It is blazing hot today, just like a brick oven, with nothing but sun for miles. How I long for the marine layer, the chilly morning fog in the meadow, the delicious breeze from the West.
Lucky Marquee got a cool bath and a shavedown yesterday and he looks a fright but goodness I'm sure he's comfy. Laddy the nosy Tennessee Walker was following the farmer around like a puppy dog as usual and making it hard to feed everybody but when the farmer turned around and sprayed him with the hose, which usually makes him saunter off to bother someone else, he just stood there basking like a fat dolphin in the hose water.
It's hot. It's way too hot.
Why oh why did I ever get this fur coat?
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Summer at Last
Well, we're not sure exactly how it happened but it is almost time to cut the hay again.
And we're not sure how this happened, but a lot of us here have somehow gotten fat, even though we hardly get anything to eat. I for example have to exist on a handful of grain, and it is only because of my extraordinary metabolism that I am still shopping XL. An ordinary goat on this diet would look like a coat hanger.
The horses all look like giant beachballs, and yet every evening they have a temper tantrum when they discover they are not getting grain twice a day. Since it isn't winter. Duh, fat boys.
Only the milkers look reasonably svelte, which is a bitter irony, since they get to eat practically anything they want.
Now that summer is actually here, we plan to start complaining immediately about the heat and too much sun, after nine months of complaining about no heat and endless rain.
And we're not sure how this happened, but a lot of us here have somehow gotten fat, even though we hardly get anything to eat. I for example have to exist on a handful of grain, and it is only because of my extraordinary metabolism that I am still shopping XL. An ordinary goat on this diet would look like a coat hanger.
The horses all look like giant beachballs, and yet every evening they have a temper tantrum when they discover they are not getting grain twice a day. Since it isn't winter. Duh, fat boys.
Only the milkers look reasonably svelte, which is a bitter irony, since they get to eat practically anything they want.
Now that summer is actually here, we plan to start complaining immediately about the heat and too much sun, after nine months of complaining about no heat and endless rain.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Our Man Flint
The last baby of the season has been born and his name is Flint. Lori says his name is Flint, Michigan, but that is ridiculous. We just call him Flynnie. He has very pretty buckskin coloring and bright blue eyes.
He is Eo's son.
For some reason Eo has turned neurotic and been doting on him in a most unseemly manner, possibly because she has never had a single kid before. I think she thinks she had another one but misplaced it somewhere so is taking extra special care of the one that's left.
Or maybe she is just a nut job. That could easily be the case.
I always tell my kids, go, walk around, cross the street if you like, live and learn. But that's just me.
Anyway, it has been practically impossible to get the official farm photographer (Lori) to take a picture of Flynnie, because she is obsessed with the hummingbirds.
"Look," she tells everyone, "look, I took another picture of the hummingbird." And then she makes them look at the picture, the ten thousandth picture that looks exactly like all the other pictures. But anyway during a short break in the endless hummingbird photo shoot she finally agreed to take a picture of Flynnie.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Enjoying the Hols
While I was on the subject of Goats-of-the-World, I forgot to mention that I got a lovely postcard from my cousin, who is on a bicycle tour of East Africa. Anyway, here it is.
Hello Again Hello
Well, I do not like to make low-class comments about the way some goats look, but I have to say that if the goats in this so-called beauty competition showed their faces at the Puyallup Fair, they would not be getting any ribbons. Not even in the Nubian class.
Oh well, maybe they are really good milkers or something. I sort of doubt it, though, even though I read on the web site that the winning goat sold for $40,000.
The baby barn here is looking pretty lonely these days; Widget and Buddy left this weekend, and there are only five babies left, and that includes Hap and Jolly, who have already adapted to life in the big baby barn. So we will all be glad when Eo has the last babies of the season ... today? tomorrow? next Friday?
Something like that.
This weekend we had almost springlike weather, which is nice since it has been November for about the last seven months, except in November, which was like January. But then of course today it started back raining.
Hello again, November! We missed you when you were gone for two days!
Oh well, maybe they are really good milkers or something. I sort of doubt it, though, even though I read on the web site that the winning goat sold for $40,000.
The baby barn here is looking pretty lonely these days; Widget and Buddy left this weekend, and there are only five babies left, and that includes Hap and Jolly, who have already adapted to life in the big baby barn. So we will all be glad when Eo has the last babies of the season ... today? tomorrow? next Friday?
Something like that.
This weekend we had almost springlike weather, which is nice since it has been November for about the last seven months, except in November, which was like January. But then of course today it started back raining.
Hello again, November! We missed you when you were gone for two days!
