Two Wrongs

They say two wrongs don't make a right.

But I don't know.

Belle Starr was not like some other does. Two or three days went by and she was still looking for her babies. Everywhere she went she looked for them. In the bushes, under the porch.

Meanwhile Terra Belle, never known for her mathematics skills, could not keep track of her triplets. She even asked Poppy: "how come you have three triplets, and I only have two?"

"Because I'm smarter than you," said Poppy, chewing her cud.

Anyway, everyone except Terra Belle knows what happened next. The farmer came and took Terra Belle's tiny triplet, and gave her to Belle Starr. Everyone looked away, and when Terra Belle asked Poppy the next day why Poppy had three triplets and she only had two, Poppy had a new answer.

"Because they're quadruplets."

It isn't really right to steal someone's triplet. But was it right for Terra Belle to have three triplets, and Belle Starr to have none?

I ask you, was it right?

Starts With E....

Ok we got a lot of excellent OGG* names for the Pebbles twins (Pebbles x Promisedland Chaotic Bliss) and the boy is going to be called Electric BamBam. The girl we can't decide: on the one hand is the OGG* name Elegant Mayhem (Ellie), on the other the farmer's names Euphoregon (Euphie) and Thunderegg (Eggie), which has the e in the middle so I don't even know if it should be allowed. A thunderegg is a kind of rock found in Oregon, in fact it is the state rock of Oregon. You can look it up if you care. Elegant Mayhem is also good, because it is part Imperious Elegance and part Chaotic. Euphoregon is a long walk on a short pier, it does have a little bit of Bliss, and then it just has Oregon, portmanteau style but not really going anywhere, sort of a staycation of a name, but no other goat will ever have it, kind of like Secretariat.

Ok then we have the three orange triplets and one is already being called Orangina, so they obviously are in dire need of naming assistance. One is called Eric the Red, which could be worse because at least it starts with E. The third little orange girl is just being called "the third little orange girl." Someday soon, if no one intervenes, she will certainly be called "Thirdy." She has the personality of a basketball, just bounces around and off things, not a thought in her head.

Edward Scissorlegs

As far as Terra Belle's triplets, the two boys have no names at all whatsoever and the third tiny precious pet is Hannah Banana, which doesn't even have an e in it, much less start with an e, and she is being carried everywhere on a satin cushion and I think I know where that road leads. Okay then Blue Jaye's little son is being called Edward Scissorlegs for his way of standing, or should I say "standing," and the Belle Pepper doeling is ee velvet, same spelling as ee cummings. She is very poetic and has black curly hair and the disposition of an angel, and looks like she comes from a pretty how town.

So you can see, just as usual, some help is needed in the naming department.

*Ozarks Goat Girl

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

Pebbles started in bellowing but she didn't know why, so at first she just bellowed randomly.

"Oh my!" she bellowed. Then, "the end is near!"

Then "death and taxes!"

"My innards!" she bellowed, as it began to dawn on her that something was happening to her but from the inside out. How diabolical. Usually when things happen to you they happen from the outside in, like when you step on a fence staple, that happened once when she was helping the farmer, my goodness that hurt and she had to get a shot afterward but in the end she got a lot of nice treats and went on free range for two days so the fence staple incident could not be considered entirely a bad thing and maybe this would turn out the same, with her getting a lot of special snacks, maybe Lori would even come over with the real fig newtons, not the knockoff convenience store fig newtons the farmer always buys that she eats out of politeness.

"Dios Mio!" she bellowed, lapsing into her native Oregonian.

Unfortunately her cries did not fall on deaf ears.

"Can you please put a sock in it?" the brutish Terra Belle asked threateningly, all pretend safety-patrol courtesy.

"I cannot hear myself eat," frumped Poppy.

"Zip it," insisted Belle Pepper.

Just then Pebbles spotted her BFF Ivy through the gate. Ivy alone seemed to care.

"Ivy!" she bellowed.

"Pebbles!" bellowed Ivy.

"I am going to kill both of you," seethed Eo.

This went on no joke I am not kidding for the next twelve hours. The farmer came and made a nest for Pebbles in the barn aisle, then went to look for the chainsaw ear muffs. The rest of the day the farmer walked around wearing ear muffs while we all suffered, but not in silence, the blessed Sound of Silence, in restless dreams I walked alone, and the vision that was planted in my brain, etc and so on.

Finally it got dark and Pebbles dropped her decibels down into the tolerable range.

"Ivy," she burbled.

