Earclops

Supposedly if the ear stayed on for ten days it would be considered reattached for good. So we started counting the days and everyone vowed not to mention anything about it being on backwards. But around Day Seven it started to come off.

"Pinky, your ear is coming off!" boomed Moony.

Pinky ignored this comment but Pebbles did not.

"No it isn't," she insisted. "It's perfect. There's nothing wrong with it."

"There is nothing wrong with it except it is on backwards and it is coming off," agreed Moony.

"Moony," gabbled Pebbles, "there is a reason no one ever listens to you."

"You're listening," Moony pointed out.

"No I'm not," shrieked Pebbles.

Around this time the Farmer came out and examined Pinky and soon an announcement was made that Pinky was going back to the vet. Pinky went back to the vet and several hours passed and then Pinky returned and this time she only had one ear.

Pebbles immediately sang the praises of Pinky's new look, she would not allow a bad word to be said about Pinky no matter what. "I love it!" she announced. "It's sleek! So sleek! Like a seal!"

Everyone else was pretty much tired of the ear topic including Pinky and no one jumped on the Pebbles earless-praise bandwagon. Moony of course had to put a few words in but you can hardly count that.

"They have a word for when you have one eye." mused Moony. "But what is the word when you only have one ear?"

"They have a word for when you are an idiot," Pebbles responded.

"What is it?" asked Moony.

"It's idiot." explained Eo.

The Ear

Ok. Pinky went to the vet. The vet was very nice and sewed Pinky's ear back on and stitched Pinky back together with about a million stitches and staples. This took several hours. The vet left several parts unstitched, saying "I think I will leave that one," and "that one is probably better open," and "that is just a hole." Which didn't really make sense because they were all just holes.

The vet did not think it would be a good idea to give her any anesthesia so Pinky had to just stand there and be stitched. She stood quietly and did not complain.

The farmer came home and announced that Pinky would be staying in the VIP suite for the foreseeable future and no one must bother her and please keep it down and please do not make any comments about her staples or any jokes about TSA or metal detectors or anything like that. Pinky hobbled into the barn looking actually worse than before she left probably because all the adrenaline had rushed back out of her system. Her face had started swelling up, and now she was limping terribly, and she had lots of orange shaved patches where they had cleaned the bites with betadine, and she was glistening with staples. Underneath the orange she looked gray.

She was greeted with a hushed awe and no one said anything. And once the door closed we couldn't see her but she was moaning in the night when she would try to move.

"Oh dear," whispered Pebbles, when Pinky would moan. Pebbles was still thunderstruck. She hadn't said anything all day since The Dog and now in spite of being the world's biggest blabbermouth she never made a peep unless Pinky moaned and then she would whisper "oh dear," and shiver.

The next day was very grim and Pinky could not get up and she would not eat anything. The next day after that she went back to the vet and they discovered she had a big gash inside her mouth where the dog had bitten up from the bottom and the bite had gone all the way through her mouth and saliva was running out the holes. They sewed that up in two layers of stitches and seemed pleased and then they looked at the reattached ear rather skeptically and said, "hmm."

Okay then Pinky started eating. First she ate only willow leaves. Then she ate willow and grape leaves. Then she ate willow and grape leaves and actual grapes. And then she added applesauce and bananas. Then she ate some warm oatmeal with brown sugar. Then some Cheerios the farmer's friend brought over. Then she added nice soft grass hay. Then senior horse grain soaked in warm water. Pretty soon she was eating just about all day long, very slowly and carefully, but only stopping for naps.

Then she started taking short walks outside, and that was when everyone noticed one by one something strange. No one wanted to say anything but everyone looked at each other and it was clear that everyone saw it.

"Is it just me?" asked Eo drily.

"Don't say anything," said Betty.

"Pinky, your ear is on backwards," boomed Moony, who can't follow directions.

Pinky's ear was on backwards.

"I think it looks jaunty," Pebbles whispered gallantly. "I love it."

Pinky acted like she didn't hear. Or maybe she didn't hear.

"I just love it," Pebbles gargled. "I wish I had an ear like that."

The Dog

I was not there I was in the other pasture so Pebbles is going to tell the story.

It was a nice morning. We were waiting for the hay so we were all standing up by the fence behind the barn. I was trying to decide on a good title for my TED Talk for when I am asked to do a TED talk which it's just a matter of time before that happens. Probably the invitation already came and the farmer accidentally recycled it. Anyway I had three good choices so I was just deciding. "The Story of Me," "The Greatest Story Ever Told," or "I, Pebbles."

Then I saw the dog. I had never seen it before. What is that stupid dog doing I thought. It was over on the other side of the fence by the maple tree and it was digging. Everyone clumped a little closer together and watched it.

It was whining a lot and digging fast and pretty soon it had made a hole under the fence. Eo got a funny look and ran like the wind down into the lower pasture. I never saw Eo run so fast. What is that stupid dog doing I thought. I moved over behind Pinky because she was the biggest goat. I was standing with Pinky's daughters and we were all watching the dog.

The dog squirmed in under the fence and stood up and shook itself and there was just one single moment when everything stopped and time seemed to stand still and then all hell broke loose.

