Monday, January 25, 2010

Cowboy Ballet

As you know my father's name is Cowboy. He is very handsome and used to have a very distinctive quiff of hair but that has flattened down somewhat what with all the rain and the winter and him having grown to his full buckhood. But anyway as you might expect he is exceedingly handsome nonetheless even with deflated hair. His fantastic beard more than makes up for the wind having gone out of his forelock.

Oddly though he was always known as a sort of a pill. He fretted. He cried and he fussed. He worried. He always foresaw disaster. Everything that happened he seemed to think, oh dear that won't end well. He was a sort of an Eeyore type goat.

If it was beautiful and sunny he would get a look on his face: this won't last, or if it does it will scorch all the grass. I just know it. If it rained he got the same look on his face: well this will probably turn into a hurricane and blow the roof off my shed. I just know it. And so on.

Well everyone thought that was his natural personality. Except me, I didn't. Everyone else did.

"Isn't it funny," people would say. "Millie is so sunny and Cowboy is such a pill."

Because first Cowboy lived with the other bucks, and they always stole his food and made implied threats against him and actual threats also and genuine attempted t-bonings as well. Well that wouldn't do even though he was a fast runner so Cowboy moved to a private pen and shed. He had lots of room and nobody bothered him but he was in there all alone.

Well about a month ago the farmer put Peaches in with Cowboy for breeding. Peaches is a mini and she never really fit in with the big goats, but she was too big for the little goats and bullied them mercilessly. She was a firm disbeliever in the do-unto-others rule.

But anyway Peaches got in there and she seemed quite pleased with the spacious accommodations and in the end the farmer said, oh I will just leave her in there. So Peaches has been in there all this time and slowly slowly Cowboy has come out of his shell.

We were all very startled to see him kicking up his heels and frolicking the other day and doing some exotic spin maneuvers around Peaches, sort of the way Wendell does his "herding" maneuvers to impress the farmer, with a very foolish expression on his face that says, "look at me! Just look at me! Isn't it clever what I am doing??!! Have you ever seen anything like it??"

Every day he does it now and the funniest part is that Peaches is a dour little bag and couldn't care less. But Cowboy couldn't care less that she doesn't care less, he must be in love with her or something. He does his exotic spin moves two or three times a day, even the farmer laughs when he does it, plain as day he is saying, "Look at me, Peaches! Just look!"