"Pebbles," whispered Ivy, hunched under the feeder where she could not be t-boned.

Then Pebbles really went into labor, while the farmer tried to read "The Goldfinch" on a Kindle. At 4 in the morning she popped out a pair of fat buckskin twins, identical to their mother in every way, except for one being a girl and one being a boy.

"Oh," she said. "I see."

"Pebbles!" cooed Ivy. The farmer snored in a chair.

A Tale of Two Sisters

If this were a movie, in the background of every scene you would see Pebbles, eating, eating, eating like a house on fire. In the foreground would be the frogs, making an ungodly din with their singing, they have never been so loud, and in the background would be beer-barrel Pebbles, wolfing the new alfalfa. In the next scene, three horses dozing in the sun. In the background Pebbles: gobbling the heads off the dandelions and scarfing some old leaves that blew off the roof of the shed.

Well Terra Belle had everyone on pins and needles because she went to day 150, and then she went to day 151, and all the time she was silent and uncomplaining and held her cards very close to her vest. The farmer moved her up to the kidding stall, but she escaped - slowly and inconspicuously, the way she does everything - and nobody even noticed she was gone until she had already made it back to the decrepit down-below shed, her beloved homeland of Tara, with its chewed-up siding and flapping roof and its landmark visible-from-Space Goatberry Mountain.

"Wait a minute," said the farmer, and went down to get her, accidentally letting Pebbles through the gate. Pebbles went about two inches then stopped dead in her tracks so she could start tearing at the new sprouts of grass. Terra Belle trudged back up, silent and uncomplaining, with the farmer frowning at her.

"You are just going to have a gigantic single buck kid on Day 160, aren't you?" sighed the farmer. The farmer tucked her in the kidding stall and turned to go back into the house, but something caught the farmer's attention for once and it was Belle Starr, Terra Belle's sister, down in the other pasture. Belle Starr had been twittering and twittering all morning, which isn't unusual, because she always calls to the farmer to serve her breakfast separately in her own private bowl, but yesterday the farmer moved the bowl to the buckling pen and told Belle Starr she would just have to eat out of the feeder with everyone else, and so that morning Belle Starr had been in what seemed like a state of high indignation.

Only she never got over it, and so the farmer went down to check on her, and in two seconds it was apparent that she was kidding, and the farmer rushed her up into the kidding stall with Terra Belle, leaving the gate open again. Pebbles galloped alertly back into the barn and buried her face in the hay, eating with her eyes closed because that seemed to make things go faster.

The farmer trotted arthritically to the house to look at the calendar and sure enough Belle Starr was not due until March 31. The farmer ran back to the barn and turned Belle Starr around to take a look, but what was coming was placenta, and that only means one thing, and so the farmer ran - wheezing - back down to the Nigerian shed, knowing what would be there, and sure enough in a far corner were three kids, two handsome bucklings and a beautiful tiny doeling, born too early to live.

One of the bucklings, tiny as he was, was twice the size of the others, almost the size of a normal baby. Years ago the farmer would probably have said, "I might have been able to save him if I had been here," but what is the point of that, if you had wheels you might be a bus. So the farmer picked them up and carried them to the cottage and washed them gently and then laid them in a little box, side by side, and covered them with Sammy's puppy quilt.

The farmer milked Belle Starr out, and she had a beautiful soft udder, just like her mother. Terra Belle watched stoically, and the farmer checked her again, and she still wasn't thinking of kidding. The rest of the day passed grudgingly, with Belle Starr being milked every few hours. Her crying grew softer, and took on an absent quality.

The next morning the farmer came out and Terra Belle had kidded in the night without a peep or a stitch of assistance, and tucked in the straw next to her were three kids, two handsome bucklings and a beautiful tiny doeling, brothers and sisters to Belle Starr's triplets. The two sisters were lying in opposite corners of the stall, looking at each other quietly.

Terra Belle with her triplets, Belle Starr alone.

And just then - of course, how could it be different - the good ship Pebbles began bellowing, at the top of its mighty lungs.....

(Stay Tuned)....

Welcome to Downton

Well Pebbles now has her own pasture and she lolls about in it like a princess whenever the sun comes out for a few minutes. When the rain starts Pebbles gives a little bleat of indignation and her ladies' maid rushes out to escort her back to the barn aisle, where she lives with Kermit, Tito, and her best friend Ivy during the rainy parts of the days. Every few hours Lady Pebbles gives a summons and the ladies' maid scurries in to give her a back massage.

