Looking For Trouble

Tux, Top Hat, and Turkish Delight, Mel's trouble-seeking triplets (aka the three little priests), are almost but not quite too fat to squeeze under the down-below pasture gate. Here they pop out the other side of the wardrobe into Narnia, where they will march toward the barn to see if the door to the grain room has been left open.

Onward, fellow triplets! If we cannot find any trouble, we will make it from scratch!

Nameless in (or near) Seattle

It happens every year and this year it is the sad case of Betsy's big orange daughter. I don't particularly care for a big orange goat but everyone else says how pretty she is.

Betsy is half Nubian and half LaMancha, and she was bred to a beautiful LaMancha buck up the road. She had two very pretty daughters, a little black one and a big orange one, as I already mentioned. So the two daughters are three quarters LaMancha.

The big orange one (B.O.) has a LaMancha body, for the most part, but a Nubian brain, which I think is sad. She will likely be taken advantage of by telemarketers in the future; I foresee her wiring her life savings to Nigeria in response to a spam email about a large estate and the need for a much esteemed American goat partner. But oh well, we can't all be Mensa caprines.

Anyway, B.O. has had a string of names but none of them stuck. First she was called Clementine (for that cute little orange that comes from California). This is an okay name, but it did not take. Then she was called Cointreau (for the orange liqueur), but a goat like B.O. with a fancy French name was just not the ticket. Then she was called Mandarin Orange, which is an awful name and besides that it doesn't fit on the papers.

However, while she was called Mandarin Orange, her little black sister who was also not sticking to any of her names acquired the name Xie Xie, which is Mandarin for "thank you," (pronounced Shea Shea, like the Stadium). And that name has stuck, unlike Mandarin Orange. So Shea is now called Shea, instead of "the little black one," which seems like an improvement, albeit probably a modest one.

Anyway, back to B.O. Next she was called Red Ryder, after some kind of comic strip no living creature recalls. Then, in an acknowledgement of defeat, she was simply called Red, or Big Red, which isn't any more dignified than B.O.

So please help, before it is too late. She cannot go to the fair without a name. It's too disgraceful. And considering the size of her brain, it is going to take a long time for her to learn her name, whatever it is, so the sooner the better.

To review: she is big, she is orange, she is pretty, she is the daughter of Betsy (aka Stacy's Starlight). She needs a dignified name. If there is an X in it somewhere (this is an X year) so much the better, but to tell the truth we really don't care about that any more.

Perfectly Obvious Rules for Farm Living

Here are a few perhaps somewhat useful farm rules, regulations, ideas, notions, suggestions, and aphorisms, most in the category of perfectly obvious. These are things that we learned, or proved, or recognized, or attempted to implement, or perhaps even actually implemented over the last year.

1. Pay Attention
2. Be Careful
3. Fix It Yourself
4. Pinkeye is very contagious
5. A Leader Leads
6. Harmony is better than tyranny
7. Tyranny is better than chaos
8. If a horse steps on your foot, it is always your fault (see #1 and #2 above)
9. Goats do not give good haircuts
10. The hay will not walk into the barn
11. Remember why you are doing that
12. This is today. (or, as Mike Ditka says, "the past is for cowards.")

April the First

Herron Hill's April the First collapsed and died last night. We cannot even really say what she meant to us.

She was April the First, April the Last, April the Only.

She was the first baby goat born on the farm. She was the first goat with the farm herdname. Her picture was on all of our cards and on our web site. She was a true April Fool, the sweetest most ornery goat in the world, smart as a whip and crazy as a bedbug.

She was born in the farmer's arms on April 1, 2001, at 9 o'clock on a beautiful spring night. She died in the farmer's arms at 9 o'clock last night, May 6, 2007.

We know we will have to say goodbye to her soon. But right now we can't.

The Milkhouse Design Competition

If you can actually see it, please look closely at the photo at left. This is an artist's rendering of the milkhouse remodel to the barn. We are remodeling our barn to put the milkhouse in our shed wing. As you may have surmised, this artist's rendering wasn't rendered by an artist, which makes it quite a bit less artistic. And the milkhouse itself wasn't designed by a designer.

But don't worry, that's where you come in.

