Blue Monday

The farmer heard on tv that yesterday was the most depressing day of the year. That turned out to be true.

Around 8 in the morning Poppy's yearling daughter Monday started hollering.

She stood at the gate and hollered at the farmer, which is odd in itself because she is naturally standoffish.

"She must be in heat," the farmer said to The Terror. The Terror doesn't know anything about heat, so she just yapped in solidarity.

The farmer doddered around feeding everyone and then went to make a mark in the new breeding calendar and just for once scanned backwards in time and saw that Monday really shouldn't be in heat.

Because she is already bred. And due at the end of February.

The farmer went outside and Monday was lying under the apple tree crying in an unmistakable way, you will know it when you hear it if you have ever heard it before, and she was shivering a little bit and when the farmer got close she turned and looked longingly at the farmer.

It was a look of pure love so deep that the farmer knew right away it was a case of mistaken identity, and that Monday was going to lose her kids if she hadn't already, but that she was still in the hopeful stage and thought the farmer lumbering toward her might be, possibly could be, there was a one in a million chance, all it ever takes is one in a million, her baby.

"All right, then," sighed the farmer, and crouched down, and Monday allowed herself to be carried up to the barn where within an hour she delivered a tiny hairless bobbleheaded baby. It wasn't anywhere near finished, just an outline for a baby, a cave drawing, eyes sealed shut, looking like a prehistoric broken baby bird.

The farmer took the baby away, and then came back and settled Monday in the horse trailer in a little private stall, since the barn is not set up for kidding yet, and sat with her reading a book.

"This is the most depressing day of the year," the farmer explained. "Don't worry, tomorrow will be better."

Monday stared blankly at the farmer, crying softly. What else could she do.

Ho ho ho

No time to write. Beautiful Christmas today. We gorged on Swedish Fish and Black Licorice that came in the mail.

And Lo, It Did Not Come to Pass....

We have decided not to waste time on New Year's Resolutions and instead skip right ahead to Our UnResolutions. Things that won't be happening. Not now, not in The New Year, not ever.

1. Henceforth Betty will be practicing kindness and forgiveness and gentle goatly caring in an attempt to spread her message of being the change she wants to see in the world. She will offer all her food to others every day, and she will lay down with the lamb and with the Terror, and they will softly sing 'Kumbaya' and the circle will be unbroken by and by and so on. Oh wait, I'm sorry, that's not going to happen. No. Definitely not.

2. Crumpet will be giving a Christmas concert at the local Lutheran Church after the free Christmas breakfast. She will be playing the harp and the dulcimer and possibly the triangle. She will be accompanied on vocals by Pinky, if Pinky is in heat that day. Otherwise Maddy will perform the yodel-ha-ha under the mistletoe. Oh wait, no, that won't be happening. None of it. Sorry.

3. Willen will stop knocking fences down and he will resolve to eat moderately and practice moderation in all things, especially eating, and he will not hog grain using his patented speed-eating techniques which can really only be analyzed using ultra-slow-motion photography. Oh I'm sorry, I read that wrong, no, my mistake, that is never going to happen.

4. Fred will consume mass quantities of flaxseed which will improve his brain function to such an amazing degree that he will realize that if a fence is only two feet tall, you can actually STEP over it. There is nothing preventing you from STEPPING over it. It is not an insurmountable barrier. ~~ Stop putting ideas in Fred's head, barks the farmer, there is no room for them there. That is not going to happen.

5. Moldy will begin following conversations all the way through and responding appropriately instead of always taking a sidetrack to talk about Oregon and her many outlandish wishes and the other crackpot notions housed in her tiny cranium. Never ever.

6. Pebbles will actually be bred and she will have some little Pebbles. Yeah, right.

7. Belle Starr will stop brown-nosing and sucking up to the farmer. Ha.

8. I, Millie, aka Million Belles, aka Baby Belle Jr., will receive the admiration and notoriety I deserve, and I will replace Crumpet as TMFGITW and I will have my own t-shirt and also a bad hoodie and possibly a cap, one of those high-domed ones like the two-tone hip-hop snapback Gangnam Style one that Psy wears. This actually could happen. It really could. Not.