"Lady Ivy, would you care for a back massage?" she asks Ivy.

"Trains," says Lady Ivy, monosyllabic as ever.

"That means 'not just now,' "  Pebbles translates for everyone. " 'Perhaps later, when we return from London after the Goat Ball.' "

"Goat Ball?" echoes Pinky.

Steam shoots out of Eo(played by Maggie Smith)'s ears.

Ivy the Quaker

Well ok the new Isabel came here from Sequim, which must be somewhere near Oregon, because we can't really understand her. What I mean is, we can understand what she says, but we have no idea what she means. If I had to describe her I would say she is a very plain little white goat with no personality. She is always mumbling solitary nouns, never any verbs, and always aquiver about something, nobody knows what.

"Alfalfa," she will mumble.

"Yes, alfalfa, what of it?" someone will say, and she will run off into a corner, quivering.

Or, "Morning," she will mutter, practically wringing her hooves.

"Really? What about afternoon? What about night?" someone will reply. She scurries off quaking in horror.

So all in all she is very reminiscent of Moldy except for the fact that she knows when to stay out of your way, so she has hardly had any thrashings, because she keeps to herself, squirrelly and monosyllabic, bobbing and weaving and nervous as a cat on water skis.

Since my daughter's name is Isabelle it was decided that she wouldn't be called Isabel, so she had to be called something else, and rather than taking the trouble to think of a good name the farmer started calling her I.B. Well the farmer only had to explain to one or two people that, "no, her name isn't IVY, it's I.B.," before it was all too much work and everyone just calls her Ivy.

So now her name is Ivy and she has two kids, both of them oddly cute and bubbling with personality, and it was decided that they would have the run of the barn aisle since they are the first kids of the year, and they spend their days chirping and hopping happily and for once Ivy the Quaker almost seems relaxed, snuggling up with them and mumbling endearments and she is positively ecstatic about life in the barn aisle.

And then it was decided that Pebbles would come up and join her since Pebbles had to be vaccinated in preparation for her mid-March kidding, and since it has been pouring literally nonstop for the past three days, the new little quartet would stay high and dry in the barn while everyone else got turfed out because "a little rain won't hurt you."

So we stood out in the rain up to our briskets and Pebbles and Ivy stayed in the barn eating bon bons and alfalfa and by the time we finally got back in something very strange had happened, Ivy and Pebbles were bonded and they were lying down together on the wooden milkstand chewing their cuds.

"Is that your new best friend, Pebbles?" asked Sandy, pointedly.

"That's right," said Pebbles.

"Moon," whispered Ivy, staring out at the night sky. The little bucklings danced an Irish jig.

Kermit and Tito and the Not-so-supernanny

Well I don't like to admit it but Isabel's kids are not bad looking. There is an orange one and then there is the tiny toggenburg. His name is Tito for obvious reasons. The orange one did not have a name but then the night after he was born, down in the meadow all at once like they do every year, without any tuning, the frogs launched their first chorus of the year. So his name is Kermit now.

The Terror was brought out to see her aptitude for supernannying. As far as I could see it was minimal to put it kindly. In the first place, who wants a supernanny who is constantly yapping. This is not how Wendell did it. One of the keys to supernannying is that you do not know you are being nannied until it is all over. When you are properly supernannied, you will say, "Whuh? Whoa! Ahhh," and by the time you say, "Ahhh," you are sparkling clean and refreshed at both ends.

"Practice makes perfect," the farmer said, which was what the farmer always used to say when Stacy the Nubian would look at the milkstand every morning and balk in terror, refusing to jump up, until finally she had to be manually hoisted on board, with a lot of sotto voce swearing and sometimes not so sotto, and this went on for four years without improvement until Stacy crossed the Rainbow Bridge which I guess must not have had a grate on it like the milkstand or she would never have set foot into the hereafter. God rest her soul and no offense but a spade is a spade and no use pretending it is a tulip.

Anyway as far as this saying goes what is the point of practicing something if you are doing it the wrong way?

Do you want to get really good at doing it the wrong way? Because if so, you are on the right track, and please send us a postcard when you get to the wrong station.

That is all I have to say for now.

All You Have to Do

The farmer has a saying. The saying is, "all you have to do is live long enough."

That is what the farmer said years ago when the bears climbed the fence into the yard.

This is what the farmer said when Wendell, through the sheer force of his personality, frighted the long-legged coyote half to death and sent it pronging in abject terror off into the high grass.

