright sun to dry and then came back to try to drag Winjay out but it was no dice. Penrose happened along and saw the kids lying in the grass and she thought they were hers and she started cleaning them and fixing their hair and she showed one of them how to stand up and meanwhile the farmer tugged on Winjay's leg but she has a mysterious superpower of turning herself into a 3,000 pound concrete block when she feels like it so forget about that.

The farmer came back and by this time the kids were dry and Penrose was explaining to them that the milk comes from the udder and not the knee and if they would move towards the back she could assist them in filling their stomachs but just then the farmer picked them up and took them to the barn, jostling them around so that they would scream.

"Winjay will follow us when she hears them screaming," the farmer told Wendell, who was performing his supernanny functions. Wendell goggled his eyes in disbelief.

Winjay did not follow at all, she continued reclining in her sumptuous berry patch. Instead, Penrose trotted along solicitously. "There is a milk tap on each side," she was explaining to the babies, "so you will both be able to drink at the same time. Now just hop down here and I will show you how it's done."

"No Penrose," said the farmer. "You do not have enough milk for these babies. These are LaMancha piranhas, they will suck you dry."

The farmer went into the barn and shut the gate on Penrose. Penrose stood there for a minute thinking, then turned and ran back down to the cabana where she spent the rest of the morning combing through the long grass looking for more babies.

It's dark now so I can't see but she is probably still out there. Good luck, Penrose. Hope you find some more Grass Babies.

Pinky's Cup of Tea

Pinky was due May 29, and her younger aunty-sister Pinky Jr. was due May 24, but yesterday they both dropped their ligaments and the race was on. In spite of being a first-timer, Pinky Jr. took a traditional approach to the whole kidding, going through the process methodically, lying down to push, making a nest etc., it was just as if she had read a book on how to do it.

She made it to the finish line first, kidding a couple of little pink does in mid-afternoon.

Pinky is a nonconformist and she did not do any of these things and she certainly would never consider reading a book. It was slow going but the farmer went in and poked enough to find out that the first candidate was coming nose and toes. Fine then, take your time. One foot eventually popped out and Pinky still would not lie down. Another foot popped out and the end of a nose, and still no lying down.

"I think you will do better if you lie down to push, Pinky," the farmer suggested in a knowledgeable tone.

Pinky does not take advice, it isn't her cup of tea, if you know so much about it let's see you do it, and she continued strolling nonchalantly around the stall with two footies poking out the back.

The farmer gave a sigh and said, "oh well, have it your way," and went to feed the bucks quickly, then came back.

What happened? Pinky had sucked the feet back in, and was eating alfalfa with relish. I guess I should say with gusto.

"Orlando, Florida!" the farmer cussed, and scolded Pinky for sucking the baby back in.

Pinky couldn't give a drat, she kept eating and strolling. Finally she set in to heavy pushing and she still wouldn't lie down, groaning and stomping her feet like a sumo wrestler.

"That thing is not getting away again," said the farmer, and caught hold of the two legs once they reappeared and inch by inch pulled out probably the biggest doe kid ever born here, covered with little moonspots. Pinky stood up the whole time, demanding world peace and paid holidays at the top of her lungs.

Then for more eating and strolling as the evening ticked away and finally around nine she backed up to the loading dock and dropped off another kid without ever touching the ground except with her feet. This was a girl who would have been the largest doe kid ever born here if she had been born first but as it was she only came in second. She is black and white like her dad. She looks like a pinto pony and eats like a Clydesdale. The farmer thinks there might be a little old kids' saddle up in the hayloft that will fit her. Her name will be Pinky's Cup of Tea.

As soon as they were out Pinky flopped to the ground and took a nap.

Land Whale Beached...

Pinky the Land Whale has calved. Details to follow...

Mother of the Year....Not

You should see Wronny's two kids. Maybe some day there will be a picture. Anyway the point is Wronny feeds them all the time. And she also keeps them spotless. They look like the first day of school, spit-shined with their hair slicked back, fat and happy.

Ok then you should see Jammies' two daughters. It is not an exaggeration to say that they are the two most perfect micro-Manchas born anywhere in the world in the history of time. Jammies keeps them immaculate: when they are sleeping they look like a great idea for a new show on Nickelodeon, the two cutest little miniature hamster-monkeys in the world, fat and happy and storing up sleep for a new adventure in the morning. All they need is a theme song.

Ok I think you know where this is going. Anyway at 11:30 on Sunday night the neighbor called to say that one of the babies in the barn was screaming and wouldn't stop. The neighbor knows all the babies, she is a good neighbor. She was over by the fence and heard this constant high-pitched screaming. "I think it is Mango," she said. "Do you want me to go over and check?"