Please submit your design ideas and suggestions to flesh out this barebones drawing. Where should the doors go? How many should there be? Windows? Refrigerators, vats, shelves, etc?

Remember these constraints: the space is 10 x 40, and must be divided into three rooms. There must be a milk parlor (10 x 10)- the space where the goats are actually milked - and there must be a milkhouse (10 x 10)- a separate space for storing and cooling the milk. The milkhouse, as much as possible, should be a dead end rather than an area people pass through on the way to somewhere else, so as to minimize opportunities for contamination.

There must also be a cheese room (10 x 20), even though it might not be finished right away.

The cheese room must be big enough to make cheese. i.e., there must be room for a vat, a large refrigerator, a cheese press, a make table and draining table, mold storage etc. And of course there must be a door for the cheesemaker to slam when she quits in disgust.

Goat flow must be one-way (goats cannot go out the same door they came in; if you met our friend Boo the Nubian you would know why) and the very limited floor space must be laid out in such a way as to minimize insanity.

Ok, that's all, send your designs in. You can do it.

The Last Babies of the Season, Part Three

Well, the farmer is going out of town for a few days and Lori is going to run the farm. This means I will get a lot of cookies, because Lori is not such a cookie tightwad as the farmer is. Sometimes I wonder: what is the farmer saving those cookies for? Is there an impending worldwide cookie shortage? Why not just give me the cookies, then go and buy more, instead of "saving" them? Saving them for what? They aren't getting any fresher.

Lori isn't like that. Lori's policy is "cookies today, who knows what tomorrow brings." So that is very good. Also, Lori doesn't buy the cheap convenience store cookies like the farmer does, she buys genuine Nutter Butters and things like that. Maybe because she eats them too, even though they are supposed to be goat cookies.

Anyway, there has been yet another update in the ongoing "last baby of the season" saga. After Mabel dropped her surprise doeling, the farmer went back and looked at the breeding books and noticed a few question marks that had not been previously noted.

The breeding book either says "good one," as was the case of my productive meeting in the breeding stall with Captain January, or it says "no good," as was the case with Mabel's meeting, where she tried her best to kill the Captain, or it says "???"

??? means a) the romantic results were inconclusive, or, more likely, b) the farmer got distracted by something and didn't see what happened. By saving cookies, or taking cookie inventory, or something like that.

So anyway, way down at the bottom of the book was a little note that said, Aggie + CJ = ????

Aggie is Agnes the mini-Nubian, CJ of course is Captain January. ??? I already explained. Well, the ??? part has been resolved. It was a good one. Aggie will make her bid for the last baby of the season title in May. Whether or not she actually has the last babies of the season, she will have the first mini-Nubians of the season.

We are excited to see Aggie's babies, because she is very sweet and pretty. In fact, she is a movie star. She was in a movie titled "We Go Way Back," playing herself, when she was only a few days old. If you can get it at your local movie store, skip to near the end. Then you can see pictures of Aggie and her sister Maggie and the farm in the background.

Or you can watch the whole movie, but you might be bored - the goats are only in for a minute at the end.

"Fat" Girl Mystery Solved, or the Eagle has Landed Part 2

Well, as you know, the farmer packed up all the kidding supplies last Tuesday, prepared to enjoy a new stress-free life of anytime napping and round-the-clock indolence. This was because all the kidders on the chart had kidded.

So on Saturday night the farmer was planning to go to the movies for the first time in a long time. The chores were done early, including the milking, and everyone was fed. The Fat Girls down in the Fat Girl pasture - dry yearlings and unbred does - were doing their usual complaining, because they had just been switched from alfalfa to grass hay, owing to there now being nice spring grass and the fat girls getting even fatter. A chorus of disapproval had gone up when the grass hay arrived, and the fat girls were doing everything but banging tin cups on the bars of the hay feeder. But they were eating greedily, of course, in spite of their monumental outrage and the fact that they hated and could not possibly stomach grass hay.

In the Fat Girl pasture were my daughter Hannah Belle, Breezy the chief complainer, little knucklehead Bertie the world's largest dry yearling, Willa a nice little mini-Togg, Billie a tough girl, and April's mini-mancha daughter Mabel who carries on her mother's tradition of being crazy as a bedbug (the opposite of her twin Peaches, who is normal as pie).

