The Years Ahead

It is New Year's Eve. Or it was three days ago. That is the time for making prompt resolutions. Or do them a few days later if you forget.

Where we are it is very cold. Maybe it is the same by you or maybe you live in Australia. I don't know. I can only go by the way things are here. But this is true everywhere, so it doesn't really matter.

If you want to make a change, you have to start in your little corner of the world.

In my little corner of the world I am going to make some changes.

1. I am going to have more fun and eat more.

2. I am going to try to be more patient with animals of low intelligence (Nubians and Nubian crosses, bucks, boston terriers, farmers.) I have made a mental note, for example, that yelling does not cause the farmer to move any faster.

3. (related to 2) It has been proven that farmers get slower with each passing year, and this is just something you have to accept. I do not expect the farmer to speed up any and I must try to remain encouraging. Note to self: Brandy is very good at this, she still thinks the farmer is her baby, and just yesterday she was murmuring unwarranted enthusiasms. "Just look at you! You got your boots on after all! See!" Etc.

4. Sometimes other animals do not understand what you are saying. This is true everywhere. You must try to speak more plainly and not head butt them. (related to 3 and 2)

5. Try to get more candy and peanuts somehow. The candy and peanuts have slowed to a trickle. Cookies are nonexistent. May need to contact outside sources. (related to 1.)

6. Look to the years ahead. I don't know what this means but it is on an old John Deere plaque we have in our barn, so it must mean something. Follow my example, and look to the years ahead. We can't do anything about the years behind, anyway.

Shepherds Quake, Obviously

Merry Christmas from Herron Hill Dairy. Home of Baby Belle.

Dogs Can Be So Helpful

Sometimes. Like here, or here. Does Wendell ever do anything like this? No, he is a pest. But Spenny always opens the shower door and steps discreetly inside if she has to take a leak and no one is home to let her out. Now that's helpful.

Rain Rain Go Away

We only got about five inches of rain during the Atmospheric River. No big deal. We have never seen Lost Beaver Lake so high though, and now it is pouring again when they promised the rain was over. Obviously it hurts one's feelings even if one is only mildly flooded. Expressions of concern and sympathy, in the form of ginger snaps or licorice, can be sent to the following address:
Million Belles
c/o Herron Hill Dairy
Home, Wa.
Please put a little note: to be opened by addressee only and not any of addressee's so-called friends.
Thanks.

Dive! Dive! Dive!

The weather people I guess got a new boss or something because they have changed the name of the thing they used to call "The Pineapple Express." Maybe that sounded too jolly, like there would be music and grass skirts (yum) and hula dancing instead of torrential downpours and water up to your neck.

Speaking of grass skirts (yum) Maddy (The Sheriff of Crazy Town) is in trouble for eating a broom. She has a long neck and she just reached over the stall wall and helped herself. It was hanging on a hook on the wall, which was a strategic error. She only ate the bottom sweeping part but still she got the riot act like she even cares. I wouldn't eat a broom myself unless it was made of wheat straw.

Anyway I got off track. "The Pineapple Express" is coming in a couple of hours. Only now it is called an "Atmospheric River." We are battening. Or actually, we are watching the farmer batten. The last time we had a big "Atmospheric River" we got nine inches of rain. Around here, since we are on a hill, once you get to three or four inches it really doesn't matter any more.

So that's what's happening. Not news, really, it happens every year. But we all look forward to the day when "The Pineapple Express" aka "The Atmospheric River" will be called "A Ton of Third Cutting Dairy Alfalfa from Eastern Oregon" or "All the Field Peas You Can Eat" or even "A Big Bag of Black Licorice."

I am practicing for that sweet day with some vocal exercises.

"A Big Bag of Black Licorice" is coming! Hold on to your beards!

No Telling

It is breeding season and various ladies from around the Peninsula have been coming to visit the gentlemen here if that is what you like to call them.

The gentlemen are all big and smelly, except for Jackie. He is little and smelly. Really you have to tie a handkerchief around your nose and mouth if you want to go anywhere near them. I avoid them like the plague. Drive-through buck service is definitely the way to go.

But when the ladies come into heat they start bawling and flagging their tails and this causes their brains to shut off. When it happened to me, I could not even remember my name. So they don't seem to notice anything amiss in the Old Spice department. Then again, at this time of year, there is no telling what may happen.

Our old friend Gracie had gone into heat, she was bawling and flagging which is the universal sign of the cerebral cortex having shut down, and she came back to visit. At first she seemed halfway inclined to meet Junior. Junior was all for it and he came thundering out like a boxcar full of dead fish.

But then Gracie got a sudden blank look and sat right down on the ground. Not really, her expression said. I don't think so.

Gracie's owner Mo worried Gracie might have broken her leg or something but no, she was just putting the kibosh on Junior. Oh well, there's no telling.

Off she went to see if she liked Jackie any better. Once again, he was all for it. Gracie headed him around the stall like a little soccer ball.

Not really, her expression said. I don't think so.

Oh well, said the farmer, there's just no telling, she can stay overnight with Cowboy and see what happens. Gracie stayed overnight and when the farmer came out in the morning she and Cowboy were sleeping in opposite corners of the stall, each pretending the other was invisible.

Not really, Gracie's expression said. I don't think so, said Cowboy's.

The farmer told Gracie's owner that it didn't seem like Grace was really in the mood, so it was probably no use staying any longer. So they came and got her.

When she got home she went and stood by the fence line, bawling and flagging her tail.

Oh well. This time of year, there's just no telling.