Christmas Past

This is an old movie but it is so good to see some of our old friends that we are going to play it again. Hello Atticus. Hello Harry. Hello Boo. Hello Wendell.

Hello Baby Belle.

Merry Christmas.

The Terror's Day Out

The Terror has become a fixture at the local off-leash dog park. Inexplicably, she is very popular with both the dogs and the people. One of her friends is Nibs, a pit bull who could be an advertisement for the breed, fun-loving and rambunctious but with the mouth of a bird dog - Nibs could carry an egg home without breaking it.

Then Pliny, named after the scholar when you first ask (the Elder). But if you ask again, he is really named after the beer. After all, it turns out, Pliny the Elder was one of the first to explore the science of hops. Anyway, The Terror's friend Pliny is a blue weimaraner who explores the science of puppy wrassling to an exhausting degree, which is very good, because a tired Terror is a good Terror. Then there is an exuberant Labradoodle who leaps all up, around, on top, and over the Terror like the Bolshoi Ballet on four legs (without the backstabbing). Then there is a border collie whose name we don't know; she excels in running the Terror ragged.

The goal of the trips to the dog park, which is on the way to the feed mill, is that the Terror sleeps all or most of the rest of the day. Many times the other dog parkers are surprised by the Terror's zeal for adventure; her usual tactic is to run pell-mell up to the biggest dog and start licking its chin and offering to race it anywhere, or to wrassle it, straight up, no point spread requested, she doesn't care how big it is, the bigger the better.

On account of almost always being the smallest dog at the party, the Terror has excellent dog manners. If anything ever looks dicy, she rolls over on her back and stays there. Almost all dogs respect this, it is universal dog language. All right, they will say, but cut it out. Maybe they are old and arthritic, and don't want to chase a Terror around. So they give a warning, the Terror rolls over, and they say " all right. But buzz off." And the Terror buzzes.

Practically every dog knows not to attack a puppy. Practically.

The other day The Terror was at the dog park and a big black dog was standing on the edge of the playfield. There was something about this dog: it didn't respond to any of the dogs that came near it. Even a dog that growls, you can trust - at least it's telling you something. This dog had no reaction to any kind of overture, and several of the older dogs that came near it moved quickly away. The dogs knew something. The farmer moved close to the dog, about ten feet away, making a mental note to keep an eye on it. But being weak-minded, the farmer soon started chatting with one of the other dog parkers about chanterelles.

Just in the nick of too late, the farmer looked up to see the Terror barreling up to the big black dog, where she crouched underneath it, tail wagging madly, to lick its chin. In one fluid motion without warning or preamble it picked her up by the neck, flipped her high into the air, then pinned her to the ground when she came down, snarling in deadly earnest. The Terror, a tough girl who never cries, was crying hysterically. The farmer surprised the black dog by booting it sideways at the hips, then grabbed the Terror as the black dog's owner simultaneously arrived to pull it away.

People rushed up to see if the Terror was okay. Being a puppy, and made of rubber, she was no worse for wear, except for a dribble of blood under her ear. Her snappy new nineteen dollar padded jacket had suffered a puncture wound, though. The farmer tucked her under an arm, like a football, and started to leave.

The black dog's owner offered an explanation to the people who were now clustered around him:
"He doesn't like it when dogs come up to him."

Several people looked at him grimly, nodding: that was plain to see.

Nobody asked the obvious question, because you always think of the obvious question later, when you are halfway home: why is he at the off-leash park if he doesn't like dogs?

A goat that doesn't understand goat society - usually a  pampered bottle baby, or sometimes just a goat from Oregon -  is a menace to itself. On the other hand a dog that doesn't understand dogginess, a dog that doesn't speak the universal dog language, is a menace to society. That is what the farmer explained long-windedly to the Terror as they drove home, not noticing that the Terror was fast asleep, and planning to sleep the rest of the day.

"So in conclusion," the farmer wrapped up, "I hope this has been a valuable lesson to you. In future just stay away from any dogs who do not have dog manners."

The Terror snored gently.

V.I.G.