Of these six tubsters, three had been bred - or sort of bred - and did not settle: Hannah Belle, Breezy, and Mabel. Hannah Belle and Breezy had been bred several times but kept coming back into heat. Mabel, who had always been long and lean, had turned inexplicably into rather a chubby girl, which was surprising because this didn't run in the family. Anyway, she was shopping in the Plus Size rack, so she was assigned to the Fat Girl pasture.

Mabel had been sort of bred: she was put in the breeding stall with little Captain January, who immediately began showering her with teenage goat-boy attentions. This did not put Mabel in a romantic frame of mind. On the contrary, she whirled around like a quarter horse and began attempting to kill the Captain.

The little goat Romeo, by no means a lionheart, was fleeing in circles for his life, screaming at the top of his lungs and occasionally catching a head butt in the ribs when he did not make the corners fast enough. Mabel was whisked out of the stall.

"All right," said the farmer, to Mabel, who was pop-eyed with rage, "we will breed you next year when the Captain is bigger."

Mabel was in the stall with the Captain for perhaps 30 seconds, 27 of which she spent in a homicidal rage.

The other 3, as it turns out, were put to good use.

When it was just time to leave for the movie, an unmistakable bellowing begin to issue from the Fat Girl pasture. The farmer raced down. Breezy had her head planted in the feeder. Hannah Belle the same. From under the cabana came more unmistakable bellowing. The farmer rushed in, just in time to grab a little pink and white bundle.

Yes, you guessed it, Mabel's little daughter. The last - maybe? possibly? - baby of the season.

Good grief.

The Eagle Has Landed

Hello everyone. The Eagle has landed. The Eagle landed last night at 8:40 PST.

The farmer was waiting all day yesterday for little orphan Betsy, the favorite kid from last year and blue ribbon winner at the state fair, to download her babies, which would be the last babies of the season.

Betsy was ready for the download, her ligaments were long gone, but she was not doing anything. She ate. She strolled. She appeared to be considering several ideas for sonnets about spring. She mused. She wandered. She ambled. She chewed. She browsed. She even grazed. She demanded and got several cookies.

She did not: lie down, make a nest, start pawing, start pushing. She just Betsyed around, as usual. Finally at the end of the day the farmer put her in a stall in the barn - kicking ME out, of course! - to wait for tomorrow.

Then the farmer went inside. "I am going inside to watch American Idol," the farmer told everyone in the barn. "Do not make any trouble until 9 o'clock."

At 8:30 during a commercial Lori came out and checked on Betsy. The farmer did not come out because Sanjaya had not come on yet. "Betsy's not doing anything," Lori reported to the farmer.

At 8:40 there was another commercial break, and Ryan Seacrest said, "when we come back, Jordin and Blake." So for some reason, since Sanjaya wasn't coming on, the farmer went out to check on Betsy, even though Lori had just checked.

When the farmer got to Betsy's stall, Betsy was looking in astonishment at two wet babies, one of them big and red, the other small and black and tan. For a moment the farmer thought some of the hoodlum babies (i.e. my triplets) had snuck under the wall and into Betsy's stall, which the hoodlum babies like to do just to see what is going on.

Then the farmer realized that these were Betsy's new babies. Betsy did a doubletake as the little robot babies advanced upon her, hungry and implacable, intent on finding a milk source. Betsy looked up at the farmer, clearly seeking information.

She took a step backward, surrounded by the milk-seeking missiles. She jumped away when one of the babies found a nipple.

Lori and the farmer put Betsy in a headlock and let the babies nurse. After a little bit of oxytocin got into her system, Betsy looked down at the babies again. She looked at the farmer and nodded.

Ok, she said, I get it. These are my babies.

The last of the season.

Twin doelings.

Whew.

My New Nanny

Hello, everyone.

I am feeling quite a bit better. But still a bit under the weather, so I do not have enough milk to feed my triplets. They are very hungry.

So the farmer has taken over feeding the triplets twice a day, and I add a little bit here and there.

I did not know this system was available, but apparently I am the last to hear of it. This is called a "Nanny." I guess it must come from Nanny Goat.