The barking started and the dog began chasing and everyone ran except Pinky and me and Pinky's daughters. The dog grabbed Betty and then Big Orange and then one of Poppy's daughters. But they all managed to squirm away. I could see blood running down the side of Betty's face and Big Orange went down hard on one knee but then she got up and ran away. Then the dog turned around and came at us. We were in the corner of the fence near the barn, Pinky's daughters Ginger and Champagne and I. And Pinky standing in front of us.

There was nowhere for us to go.

I don't remember everything that happened then. There was so much chaos and barking. The dog lunged at Pinky's head. The dog bit Pinky again and again and again and still she would not run. Dolly was on the other side of the fence barking frantically. And finally after it seemed like forever the farmer ran up screaming. Screaming and yelling and throwing rocks. The only word to describe the farmer was that the farmer was enraged. I have lived here my whole life since I was born and I have never seen the farmer so enraged. And when the dog heard the farmer yelling the dog left Pinky and lunged at Betty again and then lunged at Poppy and by this time the farmer was in the pasture and hit the dog with the first rock.

The dog turned and ran toward the farmer and the farmer hit it with the second rock and it thought better of what it was doing and it turned and ran and squirmed back under the fence. The farmer rushed everyone out the gate into the horse pasture, looking everyone over and seeing stripes of blood here and there but everyone was able to walk and run and it did not look like anything too serious.

"Ok," said the farmer and started the head count and only then did the farmer turn around and see us. The three of us, still in the corner behind Pinky. And Pinky, miraculously still standing.

"Oh Pinky." said the farmer. And the farmer gave a look I have not seen since Hannah Belle died and the farmer came over to us, all of a sudden just quiet as a church, quiet and slow.

"It's ok now, Pebbles," the farmer said to me, because I could not stop shaking. And the farmer gently so gently took Pinky's collar and we all walked out into the horse pasture together, very slowly and carefully, me and Ginger and Champagne following Pinky as she hobbled along one small step at a time, blood rushing down her neck and her belly and her legs and one ear hanging by a flap of skin.

And when we were out the farmer shut the gate behind us.

IFEs

Well unfortunately there is a problem. The farmer has not gotten any smarter and the files for my book have to be reformatted having to do with something technical. Ok big surprise. So there is a delay of unknown duration. The book is still coming but there is a delay. Well in case you don't know the whole reason for the blog in the first place was it was supposed to help keep track of things the farmer would forget because the farmer was always writing things on scraps of paper and then the scraps of paper would blow out the window of the farm truck and that would be that, someone's birth certificate sailing into a ditch on I-5 near the Pe Ell turnoff or something like that and then the farmer would have to go back and guesstimate when someone was born. "Wasn't it a Thursday? I know it was raining." 

Or the farmer would put it on a computer and the computer would crash and nothing could ever be saved from the hard drive. Oh dear, is all you can really say. 

So there was a lack of quality facts in general, everything was a surmise. In fact it was quite dreary, the farmer was saying this all the time. "I surmise that Wronny's twins are about 6 weeks old," the farmer would say. "Or wait a sec, did she have triplets?" 

Back then before the cloud got to be The Cloud the blog was really just a kind of a big herdbook in the sky with birthings and demises and Important Farm Events (IFEs) enshrined in it so that when the farmer forgot the farmer could go in and look things up. 

But then there was a very bad year with too much happening and a very disheartening betrayal and the Blog got to seem to be just one more thing to do and the farmer finally said oh for goodness sake this blog is a lot of work and I can just put everything in The Cloud now and after all the age of blogs has passed, everyone is on Facebook now, so just forget the whole thing. Just forget it. So the blog got discontinued. 

But the Farmer never would take time to get things properly in The Cloud, and so once again there was a shortage of quality facts. Like for example at this point no one knows how old Sherbert is or when he was born because he was born After The Blog (AFB) and so no blog record existed and right about now you are probably saying Sherbert? Who is Sherbert? Which illustrates my point. 

Anyway only for the purpose of Fact Improvement the blog is going to be restarted but please don't read it because there won't be anything interesting in it, it will just be IFEs. Thank you. 

Curious George and Galloping Gertie and Georgia Boots were born on the last day of January. George and Gertie flew off on a jet plane to a new home. Georgia Boots is still here wreaking havoc. 

Lionel had 12 kids born this year and 11 were bucklings. "Hmm," said a visitor to the farm politely, "maybe his underpants are too tight?" 

Coco was born -- uh oh maybe the horse girl will know. 

Jupiter and June were born on June 6. 

Belle Starr's triplet bucklings were born on June 18. The farmer does not have favorites but if the farmer did have favorites Belle Starr would be the favorite, behind me of course. Not because she is beautiful and has a beautiful udder and milks almost a gallon a day but because she is so smart, so wicked, so irresistible, so like her mother, so like her grandmother, and reminds the farmer of how good it is to be lucky, and how lucky it is to be good.

TGL

I know no one reads this any more but my book is going to the printer on Thursday or Friday I think. But they are saying they will cut the hay on Thursday or Friday so if that happens my book may not go to the printer until Monday. But anyway my book is going to the printer so if you are waiting for a copy you can can start getting on pins and needles. There could be more about me in it but it is pretty good, better than most books, which don't have anything about me in them.

Thank You

Thanks everyone for reading This Goat's Life. It will be available in slightly expanded book form in late May or early June of 2016. It will probably no longer be updated online. Thanks for all the fish and everything.