Fredwina's Guide to Getting Born, or, Meet the Mashed-Up Hand

Ok if you are planning to get born you may not know how to do it so this is a guide on getting born or anyway this is how I did it yesterday. Ok first of all wait for an inconvenient time when there is an important appointment or something like that. Ok then stick your head out, just your head. It will be light out, lighter than inside anyway.

What you will see is a red-faced farmer and what you will hear is a farmer cussing.

"Damn it," the farmer will say. "A head and no feet! Damn it!"

Then the best thing is close your eyes but if you don't you will see a big mashed-up hand coming toward you and it will push against your nose and your whole face and the lights will go out and you will find yourself sliding back inside in the dark but if you listen closely you will still be able to hear the cussing.

"&#&%$%#!!!!" (muffled)

Then you will feel the mashed-up hand groping around and grabbing one of your legs and the mashed-up hand will bend your joints just to be sure they all bend in the same direction like a front leg should and then the hand will pull your leg up over your head which isn't very comfortable. Then the hand will grope around for another leg and then the next thing you know the mashed-up hand starts pulling you out by the legs and unceremoniously sticking its fingers in your nostrils to use them as a handle for pulling your head around. And cussing of course, but absent-mindedly by now.

All at once you will start to hear a lot of heartfelt bellowing and this is your mother congratulating you on the size of your head as it passes through her birth canal and the next thing you know you are out and about and everyone is waiting on you hand and foot and the limelight is blinding and the milk is delicious but hold the phone, all of a sudden you are yesterday's news, because "here comes the next one," says the farmer, "get some more towels."

So that's how you do it. My name is Fredwina. Do I look like I was born yesterday? That's because I was.

The Iron Baby

Crumpet has refused to grow and when the farmer went to measure her against the scratch on the tack room door from February there was no point in making a new scratch because it would have been in the same place as the February scratch. But nonetheless her personality is getting bigger and bigger and pretty soon there will not be enough room in her body for it.

For some reason when a tiny goat has the personality of a tyrant which Crumpet does everyone seems to think it is adorable.

"Oh look at the little one! It is t-boning that big one's knee! Ha ha ha!"

Yes, very funny, I guess these people have never heard of a torn ACL. She is also a fast runner and has developed a system of escape holes that no one else can fit through. You would have better luck finding Nemo than catching Crumpet. So she does a lot of hit and runs. She is also so low to the ground that any attempted return t-bonings can result in a head injury to those seeking justice. Pinky demonstrated this the other day. Or maybe that is not a head injury.

Anyway there is only truly one way to describe Crumpet. She is a handbagger. If anyone was wondering where the spirit of Margaret Thatcher the Milk Snatcher went, it is right here, alive and well, and wreaking havoc.

 Handbagger

Margaret Thatcher, who always had a large handbag at her side, was actually the source of the term “handbagging,” which now appears in the Oxford English dictionary. A member of British Parliament once said that Thatcher couldn’t “look at a British institution without hitting it with her handbag,” and the expression stuck. Today, it is defined as the “verbal and psychological beating of one’s opponents,” and it is formally recognized as having been named after Margaret Thatcher.

Double Toothpicks

We have a lot of ratchet straps here. If you have the right number and the right kind of ratchet straps you can tie anything down. Really anything. A barn or a tugboat or anything. There is a certain kind of person who really likes to tie things down. This includes a lot of farmers.

This type of person will have a process for tying things down and probably a set of homemade load binders and if you stand too close to this type of person during certain times of the year - hay season, usually - the person may just spontaneously start describing how they tie things down. You will have to move a safe distance away to avoid this. Pretend you have seen a flock of hummingbirds in the distance and just move discreetly out of range, with your eyes fixed on the horizon.

During the hay season our farmer always surveys the other trucks in the field to make sure that none of them are getting more bales on their truck than we are. If one of them is, the farmer will mutter, "well, that is a flatbed," or, "they won't get home with that load."  By way of introduction the farmer may walk up to newcomers in the hay field and ask innocently, "how many bales can you get on your truck?"

