From the Police Blotter.

Sheesh, can't you take your goat for a walk at midnight in your jammies any more?

Fair Warning

Good news, my enemy Abby's twin won the Kitsap County Fair. This means Abby will go to the state fair instead of me. Pinky is going to the fair as well. Terra is the prettiest dry yearling but since she got her hair shaved she has been walking around in a state of clenchment, with her legs shut tight together and her back roached and overall she looks like a poster for bad posture or possibly even rickets.

So Iota will go instead, unless she clenches after her fair haircut. She's not much of a clencher though, the Betty daughters are almost as relaxed as the Pinky family, so I think she will get stuffed in the trailer with the rest of the 'volunteers'.

Pinky of course doesn't care about anything, she could be sent to substitute teach at the state prison tomorrow and she wouldn't care, as long as there was enough alfalfa there. She's like the honey badger.

Blue is looking SO pretty (as the farmer repeats ad nauseam) but she has done the same magic trick as Betty and Hannah Belle and somehow shut her milk off as soon as she got her fair haircut. She only dribbles out enough to keep the farmer trying to milk her up, it's very cunning the way she does it, I made a mental note of it for future reference. She still gets full service dinners on the milkstand twice a day, but every time the farmer threatens her - "you will not be going to the fair if you do not get your milk back up."

Blue looks around in fake dismay, oh dear, say it isn't so, it can't be true, and keeps gobbling.

Here Comes the Bride

She is kind of pretty. For a Nubian.

Jiggety-Jog

The things that happen are strange. But the things that don't happen are even stranger.

Jammies was supposed to have her kids in the spring. But she wasn't bred so she didn't have any kids. She was just fat.

Blue's daughter Lainey went to Minter Bay to live and she didn't fit in there. She is a born misfit. First of all she is about the cutest thing you have ever seen, she looks like a blue-eyed hood ornament, but she is a midget and she is polite and shy and that always puts her at the end of the line where there is never any food and certainly no friends. She has never had an underling. You cannot get anywhere in the herd without at least one underling.

So the farmer thought, uh oh, if she can't hold her own at Minter Bay where the goats have such lovely manners what is she going to do here on the Island with Lord of the Flies goats like Tangy. So the farmer thought it could be a world class disaster, but after all this is her home, and so the farmer went and got Lainey and brought her back, worrying all the while what might happen to such a little goat in such a big world.

And Lainey did catch Hell for several weeks, even from her own mother who wanted nothing to do with her since she had new kids. But Lainey was used to that. And she went with the flow. She started following me around and admiring me, so I could see at the least that she had good taste, so I let her sleep with me sometimes.

And then Blue looked at her one day and said oh wait a second I remember you. And Blue stopped t-boning her.

And Wronny our herd queen has funny ideas and like any good ruler she doesn't just concern herself with the predicaments of the high and mighty, but also intervenes in the squabbles of the low and inconsequential. For example she stopped everyone from picking on Moldy and Abby, who knows why. She won't even let me enjoy a nice fight with Abby, as you know.

And when Tangy backed up one day in preparation for steamrolling Lainey whom she most likely never would have caught up with anyway, Wronny brought the hammer down and rolled Tangy down the hill, literally, in a cloud of dust. Tangy got up shaking her head, and everyone turned away politely, chewing their respective cuds, and made a mental note to leave Lainey alone.

And before you know it, we looked out one day and saw Lainey head-butting her little half-sister Blue Jay, who got her name because she is a terrible pest. It almost looked like she might have an underling.

So don't listen to what they say. You can go home again.

Pumped Up

Yesterday there was a big celebration because the well pump went out and the whole thing had to be pulled out of the ground and the pump and all the piping and the check valves and the bleedbacks and every other gold-plated thing on it had to be replaced and it cost the farmer an arm and a leg.

We were all dancing in the streets because just two days before that our ship had come in and it was loaded with alfalfa from Eastern Washington and we all knew good and well that if our ship had come in three days later it would have been cancelled and that money would have gone down the well. But you can't return hay so it is here to stay.

And we were dancing in the streets but trying to be polite about it because there was a somber air about the farm as Welly the well pump was fished up from 175 feet under and laid to rest. Goodbye Welly and thank you for holding on an extra day, and I'm sure the farmer did not mean any of the curses that were raining down on your head or perhaps meant them in a friendly way the same as when Hannah Belle got stuck in the panel gate (the second time, not the first.)

RIP.