Anyway, what happens is you find a person (one of those things you see everywhere with two legs) who is not doing anything much besides milking all the goats and cleaning the stalls and fertilizing the fields and making cheese and brushing out the horses and stacking the hay bales. And get them to feed your babies.

You lay out in the sun and eat grass.

It's a good system.

Oh, by the way, little Cammy had a pair of adorable twins today, Biscuit and Pinky. She is feeding them herself - just imagine, how old-fashioned.

Under the Weather

Everyone please send me your good thoughts. I am feeling under the weather. The farmer has been giving me lots of medicine which I hate, and since I wouldn't eat anything, the farmer let me have a bottle of warm milk, like back when I was a baby. Then the farmer gave my babies a bottle, too, since I didn't have enough milk to give them. Then they all came and snuggled around me because they are very good babies.

Anyway, I am just relaxing in my stall and not doing much but I hope to feel better soon.

Sammy

In this photo, Atticus inspects Sammy the bottle baby to make sure Wendell is taking proper care of him. Wendell awaits inspection results in the background.

Rocky Road

The longest day on record has just almost come to a close.

The longest day came at the end of the longest week, which revolved around a major baby storm. It was a hurricane of babies here this week. I started the baby storm last Friday with my beautiful triplets. Then Wronny had a set of so-so twins. People have been very polite about Wronny's twins. "Aren't they cute?" everyone says.

Which translates to: "what a funny-looking pair, too bad they aren't as pretty as Belle's kids."

Then Winnie had the largest buck kid ever, his name is Samson. The farmer had to pull and pull to get Samson's big head out. There was lots of screaming. Samson belongs to Wendell, he is the first baby goat Wendell has been allowed to have. Wendell has been doing very well, pretending he is Sammy's mother and keeping both ends nice and clean. It is quite a sight to see Wendell and Sammy taking a walk together.

Sammy is a bottle baby, so the farmer has to get up to feed him every ten minutes or so, it seems like.

Well, after Sammy was born Mel the drama queen strung out her delivery forever, going for ultimate time in the spotlight. Then she popped out a set of triplets without batting an eye. She is a toaster, just like her mother Breezy. Those triplets all look the same, and they all look exactly like Mel, black with little patches of white here and there. One has blue eyes.

"Aren't they adorable?" everyone says.

Translation: "they are all the same color, they look like little four-legged priests, too bad they aren't as cute as Belle's triplets."

Okay. Penrose was the last one on the list for this week, and a certain amount of sleep deprivation was setting in. Penrose did not do so well. She was getting milk fever and went into a labor slowdown and wasn't pushing and wasn't eating and just stood around with her head hanging down. Well, the farmer got some calcium into her and along about midnight she finally popped a set of twins out.

Then the farmer stayed up to give her calcium through the night and make sure everything was okay, and those two babies ended up bottle babies too, so they needed to be fed, and pretty soon it was six o'clock in the morning and time to get up. Only no one had really properly been to bed yet.

Well, before I tell you about what happened next we have to tell you the history of raccoons around here. The raccoons hung around a while ago, really nasty raccoons, and they killed all the chickens in a bloodthirsty slaughter, and they were just in general bad characters and stone cold killers. People think they are cute but they will pluck a vein out of your neck in a heartbeat with those devilish little hands. They love to grab helpless chickens or baby goats.

But when Atty came the raccoons left, never to be seen again. Well, lately because of the coyotes, Atty has been spending a lot more time down in the pasture. He is behind the fence down there and can't get up to the barn at night. And we started to see a very insolent raccoon again.

This raccoon would be hanging around the barn in the morning. Wendell would see it and start shaking with fright. The farmer threw a rock at it and a stick and the raccoon didn't care.

The raccoon just turned around and gave the farmer a dirty look and then ambled away, as if to say, I was leaving anyway, I'm not afraid of you, and I'll be back too, whenever I feel like it, and you can kiss my raccoon rump.

Well, the farmer kind of forgot about the raccoon, but this morning when the farmer went to the barn all bleary-eyed, Spenny the border collie suddenly ran up the stairs to the hayloft and started barking like a maniac. The farmer went up into the loft and sure enough, the insolent raccoon had set up camp under a chair in the loft. Spenny ran around and around the chair barking like crazy.

