All The Way or So

There was a ruckus the other day.

My Aunt Hannah Belle had two sons this year and the other day they went to their new home. This left Aunt Hannah Belle with a lot of milk and no one to drink it.

"Come on Hannah Belle," said the farmer meaningfully. "You have been on the dole long enough. It is time for you to go to work."

Hannah Belle kept mum and did not betray anything by her expression. Instead she watched the fat milkers trundling over toward the milk parlor. She could tell by the way Jammies was bobbing and weaving toward the head of the line that there was sure to be food inside.

All right then, Hannah Belle agreed, and when the farmer took her by the collar she marched along docilely. She didn't have any gum so she just chewed her cud, eyeballing the whole operation like she was the regional manager.

"Here is the ramp," the farmer explained. "Go up it when it is your turn, and on the other side you will find a nice buffet of free grain."

All right then, thought Hannah Belle, shrewdly staying out of striking distance of Winnie who likes to t-bone everyone in the waiting room who dares to look her in the eye. As long as they are a lot smaller than she is.

Hannah Belle got in line, choosing a sensible spot near the end. When it came her turn, she went right up the ramp, through the sliding door, and into the milk parlor.

I never saw any of the rest because they closed the door, but I heard it, and so did everybody in the next few counties.

Some of it went like this: "PUT YOUR FOOT DOWN! I MEAN RIGHT NOW! DO NOT DO THAT AGAIN!"

Meanwhile this whole time was a festive sound of hopping, like maybe some leprechauns doing a riverdance in the milk parlor, and in the foreground the loud sucking noise the milk machine makes. Then was followed a series of questions.

"CAN YOU HEAR ME? DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT MACHINE COST? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

Sadly the only answer was more hopping.

Then came a pronouncement: "YOU ARE GOING TO BE MILKED OUT TODAY YOUNG LADY! I MEAN ALL THE WAY!"

Followed by more jolly hopping and then the sound of the exit door sliding open, and then Hannah Belle appeared in view on the down ramp, hair slightly awry but overall I would have to say in an unfazed condition. She proceeded into the barnyard chewing her cud with an air of satisfaction.

I am something of an expert on milk and I did notice that while she had been milked, I would not say that she had been milked out ALL THE WAY.

No one mentioned anything about it and everyone pretended not to notice.

Hello Again.

Hello. It's me again.

This is me with my mother, Belle Pepper. She is growing a snowy beard as you can see. Also she has the Baby Belle topknot, which is the hallmark of our family. I do not have the topknot yet or the beard.

We have to stay inside today because it is too hot and we aren't sensible. If we go out we lay in the hot sun panting and the farmer says, "be more sensible," and picks us up and carries us into the shade.

My brother Zanegray is with me. And my mother Belle Pepper. And my Aunt Blue. And also my two cousin-brothers, Frank and Jimmy.

And me.

We are all here. We are carrying on.

Hello.

Hello. I just got here yesterday. There was no Nigerian doelings born this year which never happened before. That was before I came. I am the last baby of the season.

My mother’s name is Belle Pepper. Her mother’s name was Baby Belle. Her mother’s name was Domingo Millie.

My name is going to be Million Belles, like the flower except with an e.

So I thought they might call me Millie like my great-grandmother.

But right now they are all calling me Baby Belle.

A Note From the Farmer

Baby Belle died this afternoon.

Thanks to everyone who read her blog and to everyone who wrote publicly and privately sending her good wishes and good thoughts.

I knew we would miss her right away. I did not know how much.

Oh, Baby Belle.



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Betsy

Betsy is still Betsy.

Some goats grow up and when they get big they get a new personality. Lucy for example was a fun-loving tot in her youth, but now she is a milker she has turned ruthless and scheming. She wants to move up the milker ladder and become top milker someday. This is a lost cause, because no one will ever unseat the Brandy family here. There is a reason we call them The Sopranos.

Lucy, if you are reading this, remember: Never go against The Family.

But Betsy is still Betsy. She doesn't care about being top milker. She just wants more food.

That would be her platform if she were running for governor. MORE FOOD NOW.

This has always been her policy, since she was a tiny bottle baby. And that is why she comes running at a hard canter every time the farmer calls out "Betsy!"

It might mean food, if she gets there first. It might mean MORE FOOD NOW.