Well today it is freezing and going to stay freezing for the next week which I personally don't care for. It isn't the worst thing that could happen but it isn't something that I personally care for. Of everyone who hates the cold, though, Fred is probably the worst. He does not even like his feet to touch the ground when it is this cold. Today he is headbobbing around like a Tennessee Walker, yanking his feet up knee-high every time they touch the ground. You would think he would get used to it after a few steps but no, every step is a horrible shock to him.

Anyway as far as Winnie Eo knew right away what would happen.

"Oh no," she said when the farmer started musing about Winnie, the plight of poor Winnie, a big shot growing depressed without underlings, and before you can say snapchat Winnie got moved out of the big milker pasture and in with Betty and Betty's ragtag army of half-pints and yearlings, a motley crew which includes four babies, Isabel the newcomer, Sandy the Screamer, Clara Belle the dingaling, Clover who does't have a "the" yet, and sometimes Licorice who comes and goes as she pleases. All Nigerians.

Winnie brightened immediately and swaggered over to a corner of the Betty area where she made herself a king-sized bed in the straw and starting delivering ultimatums. No one comes inside this triangle, no one touches the food on the tray until I have had my pick, this end of the hay feeder is off-limits, it is a V.I.G.* area only for me, and also for my guests if I ever have any but I am not planning on it, and no one shall touch the farmer or make eye contact with the farmer, the farmer is mine, etc. It was all very Kramer-at-the-dojo.

Eo of course was pleased because she had thought Winnie would be coming to our small neck of the woods. But the Betty enclave is an even smaller pond, and Winnie is now the CEO. It just goes to show - anyone can be a big fish. You just have to find a small enough pond.


*Very Important Goat

The Little Pond

Winnie is one of the farmer's pets and she always has been. Or maybe she even thinks the farmer is her pet. Anyway she acts like she owns the farmer. If someone comes around while she is standing by the farmer, she goes into a headbutting frenzy, doing rapid-fire Sugar Ray Leonard type jabs until she has cleared a circle all around the farmer. Just go ahead and dare to enter that circle. Go ahead, see what happens.

Over the years we have been subjected to torrents of Winnie comparison. Winnie is always the milker the beginners milk. Anyone can milk Winnie. She will stand patiently all day long while a two-year-old milks her. Also she gives tons of milk and she has a beautiful udder. Back in the day she was our prettiest LaMancha ever. When Winnie is on the milkstand half the time the farmer calls everyone's attention: "does everyone see how Winnie is standing?"

"Does everyone see how Winnie waits quietly without stamping even though the grain is gone?"

"Does everyone see how Winnie stands like a lamppost while we are drawing blood?"

"Did everyone see how much milk Winnie gave today?"

"Did everyone see how Winnie walked nicely back into the stall without trying to escape into the grain room just because the door is open?"

Bla bla bla bla.

Anyway the thing about Winnie is she is a people goat and she is not a goat's goat. She is one of the Sopranos and when she was young it seemed she might end up as the herdqueen; after all, she was Brandy's oldest daughter. But she didn't have the knack for it. And as soon as Wronny, her little sister, was a yearling, it was clear who would inherit the throne. And after that Winnie gradually slipped into the background.

She is as big as a house so no one ever really bothered her, but after her mother died this summer the farmer would often look out and see Winnie standing alone in the pasture with her head down. She didn't really fit in with the Wronny family, even though she is their aunt, and the Nubian crosses made a point of ignoring her. Even Winnie's own daughters preferred Wronny. So the farmer would look out, and there would be Winnie, gazing off at Mt. Rainier, or staring blankly down the hill. She is the oldest LaMancha here now, ten years old, and even though she still looks like a 5-year-old, she started getting aches and pains, and a week or so ago she hurt her foot somehow and wouldn't join the scrum around the feeder. The other bigs jostled her too much.

"What are we going to do with you?" the farmer asked.

She really only looks happy when the farmer is there, scratching along her shoulder blades and pretending she is still magnificent, even though she is getting a little bit rickety, and if the truth be told she is a little down on her pasterns.

The problem is that, in her mind, she is a big grand champion worldbeating fish. And she has no pond.