Once the answer came back, "65," and the whole day was ruined because it is a known fact that Brownie's world record is 63 bales of hay. That is if we have good hay monkeys - teenage boys, usually - and the right kind of ratchet straps. If the farmer is loading alone that number drops in half.

On the other hand once there was a man with a shiny new truck that looked like it cost about $50,000 and he told the farmer proudly that he was able to get 16 bales of hay on his truck and the farmer spent the rest of the day chuckling fondly.

Wendell chuckled too, he is a yes man, every time the farmer said, "Sixteen bales!"

Anyway I am only thinking about tying down because yesterday there was an unexpected bonanza. When the farmer went to the feed mill a shipment of peas had come in out of season.

We did not know there were going to be peas. When the peas came out to the feeders, all hell broke loose. Usually we are supposed to keep the Hell tied down, double toothpicks and all, with the twin ratchet straps of a tough herdqueen and a predictable routine. Or at least part of the way tied down. But there is no herdqueen who can hold the herd when unexpected peas arrive.

And the ratchet strap has not been made.

So it broke loose. Way loose. Completely loose. All of it.

May I Have This Askance?

Well a couple of weeks ago we had a nice weekend and the temperature got up in the 60s. And then after that everything went sideways, with hail and sleet and wind and nighttimes almost freezing. But Moldy for some reason as soon as we had one nice day she thought she was back in Lagos or something because she shed her whole coat out way too far to the point of being practically bald. Anyway I thought that was her own fault and it might be a good opportunity for her to learn a lesson but the farmer started looking around for a jacket for Moldy. But Moldy has not missed many meals and her circumference is too big for a regular Nigerian jacket and too small for a big goat jacket.

So this gave a good opportunity for a Vocabulary Day. It is always good to learn new words, especially if you are part Nubian where learning a new word can practically double your vocabulary. Don't worry, you Nubians out there, I am not going to ask you to do any math problems, but if someone in the future asks you what double means it means twice as much (2 banana peels instead of one).

Anyway: Askance.

adv. With an attitude or look of suspicion or disapproval. Suspiciously, doubtfully, dubiously, skeptically, disapprovingly, distrustfully, mistrustfully. 

used in a sentence: "When Moldy appeared out of nowhere tippy-toeing along on her little dachshund legs in a royal blue jacket two sizes too small, Willen looked at her askance."

Tadpole Jubilee

Okay there was a switch. The whole Jammies family except Jinxy and the whole Moldy family came down here in our pasture. My mother came back down here too. The Blue family came also and the Betty family.

Wronny Soprano stayed where she was so was so Abby and I were able to have the full-blown smackdown we have been planning for years. We started the smackdown one on one and it went really well and then my daughter Izzy joined me and the tide turned immediately but then Moldy came in on the Abby side and the tide turned back and my mother Belle Pepper came in and then Pebbles put a head in on the Moldy side and all in all it was a top-rated smackdown, certainly the best smackdown in years, but just when it was reaching its peak Maddy the Sheriff of Crazytown raced past with Eo hot on her heels in a state of apoplectic rage.

Now Eo never makes a sound and rules through mind control and spraying the fear on everyone and how you can tell she is in a state of apoplectic rage, as opposed to her usual state of seething rage or her slightly elevated state of simmering rage is that her ears will go back like a horse when it is about to kick someone. Anyway Maddy breezed past us, as they say at the racetrack, and Eo was hot on her heels, with her ears back and Game of Thrones written all over her face in bold gothic type.

A word about Maddy, just one word: crazy. Here is how Maddy operates: when she is up with the bigs she cowers and scrapes and can hardly get a bite to eat. The farmer is constantly having to take her out and give her special food and feed her on her own so that she doesn't get thin as a rail and she is also super picky and often will stand on the milkstand with her special meals picking out the corn from the feeder and then tossing the oats and barley on the floor and when the farmer sees this the farmer's ears will go slightly back like a horse about to kick someone and little puffs of smoke will come out the farmer's ears and then we usually will get to hear one of our favorite speeches, either the "Is This the Thanks I Get?" speech or the "Do You Know How Much Grain Costs These Days?" speech.