This is what the farmer said when Spenny the border collie got left home alone too long even for her cast-iron constitution and she discreetly slid the shower door open with her nose and went to the bathroom in there, as a courtesy, because that's the kind of dog she is, she lives in horror of causing anyone any trouble, exactly the opposite of a boston terror.

Anyway you can use this expression whenever you see something you never thought you'd see. And in case you are wondering where we are going, the track is long and winding but we don't go off it, so that brings us back to the beginning: people are always asking the farmer how long is the longest a pregnant doe will go before kidding.

Well, the farmer says, it would be pretty unusual to go over 150 days. In fact, it would be pretty unusual to even get to 150. When they go 150, they are almost always first fresheners, that or they are going to have a gigantic single - usually a buck - or both. This puts everyone in a bad mood - first freshener with a gigantic single buck kid, head like a basketball, get your earplugs because we are in for some screaming.

Back when we had Nubians, they would sometimes go 150, or sometimes even a day or two over. In looking through the history books the longest we ever had was a Nubian who went 152, and even that might have been an accounting error. But our LaManchas in general do not go 150, they like Day 147, and Nigerians are about the same, and so whenever someone asks how often a Nigerian will go over 150, the farmer always says, just to save time, "Never."

Anyway Isabel, there are two now, this one is the new Moldy but it's a long story, was pencilled in to kid on Day 148, which would have been February 5th. February 5th came and went, and so did the 6th, and the 7th, and the farmer sighed. "I guess she will have a gigantic single buck kid tomorrow."

The 8th came and went. And the 9th. And then the 10th. The farmer puzzled over the charts: Isabel wasn't bred here, so it wasn't possible that the dates were wrong. And she was kept in isolation when she got here, so it wasn't possible she was bred right after getting here by some mysterious paramour, which has certainly happened before.

But in any case you can't stay on high alert forever, and after the 11th came and went with no sign of kidding, the farmer embraced the abyss and went to bed early, explaining to Sammy that "something else has happened. Something we don't know about."

Sure enough at 1:32 a.m. this morning, well into the forbidden kidding hours, a few muffled not particularly urgent screams, just loud enough to wake the farmer, emanated from the barn.

When the farmer went out, there were two adorable kids, an orange one and one that looks like the world's tiniest, most perfect Togg. Both had slid out with no problem. They were not at all gigantic.

"Well," the farmer said to the Terror, rubbing them dry, "all you have to do is live long enough."

And so now if anyone asks how long a Nigerian doe will go before kidding, the answer is going to be: "155 days. And not a minute more."

Around the Equator

Pebbles has gone from possibly bred to definitely bred to waistline the size of the Equator in the last month. Meanwhile Jammies who has fooled the farmer the last two years by pretending to settle has just hit the trifecta by coming into heat four months after being "successfully" "at last" bred in October. "Ok that's fine," said the farmer, "Jinxy is bred, anyway."

Jinxy is Jammies' daughter and equally as cosseted.

"Isn't she?" the farmer asked, looking at Jinxy suspiciously. Jinxy was bred at the same time as her mother and, like her mother, hasn't been in heat since, and has been eating for at least three.

"Jinxy?" asked the farmer, and Jinxy turned slowly with sad mini-mancha eyes and blinked a message: bring me some peanuts in the shell, I need them right away, which the farmer interpreted to mean, of course I am bred.

We shall see what we shall see.

Anyway the farmer trundled Pebbles up to the barn and she was coppered and seleniumed and given a thorough going-over and the results were that she is hatching out a platoon of majorettes from the way they all were kicking.

The farmer took a tape measure and put it around the Equator and blinked in surprise and then put the tape measure away and told Pebbles,  "that information will not be published because it could be retweeted out of context. "

Pebbles lumbered off back to the pasture looking like something from the Macy's Parade.

Qs and As

The question was is Pebbles bred or is she supposedly apparently bred?

A. Pebbles is definitely bred and already producing a tiny udder suitable for a fat soon-to-be-three-year-old-first-freshener.

The question was is Blue Monday still on the BUB (big ugly baby) program?

A. Monday is sort of but not really on the BUB program. She sort of believes the farmer is her baby but she knows it isn't possible for her baby to be three feet taller than she is and also wearing mom jeans. One or the other maybe but not both. It just isn't possible. So her milk is dwindling but she still allows the farmer to milk her once a day while she screams absently.

The question was what about Crumpet what has she been doing?

A. Nothing, just eating.

The question was what is that funny noise?

A. Doxie is in heat.

No, the other noise.

