Izzy went on Friendlies.
This is where they carry you up to the barn and put you on mind control to improve your friendliness. It is very unusual for Friendlies to be required in the Baby Belle family. It only makes sense to be friendly. You can't get peanuts from across the room.
The mind control involves you not getting any food unless you eat it from the farmer's hand. If you eat from the farmer's hand you get a lot of nice food and treats. If you don't eat from the farmer's hand you don't eat.
The farmer took Izzy and put her in a stall alone while all the bottle babies were out browsing. A little while later the farmer came and sat in a chair in the middle of the stall ignoring Izzy and reading a book about how to build a brick pizza oven. Izzy ran around and around the stall trying to get away from the farmer.
Unlike a Nubian she realized after two trips that since the stall was 10 foot square and the farmer was in the middle, she couldn't get any further away than five feet. So after two trips she stopped running and backed into a corner and stared at the farmer balefully.
After one chapter the farmer got up and went away.
The farmer came back with Moldy a couple of hours later. Moldy follows the farmer like flypaper. "Oh Moldy, would you like some treats?" said the farmer, and fed Moldy some grain. Moldy gobbled it greedily, simpering at Izzy from across the stall.
"Oh, Izzy," said the farmer, "would you like some grain?"
Izzy turned her back.
"I see," said the farmer, and left with Moldy.
A little while later the farmer came back and picked up the book again and said, "refractory brick," looking up at the ceiling in a slow-witted musing way. Izzy looked up too, puzzled, and the farmer abruptly caught Izzy with lightning speed and sat with Izzy in the chair, petting her.
Izzy was stiff as a board and mad as a hornet.
The farmer took out a peanut and inserted it manually into Izzy's mouth. Izzy spat it out onto the floor.
The farmer took another peanut and shoved it into Izzy's mouth and held her mouth closed for a minute so she could taste it. The farmer let go and Izzy spat the peanut out and it bounced off the stall door and plonked into the water bucket. Izzy loves peanuts.
"I see," said the farmer and got up to leave.
Two can play at any game and this time when the farmer opened the door Izzy made a bold broken field run to daylight in the style of Walter Payton and before the farmer could say "I see" she was out of the barn and through the panel gate and down the pasture and through that little wedge between the railroad tie and the down-below gate and that was that.
The farmer came down later and looked at Izzy through the fence and said, "I will see you tomorrow little lady."
Izzy pretended not to notice and did not say anything but I know what she was thinking.
Tomorrow. Who cares about tomorrow. This is today.