But then if Maddy goes in with little goats or even babies she turns immediately from abject coward to world's biggest bully and delights in nothing more than t-boning unsuspecting Nigerians which there aren't very many unsuspecting Nigerians but now and then she finds one. So anyway the farmer thought it would be a good time to put Maddy in with the smalls since there was a big change happening anyway and probably  nobody would notice her etc which we probably never would have what with our excellent smackdown but of course the farmer neglected to consider our fearless leader Eo whose radar goes all the way to the ground and possibly even deeper than that so there is absolutely no way to get under it.

Maddy did not get two steps into our pasture before Eo was on her tail. Elbie and Too, the mini-manchas, joined the parade. We dropped our smackdown and joined.  Even Moldy ran a few steps on her dachshund legs before yelling, "That's Right! You Heard Me!" and lying down to catch her breath. The parade raged over hill and dale, with the mini-manchas' tongues hanging out, and Maddy loping tirelessly - she has a lot of practice running - and after a while we decided to drop out for the hilly parts and catch up on the flat runs, but Eo ran with gimlet eyes, her fury never never dimming, always two steps behind Maddy. NOT IN MY PASTURE.

It was definitely a case of tadpoles' revenge. If you get enough tadpoles you can rout a whale, especially if the tadpoles have a leader like Eo. After about twenty highly aerobic minutes the farmer gave up and opened the gate to let Maddy out, and then closed the gate on Eo, two steps behind.

Maddy turned around when she was sure the gate was tightly closed, and she was probably thinking of saying something, but when she saw the look in Eo's eyes she could not think of any remarks that would really suit the occasion. So she scampered off and the rest of the day was a tadpole jubilee.

By the Gate

Some people get tired of their mother when they get to be big. They forget about all the milk their mother gave them. This would be understandable if their mother was Winjay who did nothing but bite their ears. Other than that it is mysterious. Anyway I am just mentioning this because it just occurred to me.

I guess it occurred to me because my mother Belle Pepper got a little too thin and she went up to the big barn to go on fattening. I did not get too thin unfortunately so I am still down in the fat girl pasture. By this time of year at the end of the winter nobody in the fat girl pasture is really fat any more but it is still called the fat girl pasture which is mysterious.

Anyway I am standing by the gate. My daughter Izzy is standing by me. She stands where I stand. We are waiting. We were crying for a while, about two days, but now we are just standing. Izzy was only crying because I was crying. She cries when I cry.

Anyway everyone else is down in the cabana which is still slated to be demolished but only if it doesn't fall down first and it is going to be a close race because now every little windstorm we have a few more pieces fall off the cabana and by this time it makes the average desperate hovel look like something from the pages of Martha Stewart Living but that is ok, I like to live someplace with an airy feel and it definitely has an airy feel what with the wind blowing in from all directions but that is not really what I am talking about today.

Some of these fancy expensive barns do not have an airy feel is all I am saying. Maybe you should ask yourself does my barn have an airy feel or are all my goats standing outside it lined up head to tail under the overhang to get out of the rain because they do not want to go inside. That is one thing you could put on your list of questions to ask yourself when you have time. Also you should ask yourself why am I buying this cheap hay when the expensive hay tastes so much better?

Anyway I am waiting by the gate because in a few minutes the farmer is going to start feeding us. The gate is as close as I can get to the big barn. Then everyone else will rush up from the cabana and the inside goats will rush out and we will all feed along the fenceline with Eo the boss of the fat girl pasture hogging as much food as possible and on the other side Moldy and Abby will be seething along one side of the line with Betty and Jammies seething along the other side. The minions and underlings will sort themselves out.

Usually I like to eat as much as possible and I am good at getting my share, I am not a wallflower like Blue or Joy, I know how to elbow my way to the front, but I will worry about that later today because right now I am standing by the gate and I won't do anything until I see my mother Belle Pepper come out. Then I will feel a lot better and I will go and hog some food.

I know she is going to come out. But anyway I am just going to stand by the gate until she does.

A Day in the Life of the Weaner Society: Making Up for Lost Milk

Well the time came and the last of the last year's babies went on long-overdue weaning. This was Crumpet, Crayola, and Jinxy. They were separated from their mothers and the mothers heaved a huge sigh of relief and immediately began stuffing themselves to try to make up for lost ground.