A. Lulu is also in heat.

The question was who will win the Super Bowl tomorrow?

A. Be serious!  THE SEAHAWKS!!!!

The 27 Days of Never

In case you are wondering how long Never lasts, the answer is 27 Days.

Not even a month. Not even a February.

That is how long it has been since we made our Never announcements of the things that would never happen here. Since then Willen has stopped knocking down the fence - well he's probably just taking a break, 27 days is not a no-knockdown record.

Then Fred woke up one morning and realized that, since his legs are about four feet long, he could just step over the sagging fence in the back-up buck pen. He went walkabout, following his nose.

And wonder of wonders miracle of miracles it now appears - "APPEARS," says the farmer, with a high degree of skepticism, when people ask - that Pebbles is bred.

So now we have the thankless task of beginning the quest for Pebbles baby names, which should somehow evoke the names of the Pebble baby parents (Promisedland Chaotic Bliss, aka Chaos, and Herron Hill EJ Pendleton, aka Pebbles). Chaos, euphoria, tiny rocks, rodeo towns in Oregon.

Taller name orders have not much been filled. Also should start with E.

Euphoregon? Estonia Joy?

Sammy's Vacation: The Screenplay

Scene One:
A dull-witted farmer comes home from the grocery store with a boston terror puppy. The farmer is carrying several bags of groceries and accidentally drops the puppy's leash. The puppy follows along anyway, pretending to be obedient. At the kitchen door, the farmer turns to the puppy and says, "don't go anywhere." The puppy sits by the door angelically. The door swings shut as the farmer goes to drop the groceries on the counter.

Cut to: the puppy gallops exuberantly down the driveway trailing its leash.

Cut to: the dull-witted farmer puts some turkey in the refrigerator and returns to the kitchen door. "Sammy?"

Cut to: a kindly couple, Harv and Gloria, out for a drive. They see a puppy bounding gaily along the road, trailing its leash, with no owner in sight. Oh dear, they think, and they pull over. They open their car door. The boston terror puppy leaps in, pleased to meet them. Off they go.

Cut to: "Sammy? Sammy?" the dull-witted farmer circles the farm.

Cut to: Harv, Gloria, and Sammy arrive at Harv and Gloria's house a few miles away, where Sammy immediately begins annoying Crush, their extremely handsome Great Dane. What is this thing, thinks Crush. It must be one of those lolcats from the Internetz.

Cut to: "Sammy? Sammy?" The farmer and the farmer's neighbor split up, one goes east on Herron Rd and one goes west. "SAMMY!"

Cut to: Sammy eats one of Crush's gigantic milk bones, then lies down for a nap, burping. Crush looks on in consternation.

Cut to: farmer crawls through brush in the dark, shines a flashlight down a steep ravine that drops into a creek. Flashlight flickers and goes out. The batteries have not been replaced since it was purchased in 1999. "Damn it," says the farmer. It begins pouring.

Harrowing montage as Team Sammy canvasses the area. Jen makes a big sign for the front of the house. Paul takes flyers to all the local stores. Janet drives around looking for Sammy. Lori goes door to door delivering flyers. Lori goes to one too many doors: a pit bull bites her arm. Peggy calls all the vets in the area. The farmer visits the Humane Society, looking at all the lost dogs. Closeup on the farmer (played by Jennifer Lawrence), stony-eyed and grim.

Cut to: Sammy explains to Harv and Gloria that she really doesn't like that kibbly dog food that comes in a bag, would they mind purchasing a few cans of wet food? She isn't fussy, any really expensive brand will do, organic if they have it would be great. Thanks!

...almost a week passes before Harv sees a Sammy flyer. Gloria calls the farmer immediately. The farmer arrives in record time and scoops Sammy up. Whew, thinks Crush, as the car with Sammy in it backs out of the driveway. Music soars. A rainbow comes out, and a unicorn frolics in a meadow. Bette Midler appears carrying a basket of puppies and starts to sing "Wind Beneath My Wings." Applause applause applause.

The Terror

Monday did not really want to go in the horse trailer but once she went in she really did not want to come out. She went on the time-tested BUB program with the farmer as her Big Ugly Baby. But she could not fully suspend her disbelief so she would alternate chuckling fondly to the farmer as the farmer milked her, doing her best to fix the farmer's hair, and squalling like a hysterical hyena at the mere sight of the farmer.

"There there," the farmer would say, and that would usually bring her to something like her senses, such as they are.

That all seemed like it would be enough farm drama for the week.

But no.

