Millie's Vacation. Day One.

What happened was Millie got tired of the blog.

This blog is weighing me down. is what she said. everything that happens I am supposed to put something in the blog about it. oh look Wendell threw up. Breaking blog news. goodness there is a flat tire on the tractor. call the blog. Everyone caught a cold from the fair and all the noses are running wild. There is a river of snot. blog gold.

ok so Winjay said I will do the blog if you do not want to do it.

No way said Millie it is not a LaMancha blog.

ok said Wronny I am the herdqueen and someone has to do the blog. If Millie is not going to do the blog then Winjay can do it.

Winjay t-boned Crumpet in celebration.

ok said Wronny to Winjay you are fired from the blog. Millie, you do the blog.

I am tired of the blog said Millie. I need a vacation.

ok said Wronny then pick someone else to do it while you are on vacation and do it now or I will t-bone you.

ok said Millie. I pick Belle Starr.

The Bus Stops Here

Well the goats got back from the Fair and it was an unmitigated display of mediocrity with no blue ribbons at all whatsoever anywhere, in fact two goats came in last, and Moony did not even know she was at a Fair she thought she was waiting for a bus.

"A bus to oblivion," said Maddy drily when the defeated and the bedraggled came tumbling out of the back of the truck.

As far as the LaManchas that was a complete disaster and the recorded grades did not do much better and when it came time for the Nigerians, all Clover and Belle Starr could muster was third place. They were in big classes so it might have seemed good except for the fact that when you are standing in third place there are two goats in front of you and that doesn't usually sit very well especially not with those in the Baby Belle family.

Clover is in the Baby Belle family but she didn't care because all she could think about was the milk she wasn't drinking because it was back at home in Betty's udder.

"Third place, eighth place, fifteenth place, who cares. Where is the milk?"

The farmer's friend tried to take a jolly tone as people always do in the face of an unmitigated disaster and she said brightly, "well, third place is good in a big class like that! I would be pleased with that."

"Yes of course," echoed the farmer. "Very pleased. So many lovely goats."

Then the dairy goat show was over as abruptly as it had begun and everyone scurried around packing and loading and before they knew what was happening all the Fair goats were stuffed back into the truck and off they went headed back home and in unison they breathed a big sigh of relief and lay down on the thick carpet of straw.

But while all the other goats snoozed, Belle Starr stood up and gazed out the back window of the canopy. The truck wheeled slowly out of the fairgrounds, parting the sea of humanity clustered around Pete's Barbecue Pit,  nosing gently around the strolling Peruvian marimba band, passing the Kubota tractor display, turning the corner behind the horse arena out toward the service gate.

"As God is my witness," Belle Starr vowed bitterly, " I will never come in third place again."

They got a little further down the road and Moony accidentally woke up.

"Does anyone know when the bus is coming?" asked Moony. "Because we have been waiting a long time."

The Overfed vs. The Underappreciated

The middling goats will be off to the Fair tomorrow so the farmer has been busy trying to find all the things that should have been collected tidily in one place about a month ago and the fixing of the haircuts began and then sputtered out because the trailer lights stopped working just when needed most  and the latch on the escape door popped and now it is starting to look like everyone is just going to have to cram into the truck instead which is one of many reasons why I never go to the Fair but Pebbles the Jumbo Jet has been looking wistful and recalling her five minutes of Fair Fame and wondering why she hasn't been chosen this year, it doesn't seem - no pun intended - fair.

After all, she is the Bitter Pill. She thinks people will be coming back to the fair just to see her, and a lot of them will want their money back when they realize she isn't there. Which goes to show how strained her relationship with reality has become.

Maddy the Sheriff of Crazytown just came out and told it like it is - "look, Pebbles, it isn't a whale show. When they have a whale show, you will be the first one picked. "

Anyway there was so much going on I thought it would be a good idea to make a hole in the fence and run amuck with some of my underlings so we did that and started a brawl with the milkers and there was a lot of rhetorical questions hurled about by the farmer when the hole was discovered, including, "Do you think this is funny? Do you think I have nothing better to do than fix this fence? Would you look a good walloping?"