No, thank you for calling, the farmer zipped out there and sure enough as soon as you opened the door to the house there came a very angry screaming. Loud and offended and indignant and extremely distressed. But it didn't sound like Mango. This was the type of screaming that if there were an app to translate it into English the translation would be: "where is the milk that I was promised? I NEED IT RIGHT AWAY!"

Out in the barn were the fat happy babies and the milkers and some of the fat ladies and in the stall at the back were Penrose and Maddy. Penrose was there so she could get extra food and be milked occasionally since there is just no way to dry her off, she is an everlasting fountain of milk. Maddy was there because she was supposed to have her babies - not this week but next week - and she needed to get on her pre-kidding regimen.

Ok of course she skipped the pre-kidding and went right to the kidding and popped her babies out but she was not in a babyproof stall and one of the babies had rolled under the stall door into the aisle where it was fortunately screaming its head off. The other was inside the stall bumbling around ineptly,  both still sopping wet and  no good at standing up, but with lungs like Luciano Pavarotti.

Penrose was attempting to assist one of the babies, then running to the stall door to look at the screamer stranded in the aisle, then running back chuckling to the other baby and nuzzling it, then running back to encourage the other. Wronny had her head over the door and was offering useful advice - "why don't you stand up? That's what I always do when I want to walk somewhere."

Jammies and even Pinky the oblivious Land Whale looked on sympathetically.

Maddy gazed off into the distance, wishing that high-pitched racket would STOP, how on Earth was she supposed to get any sleep?

Fast forward Day Two. Wronny's babies, spotless, fat, happy. Jammies' babies: immaculate, adorable, fat, happy. Maddy's babies: bedraggled and besmirched, no one cleaned them properly, sad and thin and hungry.

The farmer called for the Super Nanny (Wendell): he came out and cleaned the back ends in very short order. Then the farmer filled them up with milk.

"You will get one more day, Maddy.  Just watch Jammies and Wronny if you want to see how it's done. One more day. And then they are going on bottles for good."

....stay tuned.....

Gulliver's Travels. And Also Halfway's.

Well yesterday was a work day at the farm, like every other day, but this time there were helpers to do some of the 10,000 things that need to be done including fixing some fences and reattaching a blown-off roof to the buck shed and clearing the brush from the hot wire and so on.

Anyway it was supposed to also be picture day for Wronny's bucklings, Gulliver and Halfway. But right at the start of the work day the farmer let them out to browse the barnyard with Wronny. One of the kids was supposed to be watching them, I won't name names but it was Seth. The reason he was supposed to watch them is if you don't watch them they toddle off after they have drunk about a gallon of milk and they find a hiding place and they conk out like a light into a  milk stupor and then you can't find them. Once they are in a  milk stupor they sleep for hours.

Anyway after about five minutes the farmer asked Seth where they were because Wronny was walking around without them and Seth said, "who?"

Okay so they were gone and at first the farmer looked for them halfheartedly in the usual places - behind the sheets of plywood, over by the log pile, under the fence posts, etc. Then the farmer forgot about them. The whole morning ticked by.

Then the farmer started looking for them wholeheartedly and even then they couldn't be found. After five or six hours people started to get a little nervous. Perhaps they have been snatched up by an eagle or something or joined the circus.

Okay anyway no thanks to the farmer they were finally discovered under the porch of the main house where they had been planning to enjoy an 8-hour milk stupor but after only six hours they were dragged out into the light of day and returned to their rightful owner, just as everyone was getting ready to leave.

So they didn't get their pictures taken. If they had it would have been a picture of two fast-asleep bucklings, both exceedingly strapping and handsome, one black with white trim and his father's quizzical expression, and one with a big white belly band like a giant Oreo cookie.

So if you can picture that in your mind's eye it will have to do for now.

Portrait Gallery

Wronny and Jammies are doing very well. Why shouldn't they, with 24 hour room service. They are getting the new goat grain that is only for milkers and they love it. Also they get nutter butters and fig newtons, which I don't think is fair.

Wronny's two sons have turned out to be so handsome that they will have their portraits taken today. Meanwhile Buckles has learned to walk properly, woop-dee-doo. Jinx has not done anything interesting but for some reason people can't stop picking her up and carrying her around and talking baby talk to her. It's rather embarrassing to watch but I suppose it attracts attention away from that annoying Butter Belle. 

The portraits will go right underneath here when they are ready.