The farmer ran inside and yelled for Lori to get up.

"Get up, Lori, there is a raccoon in the hayloft," the farmer yelled. Obviously it would take a two-person team to handle this vicious creature.

Lori has always gone on and on about her varmint-shooting prowess, so the farmer yelled to Lori to grab the pellet gun. The farmer thought of yelling at Lori to get the real gun - a .22 rifle - but no one had bothered to read the directions on how to shoot that and it didn't seem like the best time to start learning, so the farmer yelled at Lori to get the pellet gun.

Lori ran outside without her pants, possibly attempting to scare the raccoon away.

"Get your pants, Lori," the farmer yelled, " it is a raccoon."

Lori returned with her pants on and started asking the farmer where the safety was on the pellet gun, which did nothing to allay the farmer's doubts about Lori's much-touted gunmanship.

Finally the crack team reassembled in the loft, staying on the far side of the insolent raccoon so that it would have plenty of room to run for the exit without feeling trapped.

But Spenny the border collie, the only one with any guts, had other ideas. She ran right for the raccoon and chased it into a corner.

"No, Spenny," yelled the farmer, meanwhile throwing sticks and brooms and screens and any other thing that came to hand at the raccoon to try to get it to run down the stairs. Spenny was fearless and kept right at the raccoon, which started moving rather creakily toward the exit.

"Get out of the way, get out of the way," Lori began yelling in a masterful voice. It was unclear to whom she was speaking. She put her gun aside momentarily and picked up a shovel and hit the raccoon on the head, and the raccoon tumbled down the stairs, with Spenny and the crack two-person raccoon-hunting team in hot pursuit.

Spenny chased the raccoon toward the porch and by this time the raccoon, still moving at a snail's pace, couldn't think what to do and turned around for a showdown. Lori was about five feet behind, and from this range she was able to swing her pellet gun into position and "Thunk!"

Well, the man at the sporting goods store said that the pellet gun was a dangerous weapon and no toy, and not just something he was foisting off that wouldn't do any good. No, in fact, it was pretty much a world-class firearm, one step down from an AK-47, and in truth this wasn't just any pellet gun but a super-duper .177, which is much more powerful than a regular one.

Anyway, Lori thunked a pellet into the raccoon from about four feet away, which appears to be the outside limit of her range of accuracy. She hit the raccoon in his tummy. The raccoon looked down at his tummy in an offended manner and then up at Lori, as if to say, how unnecessary and how uncouth. Judging from his expression, the pellet shot hurt about as much as a stubbed toe.

Luckily for everyone concerned, the pellet gun is not a repeater. It takes about 15 minutes to get another pellet into it, if you can find one. And just then, as luck would have it, Atty came beelining up from the pasture.

Well, thought the farmer, I guess that will be the end of the raccoon. But when Atty got to the raccoon, he began smelling and nudging it in a very polite manner. Clearly he knew the raccoon and was on friendly terms with it. And in the clear light of day, something else became apparent. The raccoon was extremely elderly. His apparent insolence was probably just arthritis. He didn't run away because he couldn't really run any more. In fact, he looked like he needed a walker.

Everyone stood around, kind of embarrassed, and the raccoon - Lori calls him Rocky now - slunk wearily under the porch.

Spenny had disappeared, but reappeared a moment later barking madly: unnoticed in the confusion, the dog groomer had arrived to fix KT the border collie's hair, which is a mess. The dog groomer made no mention of the shovels and guns strewn about the barnyard, but did ask, quite alertly, "why is Spenny's nose gushing blood?"

Everyone looked at Spenny, and sure enough Rocky had bitten her on the nose, and it was gushing blood. Off Spenny went to the vet for a rabies shot and a hamburger at McDonald's.

We don't know for sure, but we think Rocky may still be under the porch.

The farmer asked him politely to please stay out of the barn and don't bite anybody else and there won't be any more trouble.

Sorry, Rocky.

Minimancha Twins

Oh, I almost forgot, Wronny also had twins on Friday. Here they are, Buttons and Cappy, both have blue eyes.

Cappy is the one in the picture with her mama, Buttons is the one staring into the camera up close. Buttons is already a dickens, in fact her name was Dickens for a while but now it is Buttons. She was jumping on Atty's back while he was guarding them in the shed.