I thought there would be an Almighty Oregonian racket but there was hardly a peep among the weaners  it was almost like they knew they had already had way too much milk. Anyway the weaners settled down together and as always happens a little society formed with Crumpet as the President and Jinxy as the Vice President and Crayola as the factotum.

Crayola is Crumpet's air mattress, and so at night time the President waits patiently while Crayola lies down first. Then when Crumpet has picked which side she wants to lie against, Jinxy goes around to the other side and plumps Crayola up a little and then she lies down. And then in the morning Crumpet gets up and then Jinxy. And finally Crayola the air mattress.

Then Crumpet and Crayola scuttle over to the feeder and jump in because that's where the food will be served and Jinxy scurries to a nearby spot in anticipation of the impending hay and grain. She is a little too fat to actually get in the feeder any more. Then they scarf their breakfast with alarming rapidity.

Then they catapult themselves outside for the day, where there is more food, and scarf their brunch with alarming rapidity. Then the same thing when the hay comes out in the middle of the day, then the same thing at night when they gallop on their little cat's feet back to the barn, where the feeders have been refilled.  You should see them bellied up to the dish, it is quite a sight, throwing the food to their stomachs like golden retrievers.

Their motto is the same as North Carolina's, and if they had little license plates on their rear ends which they probably should, the license plates would say: The Weaner Society: First in Feedom.

Sic Semper Weaners.

Patchy Morning Frogs

It is a good thing I wasn't thinking anything, or maybe I was, because the way the frogs are singing now you cannot hear yourself think from dusk to dawn, even if you are thinking aloud as Pinky likes to do because if she didn't think aloud how would she know what her thoughts were. What is she anyway some kind of mind reader? Some kind of part-Nubian mind reader? Some kind of what? What is she? Who's calling, please? Ribbet. Nothing but ribbet.

None of us would ever tell her what her thoughts were, since they mostly run along the lines of, "t-bone Abby," "eat more alfalfa," "t-bone Betty," "eat more grain," etc. So what with the frogs for the last few nights Pinky has been standing around in a daze unable to communicate with herself and leaving a big space at the feeder which Blue makes a point of filling.

"T-Bone Crayola," Pinky reminds herself.

Then, "what?" "speak up!" Then nothing.

Bless the frogs, the moonlight frogs and the patchy morning frogs and all the mighty-hearted loudmouthed little frogs. Bless you.

Speaking of Crayola, just like Sandy she has turned super-sweet. She isn't conceited like Crumpet, she is just a little humblebee. That's good because she isn't in the Baby Belle family so she has no business getting all full of herself, like Crumpet the Grand.

Our spring is coming on, no doubt, the frogs know what they are doing, they do not call a false spring, that is not how they operate.

Some day soon we will have a farewell party for the mud. We will do it British style, with cheery optimism, Goodbye Mud, off you go, here's your trilby and your wellies, sod off now and good riddance, you dirty brown chap!

One Year Later

In case you were wondering, no. We didn't forget you.
Herron Hill Hannah Belle 
6/22/2004-3/3/2012

Camera Hog

Crumpet thinks that the whole world is her red carpet and sometimes it gets pretty annoying. Like in this video Crumpet is supposed to be working the same as everyone else, peeling sticks for the kindling pile. But all she can do is stare into the camera. Am I on? Is this recording? Hello? Hello? Let's talk about me for a while. Me, moi, Crumpet.

Peas and Carrots

The farmer went away yesterday and today we got a long pointed lecture on the subject of "Taking Advantage."

How would we like it if someone took advantage of us? Would we think that was so all-fired hilarious? Would we?

This is all on account of the farmer making the same mistake over and over. When the farmer goes out of town the farmer tells the guest feeder, just put the feed in the stalls and out in the back paddock and open up the gates and they will all run in and they will go into their separate stalls where the feed is and then all you have to do is close all the gates and then go take a nap, it as as easy as peas and carrots. The main thing is just be sure to stand back out of the way so you don't get run over because they pick up quite a little head of steam when they are running toward their dinner. The steam part is true, I admit that.

