Our farmer is a trained professional and notices every nuance of goat behavior with unbelievable acuity. Yesterday it was blowing a gale from the west. One feeder tipped over and two roofs ripped off, one from the baby shed and one from Winnie's cabana. The farmer kept a keen eye on Blue Umbrella.
One lady dropped by and the farmer made the lady go out and look at Blue Umbrella.
"See how she is pinning her ears back like that and has a glassy expression on her face?" said the farmer in a lofty knowledgeable tone.
"Ok," said the lady.
"Now we will feel her ligaments," said the farmer, and tried to catch Blue Umbrella, but Blue Umbrella took off running which was no mean feat for a goat with a 64 inch waistline.
"This is how she acts when is getting ready to kid," the farmer told the lady.
"Is that right," said the lady. "My goodness, look at the time."
The lady took off running and the farmer could not catch her either.
Meanwhile my half-cousin-sister Betty began to get a terrible case of indigestion, and was circling all over the place, trying to sneak up on herself from behind.
"Why don't you lie down if you don't feel good, Betty?" I suggested.
"That's a good idea," said Betty, and lied down. Then it was such a good idea that she got up and lied down again, pawing up the ground to try to make a pillow. There wasn't any straw since we were out in the pasture so it didn't feel right so she got up and moved to a better spot and lied down again.
Meanwhile the farmer called Lori on the phone to ask Lori to go to the farmers' meeting. 'I don't think I can go to the meeting, because Blue Umbrella is going to kid."
The farmer got a nice kidding stall ready and brought everybody in and finally was able to catch Blue Umbrella and Blue Umbrella's ligaments were like a rock. "Hmm," said the farmer, astutely.
Blue Umbrella got booted out of the kidding stall and the farmer called Lori to see if it was too late to go to the farmers' meeting after all and just then Betty started screaming.
"Oh," said the farmer. "How convenient."
Betty was ushered into the kidding stall where she kidded a set of teeny tiny peanut twins.
As you can see, very little escapes the notice of a Master Goat Farmer.