And so on while we loaded up on free apples and ate the milkers' hay and enjoyed a refreshing round of goat rugby with The Overfed, making up for what we lacked in blubber with enthusiasm and esprit de corps.

Viva la Revolucion, Baby!

Complaints from the Dust Bowl

The beautiful weather has been dragging on continuously with 48 days without rain. That's fine and everything, I guess the sunshine is ok, but after a while it hurts your eyes. Crumpet's head is about four inches from the ground and it is so dry she is constantly getting dust in her little eyeballs and the farmer's idea of spraying water around the gate to hold the dust down is a real stroke of genius and it helps for about three minutes in the morning. I hope Crumpet doesn't go blind but if she does there will be a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for an eyeball transplant so prepare yourself for that because you will need to chip in if it happens. Anyway it is supposed to rain on Monday and right now we are looking forward to going back to complaining about rain instead of dust.

Also one more note on the beautiful weather I find it monotonous. If I were making up a schedule it would go like this: 2 beautiful days followed by one rainy day followed by a beautiful day followed by a cloudy day with showers at night (when I am in the cabana) followed by a beautiful day but a little bit chilly followed by one of those days where it doesn't really rain but it sort of mists and people say "is it raining? is it starting to rain? did you just feel something?" and there is patchy morning fog all day long. And then repeat. The temperature range would be very flexible, I do not want to seem controlling, anywhere from 55-75 would be fine. The chilly day could go as low as 48.

The haircuts on the middling fair hostages all look terrible. Supposedly that is going to be 'fixed' today. Great, if there is anything worse than a bad haircut it is a fixed haircut. If you ever get a really bad haircut and someone says, "don't worry, I can fix that," just run as fast as you can, especially if they have a pair of Oster A5 clippers in their hand.

Since she has been in with the milkers Winjay has been steadily getting crazier and right now it is a dead heat between Maddy and Winjay as to which one has the most screws loose. There is definitely a metallic rattle when they walk around. Big Orange has pretty much dropped out of the running, there is no way she will be re-elected in November.

The latest on Winjay: all the milkers get special extra fancy delicious grain because they are so important. Everyone else gets a few sprinkles of plain cob or all-stock or something like that. We watch the milkers eating with tears in our eyes.

Anyway Winjay won't eat the delicious grain, she throws it out of the dish onto the floor and stamps until she gets cheap grain.

Crazytown.

Don't Come in Eighth

There was a blue moon and nothing happened.

We thought something might happen but nothing did.

The list of volunteers to go to the Fair and sit around looking middling includes:

Belle Starr (Little Belle)
Betty's Blue Clover (Clover)
Can of Worms (Candy)
Crescent Moon (Moony)
Chocolate Martini (Marti)
Creme de Cassis (Cassis)
Maple Hollow (Rosie)

These goats have all been selected for no other reason than that they are agreeable and friendly. Except Rosie, she is disagreeable and unfriendly, but we need her for groups. Also Cassis is not the friendliest, and she looks a little better than middling. But we are bringing her anyway.

The downside of middling is that you look middling. The upside is there is no pressure. This way they can sit around and relax. Anyway you have to adjust your expectations to reality. It is no use these goats walking around thinking they are fabulous-looking like me when the plain middling not-too-bad truth is right there for everyone to see.

We are not taking any milkers because we need the milk at home. At the Fair you have to throw all your milk away. You would cry if you saw all that beautiful milk going right down the drain.

I feel bad for Candy and Moony though because they will have to show in the LaManchas and the best LaManchas in the country will be there and a lot of them but their only mantra is 'don't come in eighth'  because the premiums stop at seventh place. Also they will be the smallest ones in their class because they were born late. Two strikes. Also they are known to be from a slow-maturing line with fabulous udders, the kind that starts to look good when they are about three. How many strikes is that?

On the plus side they are in the same class so only one of them can come in last.

Join us in rooting for Candy and Moony with this rousing Herron Hill cheer: come in last if you have to, but don't come in eighth!