She Ain't Heavy

Well, there was a ruckus this afternoon. I laughed when I saw it.

The first fresheners in the down-below shack pasture are allowed to go out during the day and eat brush outside the back gate. The first fresheners are Betsy, Wronny, Cammy, Mabel, Peaches, and Mel. Well, Peaches is a second freshener, but for some reason she has it figured out where she gets to stay with the first fresheners. I don't know why. Peaches is always working some kind of angle.

The farmer came out to feed in the afternoon. And everything went okay feeding the horses. Everything went okay feeding Penrose and Hannah Belle and the babies in the barn. Everything went okay putting hay out for the big milkers.

And then all of a sudden the air was filled with a high-pitched screaming. The farmer looked all around and could not figure out where that screaming was coming from. It sounded like far away next door, but the farmer couldn't see anything. The farmer ran all around and climbed the rusty barbed wire fence around the neighbor's pasture to see better. There was a Nubian-esque quality to the screaming, I have to admit, even though all the purebred Nubians were present and accounted for and not doing anything besides their usual sighing and groaning.

After the farmer's pants got ripped on the fence there were a few choice words flung about, and then the farmer disappeared from sight, looking inside the neighbor's falling-down shack. Apparently the farmer did not find anything there because the farmer soon reappeared, to the tune of more high-pitched Nubianesque screaming.

Well along about then Wronny and Xie Xie hove into sight, a way far off behind the blackberry bushes in the neighbor's pasture. They were about a half-mile away from where they started, and they were quite a little bit worse for the wear.

Both of them were hot as the dickens and terribly lost; somehow they had gotten on the wrong side of the fence and they couldn't get back. Their mouths were hanging open and they looked like shipwreck victims.

Wronny is a little classic black-and-tan LaMancha yearling milker and Xie Xie is Betsy's little black daughter, and being a quarter Nubian Xie Xie was the source of the high-pitched screaming. She was in a state of panic. She was yelling for her mother nonstop when she wasn't busy panting her head off. Betsy, being half Nubian, was about a half a mile away, in the pasture she was supposed to be in, chewing her cud and daydreaming about corn chips, and not even raising an eyebrow as little Xie Xie screamed her lungs out.

Well, there were a few more choice words as the farmer scrambled around near Wronny and Xie Xie to try to lead them to the fence so that they could go back out and around to where they were supposed to be. The pants were further ripped and some festive red scratches acquired.

Wronny followed the farmer, and little Xie Xie followed Wronny for about twenty steps, then had a brain attack and raced back into the blackberry briars, which for some reason seemed to her the one and only place from which her Nubian 911 call could be transmitted. She resumed her screaming.

The farmer kept going, then realized Wronny had turned around. The farmer had to go back. Again the same thing was attempted, with the same result. And again. Wronny would not leave little Xie Xie.

Finally the farmer had to go and crawl into the blackberry patch and burrow down through the old burned-down-barn foundation to the spot where there is a gap between the barbed wire and the dry doe pasture.

And finally the two were returned to their rightful home, hot and sweaty and still in a state of near panic, and the farmer patted Wronny on the back and said, "well, you are a good mama, you wouldn't leave your baby."

And then the farmer did a doubletake and realized: Xie Xie may look like a little black LaMancha, but she is not Wronny's daughter. But Wronny wouldn't leave her behind.

Go Figure.

Complaint Dept.

There have been some complaints that my blog has not had enough pictures and posts lately, as if I have nothing else to do. For those who may not know it, the grass tastes very good this year and it does not eat itself. The same goes for the blackberries and the hardhack. If you think it is easy eating blackberry bushes, why don't you go out in your yard and give it a try.

Anyway, today will be a catchup picture day to address the concerns of the complainers, and later in the day we will also address, once and for all, the matter of Big Orange. Yes, Big Orange will finally have a name of her own, chosen from reader submissions. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. First there is the matter of Aggie's new babies, two micro-Nubians with batwing ears. Their names are Petey (for Peter) and Vel (for Velveteen) because they both look like bunny rabbits. They are pictured above.

Ask Penrose

Penrose, the farmer's favorite Toggenburg, comes from a long long line of Swiss philosophers. As you can probably tell from this photo, Penrose will give almost any question thoughtful consideration and an enlightened reply.

In fact, through her practice of pure dairy goodness, Penrose has achieved a higher state of consciousness from which she only descends when she tries her best to t-bone that god-a-mighty pest, Wendell.

Each day when she sees him, Penrose sends Wendell a telepathic message: "thank you for helping me grow, my little teacher." And then she tries to kill him.

If not for Wendell, Penrose would probably be the Buddha.

The F-150s

One set of baby goats used the old farm truck as their baby stall this year. They were called the F-150s. In this picture, Sammy and Leo, two of the F-150s, wait patiently for their breakfast service.

The Problem With Baby Goats...

...is that they are so unfriendly and standoffish. You cannot get them to pay any attention to you. It's too bad.