When we see the herd coming around the greenhouse turn into the barnyard, Betsy is always in front or closing fast (if she got a bad start), running with her head up and a far-off Nubian gleam in her eye.

If the farmer wants Winnie, the farmer calls Winnie. If the farmer wants Tangy, the farmer calls Tangy. But if the farmer wants everybody, the farmer just calls Betsy.

Because when the rest of the herd sees Betsy running, they don't ask any questions. They just turn and run.

It might mean MORE FOOD NOW.

The Pasteurizer

IS HERE!

The Newsletter

Well, the farm newsletter has been done for a while but we are having some problems getting the mailing list to send out properly. So anyway for now you can just read it here and we will try to get the list fixed for next time.

Oy. It's always something. It's never nothing.

Fool Me Twice

Well, the farmer had to go and pick up hay in the field, and Betsy used the opportunity to kid. She had a gigantic single buck kid (again) in the peace and quiet of a private kidding stall.

His name is Bubbles, but he acts like he doesn't know who you are talking to when you say, "hello, Bubbles." That's a bit odd.

Anyway, this year the score in the Stealth Kidding Campaign is Betsy family 2, Farmer 1.

Speaking of hay it is almost time to bring the hay in, probably in a week or so. Because of the freakishly hot weather and the ample spring rain, the hay is weeks ahead of schedule, and it is looking very beautiful.

Many people probably would love a chance to swelter in the hot sun bucking hay. My goodness it is a fantastic workout, I love to watch them doing it from under a nice shady tree. If you are ambulatory or even reasonably ambulatory you are welcome to help The Farmer bring in hundreds of bales from the field when the time comes.

No, seriously, don't be shy. Just send us your email and we will let you know when and where to come.

Fool Me Once

Xie Xie was not able to fool the farmer. She delivered a set of twins in plain sight. They are both mini-Manchas, and both blue-eyed. As far as the "mini" part goes, we are not so sure they got that memo.

Both of them are butterballs and if anything they weigh more than Big Orange's Lamancha kids. One of them, the boy, is a terrible whiner. He cries just like a little baby. All day long.

Where is the milk? Waa waa waa. Why is it in a bottle? Waa waa waa. Shouldn't it be on tap? Waa waa waa. Is someone stepping on me? Waa waa waa.

He has already cried more in one day than I ever cried in my whole life.

So the trifecta is out, but Betsy still has a chance at a stealth kidding.

You're Getting Verrrry Sleepy...

The Betsy family excels in stealth kidding, as you know. Apparently this is done partly by ESP. Betsy and her daughter Big Orange were in the pre-kidding stall for several days doing nothing. Then Monday morning as the farmer was getting ready to feed the fat girls down below, a series of telepathic messages arrived in the farmer's head.

"They are so fat," the first message said. "Why don't you feed them later."

But the farmer already had the buckets out and proceeded to ignore this suggestion. A second message arrived, this one in all caps: "WOULDN'T IT BE NICE TO HAVE A BREAKFAST OMELET WITH THOSE FRESH EGGS YOU GOT YESTERDAY."

How odd, the farmer thought. I really do not usually eat breakfast. But by this time the farmer was under Betsy Family mind control, and went inside to make an omelet, leaving the feed buckets in the barn, and forgetting to check on the pregnant ladies, who were quiet as two mice in their stall. That should have been a tipoff right there.

Twenty minutes later the farmer came out and instead of two girls in the Betsy/Orange pre-kidding stall, there were three, one of them pale orange and quite small but very angry. Shortly, a large dark sidekick arrived to go with the tiny, furious little bumblebee.

This marks the third year in a row that the Betsy family has snuck in at least one unattended kidding. Last year they had two. And since Betsy and Xie Xie are still pregnant, this year they have a chance to go for the trifecta.

Anyway, Big Orange had twin does. One is very pretty. The other is very very pretty. Don't worry, you don't have to do anything. We will use up any leftover Z names on them.

The Science Fair

Well the Farmer went around and around and around and the final two name contenders for Pinky are Zedoary - which is a kind of ginger - and the late inning surprise name Zapricot - which is Apricot, with a Z in front of it. So those are the final two choices left from all the many name suggestions.

And if it can't be decided by next Monday we are going to flip a coin. Who cares anyway we are just going to call her Pinky.