Well Lori was the guest feeder yesterday and she had just bought a new car and that used up most of her wits and she was looking a little bit haywire from overexposure to car salesmen by the time she got here, and I have to say when you see someone looking haywire you can't always necessarily stay on the straight and narrow and somehow all of us at the same time decided to go the extra mile. And so instead of going into any of our stalls properly like the farmer had guaranteed some of us ran a diversion stampede toward the feed room and some went part way up the stairs and some went into the stalls and then ran right back out and some galloped toward the alfalfa stack like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and before long Lori had to call for reinforcements and the way she was looking I was frankly surprised that she could still operate a cellphone.

Well it turned out that she was calling the kindly neighbor who has already seen every goat trick in the book so the joke was on us and before long we were all latched inside the stalls - not necessarily our own stalls -- where we had time to reconsider our activities.

And sure enough, the lecture we got this morning was long and sorrowful and filled with withering pauses. The farmer hoped we were happy.

"We are," said Cherry.

"Yes," agreed Abby.

And the farmer hoped we would think about what we had done.

"I'm not going to," said Betty.

"Me neither," agreed Winjay.

"I don't have time for that," said Big Orange. "I think I might be coming in heat."

Unsung No More

Nobody ever hears anything about Sandy. Sandy is Pebbles' twin. She is the unsung twin. Sandy likes the background, that's where she lives her whole life. She is always trying to get into the background. Every now and then she is standing around in the background enjoying her anonymity and all of a sudden everyone surges around behind her for some reason, and then she has to scramble to get out of plain view.

She hates being in plain view, she is one of those goats who when you take a picture Pebbles or Cherry are standing with their nose on the camera lens, and Crumpet's head is trying to poke in from the bottom of the picture, and Moldy is lurching in and out of the frame as she jumps up desperately on her back legs to try to get attention, and Pinky is visible off in the distance galloping toward the camera - she didn't know there was going to be a photo shoot because she wasn't paying attention - and the tip of someone's tail is just disappearing from the side of the picture. The tip of the tail belongs to Sandy. We have pictures of one of Sandy's wattles, of her hock, of her tailtip, as she scurries to get out of focus.

Anyway yesterday something very strange happened, the farmer was doing back scratches and the usual petting hogs were clustered around, Jammies and Jinxy and Moldy and Pinky and etc, and out of the blue, Sandy came waddling up to be scratched. And she wouldn't leave, she did some very expert maneuvering to keep her pole position, and she had her back scratched for probably at least ten minutes.

Pinky was very stumped she did not even know who Sandy is, she didn't recognize her standing in the center of attention and she was so surprised she forgot to do any t-boning.

I know what is going on because I am an expert on the subject but an ordinary goat or an intellectual  Nubian like Pinky would obviously be stumped. It's hormones. Sandy is bred to K, aka Promisedland Chaotic Bliss, and the hormones are poking their way through her shell of anonymity. Pretty soon she will be as friendly as a Girl Scout selling Thin Mints.

It's just a matter of time before she starts screaming for attention in Oregonian tongues.

D

It is a D Year. We have a ways to go, but because of the intellectual bankruptcy problem we need to start getting other people's ideas now so we can fill up the name cabinet before we need it. So this is where you will enter your D names. Only enter good ones we already have a lot of bad ones. Just fyi the work you do in this area will be thankless and in fact if you think of a really good name the intellectual bankruptcy coupled with the selective amnesia will probably result in the farmer taking credit for your idea which has already happened with a lot of my ideas but that's the way it goes.

D Names for the D Year of 2013:

1. Downton

2. Dollop

3. (your name here)

ps - also please do not steal any of the names that you see here that we are stealing from other people. These are our names and we do not want them stolen. It is hard enough stealing them in the first place. Thank you. And also remember we will need some belle names but they have to start with D. please do not enter dbelle the farmer already thought of that. also please be safe out there and avoid meteors.

Marvelous Times

Our farmer is not getting any smarter. Yesterday our farmer was walking around marveling. I don't know if you know any farmers but if you do you have probably seen them marveling. Certain times of year especially they walk around marveling, I guess it is something similar to going in heat.