The Buttinskys

The public is very cynical and several members have inquired whether I 'thought' I really won my fight with Abby the duck-footed Oregonian. I tihnk it is pretty apparent who won the fight even though only a few excerpts of it have been shown since it was a three-hour battle that I won. Or in any case I would have won if Wronny the self-proclaimed herdqueen hadn't made me stop fighting for no apparent reason except I guess she was probably afraid that the little duckfoot would be injured as you can see in this video. Wronny and her henchgoat Pinky think they are a big slice of pie and they go around telling other people what to do. What kind of fight is it when a big 175 pound bossy-boots has to come in and help you and go two against one and then three against one when her nitwit henchgoat lumbers onto the scene. So as far as who won the so-called fight which was really a stroll in the park from my point of view I think anyone would say the one who won was the one who did not need help from the henchgoats and herdqueens of the world. Thank you.

Also ps don't worry Wronny can't read. As far as Pinky she can barely walk and chew cud at the same time.

Fight Club

Baby Belle Jr. vs the Web-Footed Oregonian.

Today and Every Day

It was a year ago today we lost our great friend Atticus. A lady stopped by a little while ago and asked if the farmer still thinks about Atticus sometimes.

"Yes," the farmer said. That was all.

Every day.

Preheated

It got hot everywhere else this summer but it never really got hot here. I don't mind the heat but it's just as well because the heat wilts our farmer really quickly. Our farmer starts spritzing and misting and calling for otter pops at about 76 degrees Fahrenheit. So you could imagine what the service was like around here a couple of years ago when the temperature got over 100.

Anyway the point is it never really got hot here this summer and that's part of the reason some of the milkers have started going into pre-heat. They don't really go into heat, but they go into pre-heat, and then they go around and start fights with each other. Or when they don't start fights through a lack of gumption or sheer shiftlessness in the case of Pinky who can't be bothered to start her own squabbles they join in the fights that are already started by the more ambitious.

On a side note Cherry went actually into heat and then realized it was too soon to be in heat but by that time she had jumped into the buck pen where three smelly swains immediately began vying for her favor. Luckily she was able to excuse herself unnoticed as the vying reached a crescendo. As she tiptoed back to the barn, they all continued vying without her. Why not, they had already started.

Anyway this morning I started thinking about some annoying things that have been happening lately. The main one is when people come over and say, "Oh my Gosh! Look at Millie! She is all grown up now! She is adorable!"

That's fine but they are looking at Abby when they say it.

"That's Abby," the farmer explains, "Millie is over there."

"She's cute too!" they say.

The more I thought about this the more infuriating it seemed.

So I went over to Abby and started a fight. The fight lasted for three hours. Even when Wronny wanted me to stop I kept fighting. Even when Jammies the pacifist tried to come between us, we kept fighting. Even when Wendell the Pest circled us yipping like a French ninny we kept fighting.

It was a good one. We both enjoyed it. We were preheated.

(Video from fight coming soon....)

Three Flies and a Velvet Glove

It took only seven years but finally it happened, like the return of the locusts. Hannah Belle as you may remember has never been properly milked out because she is exceedingly shrewd. But she has two flies in her ointment. One is she is a terrible pig and loves any kind of food. Two she loves scratches and petting. Also she is quite vain. I guess that makes three flies.

The farmer switched from iron hand which hadn't worked for seven years to velvet glove. Hannah Belle would not get any grain except on the milkstand. The farmer made sure she was good and hungry before she went on the milkstand. No more all-day snacking, just grass hay between meals.

When she got on the milkstand the farmer would begin praising her to the skies. Such a beautiful goat and so intelligent. Such lovely children and grandchildren. Such a pretty face and a long neck and my goodness, the topline, the chine, the hips, the pins, the thurls. Was there ever a more magnificent goat? And by the way, that time she got out of the locked horse trailer - how did she do that? Did she call someone to come and let her out?

More snacks? How about a pretzel with PEANUT BUTTER inside it? From Trader Joe's, not from the convenience store. The farmer showed Hannah Belle the label.

Then the petting and scratching. On the chest. That itchy spot behind the shoulder. More food.

And then the farmer would start milking very casually, still complimenting Hannah Belle and admiring her every little action and movement - the most transparent fawning, really - and stopping frequently so that it hardly seemed the milking had even really begun and before you know it, only seven years later, Hannah Belle was milked ALL THE WAY OUT and there were no hard feelings.

In the end, even Achilles had heels.

Hi Mom

Hannah Belle's kids Charlie and Little Belle went to a new home. We just got this postcard from them. It's always nice when kids write.