We laughed when we saw Atty because he was lying in the doorway and would not let anyone in the shed without permission. Wendell came down and wanted to see the babies but Atty would not allow him in. Wendell was crying and crying, but Atty knows he is a terrible pest and wouldn't let him in.

Buttons and Cappy look almost just alike except for Cappy's white cap.

Too bad they aren't as pretty as my babies, but I guess they are okay if you like that kind of thing.

Baby Gallery

Well, here are some pictures of the most beautiful baby goats in the world. My children are named AnnaBelle, RubyJane, and Sgt. Bell Pepper.

The tiniest one is AnnaBelle, first she was called Dandelion because her hair was sticking straight out.

Then there is RubyJane, with the blue eyes.

And then there is Sarge, you can see him standing in the back with floppy ears in this group photo.

I think you will agree they are all supermodel babies.

Birthday Party Continued

It's a beautiful day for a birthday party, Wronny agrees with me. She just popped out a pair of blue-eyed minimancha does in record time. Those girls are like two vacuum cleaners, they already drank about a gallon of milk. Now they are snoozing in their shed in the down-below pasture, and Atty is guarding the door.

Happy Birthday Little Belles!

Well you probably have been wondering what I have been doing and I'm here to tell you I have been very busy. Gestating is no easy job. It requires your full attention.

Anyway, I am done gestating now. Yesterday the farmer said, "well, you are probably going to have your babies today, so come up to the barn."

We went up to the barn where my suite had been prepared nicely but I was more than a little perturbed to see that the big tub of grain I had planned on receiving was nowhere to be found.

"You are a little bit chubby, Belle," said the farmer, "but here is some nice alfalfa to tide you over."

Imagine! Alfalfa instead of grain!

Then a couple of hours later the farmer came back and said, "you know, it might be a good idea for you to get some exercise, since you aren't going into labor yet."

And then I was obliged to walk all over the farm for practically an hour without stopping.

Imagine! The indignity! In my condition!

Well, come along night time and the farmer stayed up for a while, then said, "since you're not doing anything, I am going to bed."

Thank you at last for some privacy. When the farmer went to bed I had my babies, and guess what! I outdid myself once again with triplets, two girls and a boy.

The farmer was very surprised at five o'clock in the morning to find us all just finishing our first meal together. The farmer was very apologetic at the sight of the triplets - no wonder I looked chubby - and rushed to get some grain and molasses water for me, which should have been served immediately when the kids were born, and not half an hour later when the farmer felt like getting out of bed.

But anyway, all's well that ends well, and now I can eat almost anything I want, and my beautiful triplets are enjoying their first day on Earth.

Jules T. Jones

The T stands for Trouble, can't you tell? That's her middle name.

The Little Peaches

Let's not forget that Peaches, April's daughter, also had two babies on Friday. They were both girls. Their names are Ginger Jones (aka Jonesy) and Jules Jones. As usual, one has nice LaMancha ears, and the other has full Nigerian ears. Oddly, the Nigerian-looking girl (Ginger, with the blue eyes) is much bigger. That is what always happens.

Gus and April

This is Gus, asking April if she feels better yet.

A Long Story About a Rainy Day in Gorst

And when it rains, it pours. If anyone should know that, we should.

Well, on Friday it was pouring down rain and seven kinds of trouble.

In the morning the farmer got up and April and her daughter Peaches were both starting into labor. The garage up in Gorst, about 45 minutes away, had called the night before to say that the horse trailer was ready after being in the shop for two months with a broken axle, which is another story about seven kinds of trouble but that will have to wait for another rainy day.

Anyway, the farmer really wanted the trailer to go and get some hay and the trailer place is closed all weekend, so the farmer looked at April and Peaches and calculated that there was no way they would kid before noon, and then made what we'll call:

Mistake Number One:
The farmer decided to run up to Gorst and get the trailer as soon as the garage opened and then run back home.

This left Lori home alone babysitting April and Peaches.

The farmer hurried up to Bremerton, paid for the trailer, pulled the truck into the garage parking lot to hook up to the trailer, put the truck in reverse, stepped on the gas, and the truck died. The truck died and remained dead. The farmer looked at Spenny the border collie who was along for the ride as usual and said, "the truck just died."

