Never Mind, I'll Find Someone Like Crumpet

Crumpet is small and cute but that is not enough. If you are reading this and you are small and cute and you think that is enough, you are wrong.

If you are thinking, "well, I am small and cute and I am also from Oregon," please believe me when I tell you that that is not enough either and so is Crumpet by the way.

Crumpet needs to develop a skill since she is too small to be a real dairy goat. She can't be bred so she can't be milked so she is going to need some vocational training because everyone needs the satisfaction of making their way in the world unless they don't make it but that happens sometimes and it's no excuse for idling your life away.

Anyway it has been decided that Crumpet will learn to play the piano.

Why the piano? You are probably asking. Well, she is too short for the cello.

Ok, that makes sense. But what song will she learn to play?

Probably something by Adele.

Why? you are probably asking. Why not Pachalbel's Canon, so she could play at weddings? Or 'We've Only Just Begun' by the Carpenters?

Well if she learns an Adele song everyone will already be crying as she plays. But still they will be pleased, and they can tell their friends, "I just saw a little goat playing 'Someone Like You' on the piano. You don't see that every day."

We don't expect her to end up at Carnegie Hall or anything. You have to be realistic.

The Rat Race

Every morning begins with the Breakfast Olympics.

Apres Moldy le Déluge

It is raining right now but to say that it is raining doesn't really convey the watery reality of what we are experiencing. Every ten minutes or so we get a day's worth of rain, probably one of the record dry days that we had this summer which toward the end made Moldy say, "I am tired of all this sunshine I don't care if it rains all winter long."

So it is Moldy's fault.

Don't worry we will punish her but really it is a kind of no-fault rain that only happens here. It doesn't happen every year but when it does it really does. It is now. It is raining a humbling rain, great sweeps of it thrumming across the meadow. The cottage roof is leaking into a collection of saucepans spread about the bedroom and living room. The gutters are dripping over their sides. Lost Beaver Lake is almost full. The barnyard is a mud pit. There is thunder in the distance. Even Willen went into his run-in, and he is gazing blankly out at the rain, ever so slightly taken aback. It takes a lot to take Willen aback. He doesn't usually go aback.

Bumbles is crying, she got trapped outside. I might let her in later, but I would have to get up and push the door open, and that seems like a lot of trouble. The wind slammed it shut.

It is Tom Robbins rain. It has no plans to stop. I know we mentioned it before, but here it is again, still worth mentioning, since it is the main feature of our life right now. We are waiting, as we always do, for a miracle. We are waiting quietly. There is a hush.

Except for Bumbles.

"The rains will steal down from the Sasquatch slopes. They will rise with the geese from the marshes and sloughs. Rain will fall in sweeps, it will fall in drones, it will fall in cascades of cheap Zen jewelry...And it will rain a fever. Mossy-haired lunatics will roam the dripping peninsulas. Moisture will gleam on the beak of the Raven...Rain will eat the old warpaths, spill the huckleberries, cause toadstools to rise like loaves...And it will rain a miracle..." ~~~~~~ Tom Robbins

VCP

Hello this is Millie and my vacation is over because I got tired of waiting for Belle Starr to update the blog. She was too busy watching Xie Xie. Xie Xie is a funny one she likes to watch maple leaves fall from the big maple tree and she picks out a certain exact one that she wants to eat and once it comes off the tree she starts running a dizzying zigzag, head back like a centerfielder, as it swirls down to the ground. Because she wants THAT ONE and not one of the ten million other ones. So Belle Starr, who is a lot smarter than Xie Xie, uses Xie Xie as both a leaf selector - she does have good taste in leaves - and a leaf alarm. She naps with one eye open but then when she sees Xie Xie making the final approach to the premium leaf, she swoops in and takes it. This is pretty much a full-time job.

Vaya con Dios, Juniper Breeze

And the blog really needed updating. Because we lost Breezy. She got very sick at the end, so it was a blessing and a mercy that she went. She will never be forgotten; she was one of the Mayflower goats. She came over from Eastern Washington with Baby Belle, and Penrose, and Snow Pea. Breezy always had good timing: she left the day before the first hard frost, right after we finished the last of the apples. Breezy was the second oldest goat here, after Brandy, who is 13, and in honor of Breezy it has been decided that we will not call Brandy an Old Bag any more, from now on she will be referred to as a Vintage Coach Purse, which is much more respectful.

By this simple device we have undone the partisan gridlock of the front pasture and ushered in a new era of courtesy. That is called working across the aisle. Try it yourself if you have time.

She is still an Old Bag, but we just have a new name for it.

In other news Chance went to a new home and he left this afternoon on the first boat for Carnation and Moldy is in an uproar. Or she was, anyway, until the alfalfa came out. Now she is asleep. If you want to be in an uproar, you really have to be awake. So don't eat too much if you are planning an uproar.

Crumpet has not grown at all since she was born and she is now officially the tiniest goat in the world. But in the new era of courtesy we will have to think of something nice to call her instead of The Hamster. Something courteous like VCP.

I suggested The Ruminating Rodent, but that was vetoed, like most of my great ideas.

Quelle surprise.