Thursday, June 12, 2008
The Incredible Shrinking Boo
Boo has developed a guaranteed Nubian reducing system and diet which will shrink even the most rotund long-eared-bear-of-little-brain to a manageable size. Or almost manageable. It is simple, too. In case you are a Nubian yourself, I have broken it into easy-to-follow steps. It is called:
The Boobian Diet:
1. Eat as much as you can. Eat anything that isn't moving. Or if it is just moving slightly, at least give it a taste test. If something LOOKS like food, grab it and run from the crowd - you can always spit it out later if it isn't food. If you hear the crackle of the cookie box being unwrapped, give a desperate bellow and close your eyes and just run to the head of the line, bowling all the pipsqueaks out of the way. It is perfectly fine to stampede across little tots if cookies are involved. It teaches them a valuable lesson.
2. Have at least two kids. Three or four would be better.
3. (This is the most important step). Milk eleven pounds of milk every day.
That's It! Watch the pounds melt away!
The Boobian Diet:
1. Eat as much as you can. Eat anything that isn't moving. Or if it is just moving slightly, at least give it a taste test. If something LOOKS like food, grab it and run from the crowd - you can always spit it out later if it isn't food. If you hear the crackle of the cookie box being unwrapped, give a desperate bellow and close your eyes and just run to the head of the line, bowling all the pipsqueaks out of the way. It is perfectly fine to stampede across little tots if cookies are involved. It teaches them a valuable lesson.
2. Have at least two kids. Three or four would be better.
3. (This is the most important step). Milk eleven pounds of milk every day.
That's It! Watch the pounds melt away!
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Cheese Straws
Recipe # 7 from Baby Belle's* Dairy Princess Cookbook.
ingredients:
half pound winter tomme. or some kind of nice cheese, don't use horrible cheese.
1 stick nice butter (see above).
1 cup flour.
some nice sea salt, maybe a teaspoon or so.
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper.
1/4 cup fresh goat milk. don't use milk that isn't fresh. give that milk to Wendell (see below), remember he is outside scratching at the door.
Step one. Put Wendell outside. Make sure the door is latched.
Step two. Gather together your ingredients. Take one of your winter tommes** that you made with Nubian or LaMancha milk (save the Nigerian and mini milk for important dessert recipes.) Cut off about half a pound of it. Grate it.
Add other ingredients except milk and mix well, preferably you have a nice food processor and can quickly get it into a coarse meal consistency. Then add the milk and mix until you get a bread dough consistency. (If you don't have a food processor, add the milk along with the other ingredients and mix everything until you get a nice bready dough ball.)
Flour your cutting board and hands and roll the ball out. Cut off golf ball sized pieces and roll the pieces between your palms to make strings about 10 inch long and the diameter of a pencil.
Bake in preheated oven at 350 for 15-18 minutes or until they get delicious-looking. Cool for 15 minutes. Serve to your admirers.
Let Wendell back in, if desired, and give him some old milk to drink. Do not let him see the cheese straws.
*that's me.
**Recipe # 8 in the Baby Belle* Dairy Princess Cookbook.
ingredients:
half pound winter tomme. or some kind of nice cheese, don't use horrible cheese.
1 stick nice butter (see above).
1 cup flour.
some nice sea salt, maybe a teaspoon or so.
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper.
1/4 cup fresh goat milk. don't use milk that isn't fresh. give that milk to Wendell (see below), remember he is outside scratching at the door.
Step one. Put Wendell outside. Make sure the door is latched.
Step two. Gather together your ingredients. Take one of your winter tommes** that you made with Nubian or LaMancha milk (save the Nigerian and mini milk for important dessert recipes.) Cut off about half a pound of it. Grate it.
Add other ingredients except milk and mix well, preferably you have a nice food processor and can quickly get it into a coarse meal consistency. Then add the milk and mix until you get a bread dough consistency. (If you don't have a food processor, add the milk along with the other ingredients and mix everything until you get a nice bready dough ball.)
Flour your cutting board and hands and roll the ball out. Cut off golf ball sized pieces and roll the pieces between your palms to make strings about 10 inch long and the diameter of a pencil.
Bake in preheated oven at 350 for 15-18 minutes or until they get delicious-looking. Cool for 15 minutes. Serve to your admirers.
Let Wendell back in, if desired, and give him some old milk to drink. Do not let him see the cheese straws.
*that's me.
**Recipe # 8 in the Baby Belle* Dairy Princess Cookbook.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Possibly
Here is a little bit of possibly useful information for today. You must remember, first of all, that only that which is possible can happen.
And secondly, you must remember that anything is possible.