Spenny the border collie nodded; she knew. Spenny actually had thought something like that might happen but didn't want to say anything.

The truck was dead, stone cold dead, and the only good thing about it was that it was already at a gas station. The garage man said he would be very happy to have one of his mechanics look at it.

ON MONDAY.

The farmer tried and tried to call Lori but Lori was out in the barn and didn't answer the phone. The farmer called a reliable friend who answered from her car. She was on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (half an hour away) and headed in the opposite direction. She asked if the farmer wanted her to just turn around? Then the farmer made what we'll call:

Mistake Number Two:
"No, that's okay," said the farmer. "I will call my neighbor."

The farmer called a neighbor who is very nice but in retrospect not the most talented navigator. The farmer explained the situation. The neighbor obligingly agreed to go over and tell Lori what was happening and then come and pick the farmer up.

"I'm in Gorst," the farmer said, speaking very clearly. "Do you know where Gorst is? If you take the Belfair Highway up north, it is right where the Belfair Highway meets Highway 16."

"I know where it is," said the neighbor.

Two hours later the farmer was still standing in the rain outside the gas station in Gorst. Something, to point out the obvious, didn't seem right.

The farmer called Lori, who now had her cellphone turned on. "Where are you?" said Lori, sounding very rattled, "are you almost here?"

Peaches was hard in labor by now and having a difficult time. In the next stall over, April's water had broken an hour ago and now nothing was happening. Not a good situation at all.

The neighbor was lost; he thought Gorst was south instead of north and had driven the wrong way on the Belfair Highway, then had to turn around and come back. The 45 minute trip took over two hours, then 45 minutes more to get back home.

The farmer arrived just as Peaches managed to get her second baby on the ground. She and her daughters were tired but doing well.

April was in deep trouble and getting deeper. The farmer scrubbed up and went in and it was a forest of legs, no heads to be found. The farmer tried to get one of the babies out backwards but couldn't get the baby turned around. The other one was upside down and there is no way to deliver a live baby upside down.

The farmer called the first vet on the list. He couldn't come. The farmer called the second vet on the list. He wasn't in the office on Friday. The farmer called the third vet on the list. She was out of the office until 2:30. The farmer scrubbed up again and went back in and tried again; April was breathing hard and shaking and starting to get shocky. No luck.

Lori went inside and called the fourth vet on the list. The fourth vet couldn't fit the farmer in. The third vet's receptionist called back and suggested calling the emergency vet up near Bremerton.

The farmer had never heard of it. "Where is it?" asked the farmer.

"In Gorst," said the receptionist.

Within a few minutes April was loaded in the van and headed for the unknown vet in Gorst. By this time she was shaking and panting with her mouth open. It was a long drive back to Gorst.

When April arrived at the vet she had a temperature of 105 degrees and no color in her gums and by this time certainly the babies were dead. The vet had nice small hands but couldn't get the backwards baby out. But she was young and not conceited, so she asked the vet tech to try.

The vet tech had been raising Alpines for 20 years and within a couple of minutes she had the backwards baby out. He was not only alive he was very feisty; he soon got up and went for a drink of milk.

Now for baby number two. Baby number two would not come out, even with more room to maneuver. He was stuck fast. He had his feet forward and his head tucked into an armpit. Again the vet tried and tried and could not get the head around to pull him out. Again the vet asked the vet tech to try. It wasn't easy but soon she had him out.

He was stunned but alive. After a good slapping (sorry, little man) he sneezed a couple of times.

April was panting and very weak but starting to feel much better. The vet loaded her up on pain meds, and she finally accepted a drink of water and some grain. Her temperature started to come down. Soon the new family was headed home in the van.

April had a rough night then began to perk up. She is doing pretty well now. The farmer thinks she is probably retired from having babies.

The boys are doing well. It has taken a few days for the second baby to get his legs straightened out, he was jammed in so tight. But he gets around pretty well now, and all that oxygen has done his little brain a world of good.

His brother's name is Gus. His name is Come and Get Me I'm Stuck in Gorst and I Can't Get Out.

But we just call him Stuckey.