Welcome Home, Baby Belle

Well it is very funny how things turn out sometimes.

Last year Hannah Belle had two kids, a buckling and a doeling. A nice family wanted them.

"What are you going to call them?" the farmer asked. The family said that they were going to call the boy Charlie. And they would call the little doeling Belle. The farmer did not say anything, just nodded. Charlie and Belle. We did not know it then, because how can you ever know anything until it happens, but they would be Hannah Belle's last surviving kids.

For one year Belle and Charlie lived nearby. And they were fat and happy. Charlie was a wether, and he lived the Life of Riley. Everywhere Belle went, Charlie went. Everywhere Charlie went, Belle went.

Then one day the family called the farmer and said that they were moving to Hawaii.

"Hawaii," said the farmer. The farmer hates hot weather. The farmer would rather move to the Moon than to Hawaii.

They wondered if Charlie and Belle could come back to live at the farm.

If you are ever wondering do we have any strict unbreakable policies, any edicts set in stone, the answer is yes, we have two strict rules. One: No wethers. Two: No returns.

I felt a little misty-eyed for the two darling tots, but what is the point of having strict rules if everything is always an exception. Anyway, somebody else would probably want them, they are extremely good-looking and personable like all my relatives, so que sera, sera. And so on.

But apparently it is true what they say: the exception proves the rule. And the proof of that is the two new residents at Herron Hill Dairy.

Welcome home, Charlie.

Welcome home, Belle.

Good Goatiquette

I would like to just say a few words about good manners because good manners are the foundation of any civilized society even a human society will not function correctly without good manners. For a goat society good manners are the only thing between us and complete chaos.

For example the Crackpot Oregonian was sharing a stall with Blue and she was bullying Blue mercilessly, as I already reported. Blue is the type to take things lying down. Or to get up and move. She is a peace-love-and-understanding goat. Not my style, but whatever.

Anyway Abby had trumped Blue and she would not accept victory gracefully. Instead she continued to bully Blue when Blue was already fully bullied. This is not good manners. She should watch how Wronny does it. Wronny has no problem with anybody who obeys her. She does not waste time and energy t-boning the obsequious.

But Abby was drunk with power and she kept on. She went to the limit. And then she went over the limit.

Blue has a long fuse. But it isn't an endless fuse. And yesterday when the farmer was at a goat show Jen was watching the farm and she called the farmer to report that she had had to separate Abby and Blue because Blue was thrashing Abby within an inch of her life.

Our farmer is weak-minded and gave a distracted response from ringside - "oh, I see, okay, that's too bad," - and made a mental note that Jen must have Blue and Abby mixed up even though Jen is not weak-minded like the farmer.

The farmer came home and discovered that in fact Blue had finally turned into the Incredible Hulk, and Abby had reaped the whirlwind, which could have been avoided if only she had had good manners. Well, what can you do, she was born in a barn.

Meanwhile, back at the goat show, a parade of beautiful Poppy Patch does took the Senior Nigerian show by storm, picking up one after another of the grands and reserves in the three different rings. The beautiful Mae West won one ring, Angel won another, Duchess won the third.

The farmer had come with the farmer from Minter Bay and four goats, all from the Cora Belle family, two daughters and two granddaughters. Wedding Belles was the only senior and she did very well, coming in second in two rings.

Then the junior show began and Cora Belle's daughter Hazelnut waltzed out into the first ring, where she was one of a very few junior kids who actually appeared to walk rather than sproing and scream and turn magically into an indignant living dust mop collecting shavings along the floor. She won the grand champion, and her niece - Cora Belle's granddaughter Coraline - was the reserve.

Now if a person didn't know any better or didn't have good manners, they would go ahead and put Hazelnut in the next ring to see if she could win again. But what would be the point of that, anyway, since only one junior win would count. So Hazelnut was scratched out of the other rings and a lovely dry yearling won the second ring. How nice.

Then came the third ring, and, what do you know, Coraline won the grand.

So that is how good manners works.

If you have bad manners, you only hurt yourself. Once you have won, it is best to leave the ring and sit smiling at ringside, filling the air with gracious humble dignity. Do not continue thrashing your opponent. Thank you.

Congratulations to Hazelnut. Congratulations to Coraline.

Congratulations to Blue.