Little Pinky is not getting any smarter, either. Even after the head-bashing episode she still runs into things for no apparent reason. Or as the farmer used to say when trying for the umpteenth time to teach Pinky's great-grandmother Stacy to jump on the milkstand, "she is not going to win the Science Fair."

On the other hand my daughter Hannah Belle has finally been able to teach the farmer that she doesn't want her kids in the barn. She was coming up three times a day to feed them but when the farmer had the stall door open for cleaning the other day, Hannah Belle swooped in out of the blue and gave Inky and Shaq the high sign and the whole family skedaddled.

Now everyone is happy and Hannah Belle doesn't have to trudge up to the barn all day long, which was very tiresome for her.

In other news it can now be announced with certainty that both of my other daughters - Belle Pepper and Blue Umbrella - are going to kid in July. These will be the first kids from our new buck, the debonair and handsome but not particularly manly Cowboy.

There was some doubt about whether Cowboy, being just a wide-eyed teenager at the time, had been able to perform his buckly duties last winter. But it appears that the girls were able to educate him. Blue Umbrella in particular is an excellent teacher, like Hannah Belle, even though some of her pupils, as mentioned previously, are not going to win the Science Fair.

Summer Days

It isn't summer but it feels like summer. One crazy guy down the road is already cutting hay.

We are counting the days waiting for the pasteurizer to arrive. Only we don't know how many days it's going to be, so why are we counting the days? We think it will be here in about two weeks.

Hannah Belle is very fond of her two sons Inky and Shaq, but she finds it quite boring hanging around the barn with them all day. They don't really do anything besides twitter and hop around like little birds, and Hannah Belle prefers directed activities, ideally of the sort that culminate in the acquisition of tasty food products - grain, peanuts, sweet canary grass in the meadow, red licorice, et cetera.

So she goes up to the barn three times a day, lets Inky and Shaq drink all the milk they want for about three minutes, then returns to her monomaniacal foraging, sunbathing, and intellectually superior ruminating.

The Betsy Family is almost ready to kid, all three of them. Betsy herself is quite huge, but so is Big orange, and so is Xie Xie, who is even prettier than she was last year. Betsy went on the milk bench for the first time today, and then she got trapped in the exit area because she couldn't figure out how to push open the gate.

Just PUSH IT, BETSY! LIKE THE TEN OTHER GOATS THAT WENT BEFORE YOU!

Dios Mio.

Inky and Shaq

Here they are.

They're Here

Well Hannah Belle underdid herself this time, producing only two kids, both of whom are luckily extremely gorgeous. Since they are fine flashy strapping boys with no apparent physical defects, she already ditched them to go free-ranging in the garden.

When that didn't sit too well with the farmer she went back in with them for a few minutes, looking pious and motherly while the cameras were filming, then re-ditched them to go sit on the cable spools in the horse pasture.

In regards to her previously quadrupletesque figure, she still looks like she could have twins at a moment's notice.

Zero Hour

The farmer has finally had it with Hannah Belle. Hannah Belle is being moved to the kidding stall, like it or not.

And she better like it.

This means the LaMancha weaners, all of whom have been crying hysterically for four days as they adjust to a world without milk, will be plunged into a new reality show called "Outdoor Living."

Or, as I like to think of it, "I'm a LaMancha Baby, Get Me Out of Here!"

It Loved To Happen

Since March it has been believed that my daughter Hannah Belle might kid at any moment. She looks like one of those trucks going down the highway with half of someone’s house on it and an advance car (usually in the form of her chuckleheaded sidekick Miss Melly) leading the way.

Hannah Belle herself has remained calm and not tipped her hand about her plans, enjoying several pre-birthing spa treatments without ever actually having to do any birthing, which can be tiring.

In any case, she was on the chart with a date of June 5 pencilled in, since that was 5 months from the date of her last (of many) breedings.

When people would come over they would say, “oh, Hannah Belle Lecter must be having her babies soon.”

“Yes,” the farmer would say, “possibly.”

“She doesn’t look like she can go much longer.”

“No, not really,” the farmer would say.

And then a day and a week and a month would pass, with Hannah Belle getting larger and no kids appearing. Now it is mid-May, and it appears, like Rachel Alexandra, that she may actually go the distance.

If anything, she is starting to look a little smaller, which is one of the strange things that sometimes happens with Hannah Belle, who almost always has a set of beautiful triplets, except for one time when she had a set of beautiful twins. We have only ever had two sets of quadruplets born here, so we doubt she will have more than three.