"Listen to that," they will marvel, "the frogs are already singing down in the pond."

"Oh my goodness, look," they will marvel, "the hummingbirds are back."

Or: "I'll be darned, new catkins on the willow tree."

Usually they marvel over something you noticed about a month ago.

Anyway yesterday our farmer just to show what I am up against was walking around marveling and said to Wendell, "for Pete's sake it is almost February."

Wendell goggled his eyes in amazement, he will marvel about anything if it is presented in the right tone of voice.

"NO!" he goggled. "IT"S IMPOSSIBLE!"

"Where does the time go, Wendell?" the farmer asked.

Wendell goggled in stupefaction, he did not even try to answer.

I will tell you where the time goes, it goes around in a circle and then it comes back. Sometimes it goes down a rabbit hole and stays there for a while. But then it goes around and comes back. if you don't know that what can I say. Haven't you noticed anything.

"Oh, Catkin," said the farmer, suddenly. "That would have been a good C name."

The farmer always thinks of good C names when it is a D year, this is in the nature of farmers I think, like marveling.

Anyway, that's all.

Oh p.s. there has been an uproar about Crumpet's t-shirt so she will get a t-shirt after all. Not right now. Probably when the swallows come back. Unless time goes down a rabbit hole. Then it will be later.

Here's Your Hat, Big Red Cow

Well everyone has lost interest in Crumpet and it seems her acronym is going to have to be changed to either TFMFGOTKP* or NAFAYT* but that is a story for another day and the day is yesterday because it is old news.

What happened is the winter kind of stopped here and it is 50 degrees and they say the sun is going to come out for two days. This has led to a frenzy of spring cleaning and de-dilapidation which means no matter where you stand a farmer comes along in a few minutes and says, "move over," or "stand somewhere else." Or "just look at this place," and shoves you out of the way, no please or thank you.

Wendell has moved up from attempted goat herding to actual cow herding and all his years of annoying yipping and ankle biting are finally paying off. There is a neighbor on the other side of the meadow and for some reason he can't or won't keep his cows in, a herd of big red blocky beef cows with a giant-headed bull, nothing dairy about them which hurts the farmer's eyes, over and over and over again they get out and come over here. They keep trampling the meadow and knocking our fence down  and worst of all - causing the farmer to go tightlipped and beady-eyed - eating our grass, our precious grass without which we would have no Grass Babies or anything else.

This used to cause the farmer seven kinds of consternation but now as soon as they appear we hear the foghorn bellow - "WENDELL!!" - and out comes the world's most dangerous dervish, Wendell the pest, and before you know it those cows are stampeding back the way they came with a bug-eyed boston terrier yipping in ecstasy and running figure eights all around them. It isn't pretty the way he does it. But it works.




footnotes:
TFMFGOTKP* = The fourth most famous goat on the Key Peninsula.
NAFAYT* = Not as famous as you think.

Why So Glum, TMFGITW?

Crumpet at the Christmas party.

Voting Booth

Crumpet is launching her new line of famous goat products shortly and a famous designer is creating her first t-shirt but there is a fly in the ointment. It hasn't been decided whether the Crumpet t-shirt should say "T.M.F.G.I.T.W." (the most famous goat in the world) on the back or whether it should say G.O.A.T. (greatest of all time.)

One of the farmer's friends said it can't say G.O.A.T. on the back because there are already a lot of people using that including LL Cool J who isn't a very good singer in our opinion in fact I would rather listen to Crumpet play the drums but that is another story. Pinky said so what who cares we can do what we want and those people aren't goats anyway and they are probably not the greatest of all time either which I thought was actually quite sensible especially coming from someone who enjoys banging her head against the wall in her free time which let's face it all her time is free. But then you know what they say, everybody is a critic. Throw a rock, hit a critic.

So we decided to put it to a vote.

Go ahead and vote.

In other news Betty's sister Cora Belle who lives over at Minter Bay despite not being the most famous goat in the world managed to milk 1300 pounds on her milk test this year and so she will probably be one of the Top Ten Nigerian milkers in the country. Unless another fly gets in the ointment which is pretty much all the flies seem to want to do.  But they can't change the fact that she milked 1300 pounds even with missing a few days and not trying very hard and honestly she can do much better but anyway congratulations to GCH Herron Hill CJ Cora Belle *M, I hope she doesn't get any more titles because her name is already about a foot long. Maybe some day she will get her own t-shirt.