Anyway, Betsy had her babies on Friday and they are two bucklings. One was wedged in terribly but Betsy agreed to cooperate and the farmer was able to extract him even though no one else was around to hold Betsy still. She stood very calmly - except for the screaming - while the farmer fished a leg around so that he could be pulled out. He was rather gigantic, coming head first with no feet out and his big shoulders jammed in tight.
The naming duties have been handed over to Lori since the farmer has declared intellectual bankruptcy when it comes to kid names this season. Everyone agrees that the two names Buddy and Binky (Xie Xie's kids) are possibly the worst ever. Of course, they have stuck.
Anyway, Betsy's boys are named Hap and Jolly. They seem to like milk a lot and are growing like weeds.
Little Tangy the tangerine/piranha is going to be called Moonshine Yarrow on the papers (no thanks to the farmer). You always know where she is by following the voice that's squawking, to no avail, "STOP BITING ME!"
She chews everything with her razor sharp little teeth, and delights in tormenting little Buddy and Binky. She's an awful monster but the farmer just laughs and says, "isn't that cute?" when she comes screaming out for the milk bucket like a Patriot missile.
Meanwhile the Peaches family continues to weasel its way into the Adorable Antics Hall of Fame, going everywhere and sleeping in a triplets-and-mommy pile of spots and blue eyes. Julius and Hermy are now known as "The Janitors," because instead of sweeping the farmer lets them out every evening and they eat all the spilled grain that has fallen from the feeders as the big fat ill-mannered milkers gobble their dinners on the milkstand.
"Let the janitors out," the farmer says, and the two little butterballs come scurrying into the barn aisle. Augie isn't allowed because she is too squirrelly.
The milk scale has broken, thank Buddha, and that has put a temporary end to the tiresome weighing of the milk, but it appears that Scouty is a whisker ahead of Winnie in the Dairy Sweepstakes.
And last night Lori, moved by the seeming end of the seemingly endless Democratic Primary, gave a rousing speech to all the goats in the down-below pasture, promising that we would always have our blackberry-eating jobs and they would never be outsourced to India, that no goat would be left behind, and that there would always be cob for everybody*, and that everybody* would have the right to reproductive freedom. And she thanked us for being hardworking* goats and supporting her across all breeds, and she bowed with fake humility and went trundling back to the barn with the feed cart.
Whatever.
*not Snow Pea, obviously
And secondly, you must remember that anything is possible.
Anyway, Betsy had her babies on Friday and they are two bucklings. One was wedged in terribly but Betsy agreed to cooperate and the farmer was able to extract him even though no one else was around to hold Betsy still. She stood very calmly - except for the screaming - while the farmer fished a leg around so that he could be pulled out. He was rather gigantic, coming head first with no feet out and his big shoulders jammed in tight.
The naming duties have been handed over to Lori since the farmer has declared intellectual bankruptcy when it comes to kid names this season. Everyone agrees that the two names Buddy and Binky (Xie Xie's kids) are possibly the worst ever. Of course, they have stuck.
Anyway, Betsy's boys are named Hap and Jolly. They seem to like milk a lot and are growing like weeds.
Little Tangy the tangerine/piranha is going to be called Moonshine Yarrow on the papers (no thanks to the farmer). You always know where she is by following the voice that's squawking, to no avail, "STOP BITING ME!"
She chews everything with her razor sharp little teeth, and delights in tormenting little Buddy and Binky. She's an awful monster but the farmer just laughs and says, "isn't that cute?" when she comes screaming out for the milk bucket like a Patriot missile.
Meanwhile the Peaches family continues to weasel its way into the Adorable Antics Hall of Fame, going everywhere and sleeping in a triplets-and-mommy pile of spots and blue eyes. Julius and Hermy are now known as "The Janitors," because instead of sweeping the farmer lets them out every evening and they eat all the spilled grain that has fallen from the feeders as the big fat ill-mannered milkers gobble their dinners on the milkstand.
"Let the janitors out," the farmer says, and the two little butterballs come scurrying into the barn aisle. Augie isn't allowed because she is too squirrelly.
The milk scale has broken, thank Buddha, and that has put a temporary end to the tiresome weighing of the milk, but it appears that Scouty is a whisker ahead of Winnie in the Dairy Sweepstakes.
And last night Lori, moved by the seeming end of the seemingly endless Democratic Primary, gave a rousing speech to all the goats in the down-below pasture, promising that we would always have our blackberry-eating jobs and they would never be outsourced to India, that no goat would be left behind, and that there would always be cob for everybody*, and that everybody* would have the right to reproductive freedom. And she thanked us for being hardworking* goats and supporting her across all breeds, and she bowed with fake humility and went trundling back to the barn with the feed cart.
Whatever.
*not Snow Pea, obviously
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