We doubt it. We really doubt it. Sort of.

Because when it comes to Hannah Belle, I am proud to say that it pays to expect the unexpected. Or, to quote the famous philosopher Jackson Browne, “don’t think it won’t happen just because it hasn’t happened yet.”

Primates - Go Figure!

Well, the farmer’s precious pet Winnie got very sick. She had milk fever and went down like a stone. She couldn’t walk, because she couldn’t stand up, and the farmer sat around petting her and giving her calcium and Vitamin B and swaddling her in blankets and fetching salal and huckleberry and fresh grass and leaves and all kinds of tempting treats.


I did not get my feet trimmed as had been promised, and Lucy did not get her haircut fixed. Tangy did not do any walking practice – Tangy walks like a swordfish reeled to the surface on a sportfishing tv show, hurling her whole body against the collar and flapping around in mid-air - and the compost pile did not get turned. Domino didn’t get castrated, either, but he didn’t mind.


All because Princess Winnie was sick.


Sometimes I do not understand the workings of the primate mind, because personally I think Winnie is a pain. To me, I say, c’est la vie, if a goat has milk fever and won’t get up to eat, then it doesn’t have much gumption which probably signals weak genes.


I have had milk fever but that is because I had triplets who were very hungry because of their exceptional genetic makeup. Whereas with Winnie, her triplets are perfectly ordinary, and one of them was even a runt, so again we get back to the weak genes, and honestly I don’t understand all the extra effort that could have been better used fixing Lucy’s haircut (looks like it was done with a lawnmower) or castrating Domino the-soon-to-be-wether who really has become a pest with his goatboy ideas.


But this is just one example of how the primate mind works.


Primates can be useful, they have those fingers for picking bugs off you and scratching that part near your withers where you can’t reach, but do not try to figure out what they are thinking. Even if you could do it, you would probably not want to know.


Winnie got better but obviously through no fault of her own weak genes.

Two More

There are two more of them now. LaMancha bottle baby monsters. Jessie's kids.

They don't have names either, Z is a very hard year, and they all look exactly alike except Pinky and that other one, Joemma, who is part Toggenburg even though she has no ears. The rest of them run around in a black blur, some are black and tan, some are black and cream, some are black and brown. They are all boring.

"Aren't they cute?" says the farmer, carrying them around.

Not really, I think. But what can you say.

To be polite, I try to pretend I am charmed by their puckish antics. Goodness! They're adorable! With their earless heads and their little monkey faces! Look at them knocking all the buckets over and dancing across the clean hay with their muddy footprints! What could be cuter!

Who has time to list all the cuter things than an earless-monkey-looking baby goat? Let's just start with a Nigerian Dwarf baby goat, maybe? By like 10,000 percent or so?

That brings us back to Hannah Belle Lecter, my daughter, who has been steadily achieving a more and more blimp-like condition. Each week Lori says, "she must be getting close," but since every year Hannah Belle is bred approximately 17 times (she enjoys breeding, what can I say, it's a free country) we never know exactly when she might kid.

But even I would say, as I see her lumbering across the pasture blotting out the sun with her bulk (not today, today it's raining), even I would say, "she must be getting close."

Mustn't she?

Earth Day

It was Earth Day this week which gave us a good excuse to celebrate the force that through the green fuse drives the flower. Go flowers! But excuse me isn't every day Earth Day? Or is there a backup planet we will all be moving to?

If that's the case I hope there won't be so many bottle babies on it.

Especially of the LaMancha doeling persuasion, enough already with the earless terrors. This new one Pinky who is being called Zut Alors (she does look kind of French and believe me that's no compliment) while her real name is decided is perhaps the holiest of the terrors I have had to endure.

She was already pampered to death before she cracked her head open and after that she was practically carried everywhere on a satin cushion. Make a note of these two easy steps if you would like to create your own bottle baby monster.

Now she runs everywhere screaming. She pushes the other bottle babies off the slide. She fastens her jaws to the farmer's hand - or any hand that happens to be carrying a bucket of milk - like a lamprey eel. She t-bones anyone who tries to sit on the farmer's lap.

And then I get reprimanded for gently helping her find her way out of my stall.

"Don't hurt little Pinky now," says the farmer. "She's still recovering."

Oh please. Please.