On Wednesday The Terror disappeared.

You might be surprised how attached a farmer would get to a little useless creature that runs around yapping all day long. A creature that does not even give any milk, and has to wear a jacket to go outside. The secret lives of farmers can be mysterious.

But anyway, our farmer has not been doing anything except driving around putting up flyers and searching the Internet all day long and going into Tacoma to the Humane Society to look at the rows of lost dogs, almost all of them pit bulls, and calling the overnight lost pet hotline every morning, never hearing anything about any boston terriers, and holding the phone slightly away, not right next to the ear because who wants to hear that up close, when they get to the part at the end where they read, tonelessly, "Dogs Found Deceased," and "Dogs Euthanized Before Holding." And then exhaling slowly and going back onto Craigslist to scan for lost and found boston terriers.

The farmer walks around stony-eyed and grim, doesn't seem to hear anything, except maybe Monday's sympathetic murmurings as she allows herself to be milked. Monday understands.

I never thought I would say this, but we need our Terror back. As soon as possible.

Blue Monday

The farmer heard on tv that yesterday was the most depressing day of the year. That turned out to be true.

Around 8 in the morning Poppy's yearling daughter Monday started hollering.

She stood at the gate and hollered at the farmer, which is odd in itself because she is naturally standoffish.

"She must be in heat," the farmer said to The Terror. The Terror doesn't know anything about heat, so she just yapped in solidarity.

The farmer doddered around feeding everyone and then went to make a mark in the new breeding calendar and just for once scanned backwards in time and saw that Monday really shouldn't be in heat.

Because she is already bred. And due at the end of February.

The farmer went outside and Monday was lying under the apple tree crying in an unmistakable way, you will know it when you hear it if you have ever heard it before, and she was shivering a little bit and when the farmer got close she turned and looked longingly at the farmer.

It was a look of pure love so deep that the farmer knew right away it was a case of mistaken identity, and that Monday was going to lose her kids if she hadn't already, but that she was still in the hopeful stage and thought the farmer lumbering toward her might be, possibly could be, there was a one in a million chance, all it ever takes is one in a million, her baby.

"All right, then," sighed the farmer, and crouched down, and Monday allowed herself to be carried up to the barn where within an hour she delivered a tiny hairless bobbleheaded baby. It wasn't anywhere near finished, just an outline for a baby, a cave drawing, eyes sealed shut, looking like a prehistoric broken baby bird.

The farmer took the baby away, and then came back and settled Monday in the horse trailer in a little private stall, since the barn is not set up for kidding yet, and sat with her reading a book.

"This is the most depressing day of the year," the farmer explained. "Don't worry, tomorrow will be better."

Monday stared blankly at the farmer, crying softly. What else could she do.

Ho ho ho

No time to write. Beautiful Christmas today. We gorged on Swedish Fish and Black Licorice that came in the mail.

And Lo, It Did Not Come to Pass....

We have decided not to waste time on New Year's Resolutions and instead skip right ahead to Our UnResolutions. Things that won't be happening. Not now, not in The New Year, not ever.

1. Henceforth Betty will be practicing kindness and forgiveness and gentle goatly caring in an attempt to spread her message of being the change she wants to see in the world. She will offer all her food to others every day, and she will lay down with the lamb and with the Terror, and they will softly sing 'Kumbaya' and the circle will be unbroken by and by and so on. Oh wait, I'm sorry, that's not going to happen. No. Definitely not.

2. Crumpet will be giving a Christmas concert at the local Lutheran Church after the free Christmas breakfast. She will be playing the harp and the dulcimer and possibly the triangle. She will be accompanied on vocals by Pinky, if Pinky is in heat that day. Otherwise Maddy will perform the yodel-ha-ha under the mistletoe. Oh wait, no, that won't be happening. None of it. Sorry.

3. Willen will stop knocking fences down and he will resolve to eat moderately and practice moderation in all things, especially eating, and he will not hog grain using his patented speed-eating techniques which can really only be analyzed using ultra-slow-motion photography. Oh I'm sorry, I read that wrong, no, my mistake, that is never going to happen.

4. Fred will consume mass quantities of flaxseed which will improve his brain function to such an amazing degree that he will realize that if a fence is only two feet tall, you can actually STEP over it. There is nothing preventing you from STEPPING over it. It is not an insurmountable barrier. ~~ Stop putting ideas in Fred's head, barks the farmer, there is no room for them there. That is not going to happen.