The Empire Strikes Back

Betty went ballistic and she has teetered back on top. If the rights can be sold to ESPN, the farmer is thinking of putting her in a stall with Abby for the day so that they can work it out once and for all. Wronny is in the back with the big milkers so the Crackpot Oregonian would not have her big hired goon to look out for her. (That is just an expression Wronny if you are reading this.)

Willen shed out the winter coat that was making him look like a woolly fat pony. Now he just looks like a fat pony. Or possibly a glossy palomino seal. All the horses have been mysteriously good, so the farmer is getting very suspicious.

Blue's two daughters were too pretty to keep and one has already gone to a new home. The public has been trying to buy Crumpet but so far the farmer has not cracked. Fritzi and Frodo, the brothers with another mother, are living a happy, carefree life now that they traded in their old earbiting dam (Winjay the Hun) for a kindly new cookie-baking dam (Saint Penrose.)

My mother and my daughter and I have been passing the days sunning ourselves. The paint continues to peel. The cabana continues to fall apart. Jinxy continues to get cuter. Moldy, the last of the Nigerians to kid, continues to grow bigger.

And the grass continues to grow.

Long Live the Grass, without the Grass there would be no Grass Babies.

Psych Ward

Everyone has gone crazy. Abby is on a rampage to try to move up the Nigerian ladder. She thinks because she had four kids she is four times as important as anyone else. Crumpet hardly even counts, she only weighs about six ounces. But anyway Betty is losing her grip on power. Winjay has another bat in her belfry, it is a real cavern of guano up there, and then there is Wendell.

I forgot to mention Wendell came from a puppy mill and he thinks his stuffed moose is his mother and when his screws come loose he tightens them up by suckling for hours on his Moosey Mother. It isn't even a stuffed dog. It is a stuffed moose.

The sad part is he thinks it's normal. He thinks everything he does is normal. Sad.That's what happens when you are raised by stuffed animals.

Anyway back to more important topics, we are trying to encourage Betty to hold onto her throne because we have all taken a vow NEVER to be ruled by crackpot Oregonians. We are THE BABY BELLE FAMILY.

Unfortunately all we can do from down below is watch, and Blue has already kowtowed to Typhoon Abby. It is up to Betty now to hold her ground.

PUT YOUR HEAD DOWN, BETTY!


THEY WILL NEVER TAKE OUR FREEDOM! 

Our Little Comet

We had a very sad day yesterday. We lost Jammies' little daughter Buckles. She was only here a short while, but she had a big spirit. She blazed through the world. Goodbye Buckles.

Cate Moss

Well it was finally picture day and all the babies paraded out. Some of them did not have names yet, including Pinky Jr.'s two daughters, who were born with no trouble and lived their whole lives (a week or so) without causing any trouble. Both were leggy blondes, like their mother, and shy and retiring like their mother.

It was decided the first one would be called Pink Champagne. She came out and was photographed and then was put away. Then her little sister came out. Her little sister is long and elegant with legs like a thoroughbred filly and a beautiful photogenic face and thin as a rail and it was decided her name would be Cate Moss. Cate with a C, because it is a C year.

"Why don't you give her a bottle?" said the photographer, who had come over from Minter Bay.

"Oh she does not take a bottle. She is not a bottle baby," the farmer pronounced.

"She looks like she wants a bottle," said the farmer from Minter Bay.

"She is not a bottle baby," our farmer repeated, slightly more loudly.

"But she looks like she wants a bottle. "

Since this appeared to be a stalemate the farmer went and got a bottle to demonstrate that Cate Moss is not a bottle baby. Cate Moss drained the bottle in 15 seconds without taking a single breath.

"Wow," said the farmer.

"There, you see," said the farmer from Minter Bay with some satisfaction.

"She is not a bottle baby, though," the farmer repeated dully, refilling the bottle with milk.

Since then Cate Moss has had six bottles, and she stands at the gate waiting for the farmer every morning.

In spite of the fact that she is not a bottle baby.

Crumpet's Corner

Great, one of the new little Pebbles knockoffs is a teeny tiny hamster that squeaks like a chew toy.

The farmer carries it around everywhere, discussing politics and mysteries of farm living with it.

"But what does hydrostatic really mean? Do you know?"

The hamster squeaks like a chew toy.

"We know "hydro" is from the Latin, meaning "water," and "static" is from the dryer, meaning "too many socks," but does that really tell us anything?"

The hamster squeaks like a chew toy.

"Would you like some more milk, Crumpet?"

That's its name. Crumpet.

Great. Just great. At least two more months of this.