As for me give me liberty or give me death. But seriously, give me liberty.

Please exercise your patriotic rights by voting in the **Crumpet Poll.


__________________

*M that just means star milker
**I forgot to mention Crumpet has her own page now if you want to visit it.

Somebody Has To

Someone pointed out that if Crumpet is the most famous goat in the world, where does that leave me?

It is a good question.

Anyway Crumpet did not do anything famous yesterday.

Crayola has never been famous or even very well known but yesterday she spent the day acting adorable I am not sure why. She and Jinxy took turns standing by the gate so their backs could be scratched and making adorable sleepy eyes. I am not sure why but they were both putting on a big show of adorability. Where does that leave me, if I am not the most famous or the most adorable goat in the world? I am not in a Doritos commercial either, and I should have been.

I guess I can't worry about that. Last night the coyotes were singing in desperate harmony and they sounded closer than ever and I know the farmer is not a good shot but I guess I can't worry about that either.

It has not rained for a long time here mostly because it has been too cold but this morning the rain started back, cold and sleety and looking fairly interminable. Sometimes it looks like it is only interested in raining for a few minutes, but sometimes it looks fairly interminable and that is what it is doing now and I know the roof in the cottage leaks and as far as the cabana the only news would be if it stopped leaking since it is a sieve.

But the only thing I know about roofs is how to stand on them so what am I going to do.

Sometimes it is just best to get into a zen state and accept the things you cannot change.

Screw that, I am going to do something. About everything. Somebody has to.

The Most Famous Goat in the World

Well what happened was it didn't work out that well with Crumpet playing the piano. Oh she could play the notes all right but she just didn't play with any feeling. The playing was so soulless that none of the dogs even sang along with it. "That is just a lot of pounding," the farmer finally said, and the piano lessons stopped.

Ok so then we moved on to drums since nuance did not seem to be her strong suit and she rode completely roughshod over notations in the music. "Con fuoco," "adagio," "incalzando," "allegro non troppo" - it was all the same tin-eared pounding.

So we tried the drums instead.

That was worse if anything. Soulless piano playing is one thing but soulless drumming is like a rumenotomy. Or I guess like a root canal if you are a person.  Crumpet on her little bongo was a disaster, it made Pinky banging her head against the wall - which she likes to do, for some reason, I think she is trying to shake an idea loose - sound like a band of angels playing harp music on a balmy midsummer night's eve.

"Oh please bang your head, Pinky," we would beg, when the bongo started up. Just to drown it out. And by the way Pinky may have to sit out a few games after this, until she is cleared to play again by the team doctor, but it was definitely worth it.

Then a few more desperate ideas popped up: maybe Crumpet could write romance novels. Really? She has never even been in heat. Or maybe she could run for political office. "Barn Mayor," suggested Winjay, and Wronny t-boned her into the wall. Ok, so most of the positions around here are already filled, but maybe something less important, Vice President of the United States or something. Really?

But then in the end Belle Starr came up with the best idea because let's face it this is the Internet Age and you don't really need any skills or accomplishments any more, you don't have to do anything, you can just be something. Just announce that you are something and then be it. And maybe if you get around to it you could develop an app about yourself, an app celebrating your celebrity that people could look at on their iPads.

So we decided that Crumpet would be the most famous goat in the world, and we will all just keep repeating that until it becomes a fact. Then someone with nothing else to do will enter it into wikipedia, and it will become reality.

So we are going to start making announcements about Crumpet and it would be good if you could do that too. And in future when we refer to her it will be as Crumpet, the most famous goat in the world. And if anyone asks you who is the most famous goat in the world just say, "oh, Crumpet, of course."

And if anyone asks what she is famous for just say "for being Crumpet." Or you could just shake your head in amazement and say, "you need to download the Crumpet app if you don't know that."

Happy New Year!

It is New Year's Day where we are and we wish you the best New Year ever!