5. Moldy will begin following conversations all the way through and responding appropriately instead of always taking a sidetrack to talk about Oregon and her many outlandish wishes and the other crackpot notions housed in her tiny cranium. Never ever.

6. Pebbles will actually be bred and she will have some little Pebbles. Yeah, right.

7. Belle Starr will stop brown-nosing and sucking up to the farmer. Ha.

8. I, Millie, aka Million Belles, aka Baby Belle Jr., will receive the admiration and notoriety I deserve, and I will replace Crumpet as TMFGITW and I will have my own t-shirt and also a bad hoodie and possibly a cap, one of those high-domed ones like the two-tone hip-hop snapback Gangnam Style one that Psy wears. This actually could happen. It really could. Not.

Christmas Past

This is an old movie but it is so good to see some of our old friends that we are going to play it again. Hello Atticus. Hello Harry. Hello Boo. Hello Wendell.

Hello Baby Belle.

Merry Christmas.

The Terror's Day Out

The Terror has become a fixture at the local off-leash dog park. Inexplicably, she is very popular with both the dogs and the people. One of her friends is Nibs, a pit bull who could be an advertisement for the breed, fun-loving and rambunctious but with the mouth of a bird dog - Nibs could carry an egg home without breaking it.

Then Pliny, named after the scholar when you first ask (the Elder). But if you ask again, he is really named after the beer. After all, it turns out, Pliny the Elder was one of the first to explore the science of hops. Anyway, The Terror's friend Pliny is a blue weimaraner who explores the science of puppy wrassling to an exhausting degree, which is very good, because a tired Terror is a good Terror. Then there is an exuberant Labradoodle who leaps all up, around, on top, and over the Terror like the Bolshoi Ballet on four legs (without the backstabbing). Then there is a border collie whose name we don't know; she excels in running the Terror ragged.

The goal of the trips to the dog park, which is on the way to the feed mill, is that the Terror sleeps all or most of the rest of the day. Many times the other dog parkers are surprised by the Terror's zeal for adventure; her usual tactic is to run pell-mell up to the biggest dog and start licking its chin and offering to race it anywhere, or to wrassle it, straight up, no point spread requested, she doesn't care how big it is, the bigger the better.

On account of almost always being the smallest dog at the party, the Terror has excellent dog manners. If anything ever looks dicy, she rolls over on her back and stays there. Almost all dogs respect this, it is universal dog language. All right, they will say, but cut it out. Maybe they are old and arthritic, and don't want to chase a Terror around. So they give a warning, the Terror rolls over, and they say " all right. But buzz off." And the Terror buzzes.

Practically every dog knows not to attack a puppy. Practically.

The other day The Terror was at the dog park and a big black dog was standing on the edge of the playfield. There was something about this dog: it didn't respond to any of the dogs that came near it. Even a dog that growls, you can trust - at least it's telling you something. This dog had no reaction to any kind of overture, and several of the older dogs that came near it moved quickly away. The dogs knew something. The farmer moved close to the dog, about ten feet away, making a mental note to keep an eye on it. But being weak-minded, the farmer soon started chatting with one of the other dog parkers about chanterelles.

Just in the nick of too late, the farmer looked up to see the Terror barreling up to the big black dog, where she crouched underneath it, tail wagging madly, to lick its chin. In one fluid motion without warning or preamble it picked her up by the neck, flipped her high into the air, then pinned her to the ground when she came down, snarling in deadly earnest. The Terror, a tough girl who never cries, was crying hysterically. The farmer surprised the black dog by booting it sideways at the hips, then grabbed the Terror as the black dog's owner simultaneously arrived to pull it away.

People rushed up to see if the Terror was okay. Being a puppy, and made of rubber, she was no worse for wear, except for a dribble of blood under her ear. Her snappy new nineteen dollar padded jacket had suffered a puncture wound, though. The farmer tucked her under an arm, like a football, and started to leave.

The black dog's owner offered an explanation to the people who were now clustered around him:
"He doesn't like it when dogs come up to him."

Several people looked at him grimly, nodding: that was plain to see.

Nobody asked the obvious question, because you always think of the obvious question later, when you are halfway home: why is he at the off-leash park if he doesn't like dogs?

A goat that doesn't understand goat society - usually a  pampered bottle baby, or sometimes just a goat from Oregon -  is a menace to itself. On the other hand a dog that doesn't understand dogginess, a dog that doesn't speak the universal dog language, is a menace to society. That is what the farmer explained long-windedly to the Terror as they drove home, not noticing that the Terror was fast asleep, and planning to sleep the rest of the day.

"So in conclusion," the farmer wrapped up, "I hope this has been a valuable lesson to you. In future just stay away from any dogs who do not have dog manners."

The Terror snored gently.

V.I.G.

Well today it is freezing and going to stay freezing for the next week which I personally don't care for. It isn't the worst thing that could happen but it isn't something that I personally care for. Of everyone who hates the cold, though, Fred is probably the worst. He does not even like his feet to touch the ground when it is this cold. Today he is headbobbing around like a Tennessee Walker, yanking his feet up knee-high every time they touch the ground. You would think he would get used to it after a few steps but no, every step is a horrible shock to him.

Anyway as far as Winnie Eo knew right away what would happen.

"Oh no," she said when the farmer started musing about Winnie, the plight of poor Winnie, a big shot growing depressed without underlings, and before you can say snapchat Winnie got moved out of the big milker pasture and in with Betty and Betty's ragtag army of half-pints and yearlings, a motley crew which includes four babies, Isabel the newcomer, Sandy the Screamer, Clara Belle the dingaling, Clover who does't have a "the" yet, and sometimes Licorice who comes and goes as she pleases. All Nigerians.

Winnie brightened immediately and swaggered over to a corner of the Betty area where she made herself a king-sized bed in the straw and starting delivering ultimatums. No one comes inside this triangle, no one touches the food on the tray until I have had my pick, this end of the hay feeder is off-limits, it is a V.I.G.* area only for me, and also for my guests if I ever have any but I am not planning on it, and no one shall touch the farmer or make eye contact with the farmer, the farmer is mine, etc. It was all very Kramer-at-the-dojo.

Eo of course was pleased because she had thought Winnie would be coming to our small neck of the woods. But the Betty enclave is an even smaller pond, and Winnie is now the CEO. It just goes to show - anyone can be a big fish. You just have to find a small enough pond.


*Very Important Goat

The Little Pond

Winnie is one of the farmer's pets and she always has been. Or maybe she even thinks the farmer is her pet. Anyway she acts like she owns the farmer. If someone comes around while she is standing by the farmer, she goes into a headbutting frenzy, doing rapid-fire Sugar Ray Leonard type jabs until she has cleared a circle all around the farmer. Just go ahead and dare to enter that circle. Go ahead, see what happens.

Over the years we have been subjected to torrents of Winnie comparison. Winnie is always the milker the beginners milk. Anyone can milk Winnie. She will stand patiently all day long while a two-year-old milks her. Also she gives tons of milk and she has a beautiful udder. Back in the day she was our prettiest LaMancha ever. When Winnie is on the milkstand half the time the farmer calls everyone's attention: "does everyone see how Winnie is standing?"

"Does everyone see how Winnie waits quietly without stamping even though the grain is gone?"

"Does everyone see how Winnie stands like a lamppost while we are drawing blood?"

"Did everyone see how much milk Winnie gave today?"

"Did everyone see how Winnie walked nicely back into the stall without trying to escape into the grain room just because the door is open?"

Bla bla bla bla.

Anyway the thing about Winnie is she is a people goat and she is not a goat's goat. She is one of the Sopranos and when she was young it seemed she might end up as the herdqueen; after all, she was Brandy's oldest daughter. But she didn't have the knack for it. And as soon as Wronny, her little sister, was a yearling, it was clear who would inherit the throne. And after that Winnie gradually slipped into the background.

She is as big as a house so no one ever really bothered her, but after her mother died this summer the farmer would often look out and see Winnie standing alone in the pasture with her head down. She didn't really fit in with the Wronny family, even though she is their aunt, and the Nubian crosses made a point of ignoring her. Even Winnie's own daughters preferred Wronny. So the farmer would look out, and there would be Winnie, gazing off at Mt. Rainier, or staring blankly down the hill. She is the oldest LaMancha here now, ten years old, and even though she still looks like a 5-year-old, she started getting aches and pains, and a week or so ago she hurt her foot somehow and wouldn't join the scrum around the feeder. The other bigs jostled her too much.

"What are we going to do with you?" the farmer asked.

She really only looks happy when the farmer is there, scratching along her shoulder blades and pretending she is still magnificent, even though she is getting a little bit rickety, and if the truth be told she is a little down on her pasterns.

The problem is that, in her mind, she is a big grand champion worldbeating fish. And she has no pond.

"Oh no," said Eo, as the farmer stood scratching Winnie with a puzzled expression.

~~~~ stay tuned ~~~~~