"Oh no," said Eo, as the farmer stood scratching Winnie with a puzzled expression.

~~~~ stay tuned ~~~~~

If It Rings, Don't Answer

Well today is Thanksgiving here. We have it on a Thursday. Right now it is gray and foggy but it isn't raining. So I guess we are thankful for that. Maddy the Chuckler aka the Sheriff of Crazytown went out of heat so I guess we are thankful for that. Her desperate yodels are really almost too much to bear. If you would like to get a headache just stand within five acres of Maddy when she is yodel-chuckling over to Fred.

Yodel-ha-ha, yodel-ha-ha, all day long.

What do you hear when you are trying eat your meager breakfast? Yodel-ha-ha.

What do you hear when you are trying to snooze in the winter sun? Yodel-ha-ha.

It is not a ringtone anyone would choose to download. Or is it? The Yodel-ha-ha ringtone?

Hmm, sometimes things are the opposite of what they seem, like Moldy's magical wishing powers, which seemed like a pain in the udder when we first discovered them. But it turns out we probably just weren't using them right. As you know, you must always use your superpowers for good, if you have any.

Perhaps this is also true of the yodel-ha-ha. Perhaps the yodel-ha-ha is a strange gift from Fifth Dimension, something to be thankful for, and we have just been looking it in the mouth with short-sighted criticality.

For today, just in case, we will be thankful for the yodel-ha-ha, the possible future ringtone that goes viral around the world and wins us a million dollars worth of alfalfa in the Best Ringtone Ever contest, causing me as a paragon of gracious humble dignity to give the most beautiful acceptance speech the world has ever known.

For tomorrow, maybe not.

Moldy Wishes, Caviar Dreams

Everyone is looking at Moldy with suspicious awe because as you know the other day Moldy looked out of the shed and said "I wish it would stop raining." This was in the middle of a downpour which we thought would probably last until about February.

She just came right out and said it, just like that. "I wish it would stop raining."

The next day it stopped raining. It has not rained since. They say it will not rain until AFTER Thanksgiving. They don't know anything, but still, that is what they say.

It has put us all on edge and we are tiptoeing around Moldy. Even Eo is giving her a wide berth. Yesterday Dinky Dollarbird, Blue Jaye's greedy little daughter, was elbowing around the feeder and she stuck her pointy head into Moldy who was busy stuffing her face and Moldy stopped eating for a minute and said, "I wish you wouldn't do that," and all of a sudden the Boston Terror who has been on strict probation leaped into view out of nowhere and nipped Dinky in the pastern and Dinky took off running and didn't come back until the breakfast was all gone.

Coincidence?

Later that day Rosie t-boned Moldy, trying to get her away from the new hay, and Moldy said calmly "I wish you would stop that," which Rosie ignored, taking a step back to get into a better t-boning position and her foot went into a pothole and she twisted it and fell down and she has been limping around ever since.

Another coincidence?

Eo is working on a plot to get Moldy to say, "I wish a ton of third cutting alfalfa would fall from the sky," but she wants to be sure to do it correctly so that she isn't standing underneath when the alfalfa plummets from the clouds. And so that it doesn't crash through the barn roof. Also she wants to make sure it isn't reject alfalfa, or alfalfa with cheatgrass in it. This is one of Eo's problems, she always considers too many angles.

Misfiring wishes could be a serious hazard, though. Who needs that kind of headache. The problem with Moldy is you can't control her, she might say anything.

Drawing Near

The CRUMPET t-shirts arrived early so we will do the drawing today at NOON PST. If you would like to assist Crumpet in her attempt to rule the world, you may do so here until 11:58 a.m. PST. May the Crumpetude be with you.

AND THE WINNER IS (chosen at random by the random integer generator) : P G from California!

CONGRATULATIONS P G!

Mainly on the Plain

We think it was Moldy who said it or it might have been Abby. Nobody in the Baby Belle family would have said it and a LaMancha would never say it, LaManchas come from LaMancha, which is in Spain where the "Man-of" also comes from, and LaMancha in case you didn't know is a high hot arid plain. Arid means dry in case you don't have a dictionary.

So anyway we think it was Moldy, back on that day in August when the flies were buzzing and the sun was beating down on our metal roof and the self-absorbed milkers were hogging all the good shade. We think it was her. She said "I wish it would rain."

And so now lo and behold we are once again up to our pasterns in mud and sitting around waiting for a "considerable" rainstorm with 100% chance of rain predicted. It is already raining, so that is how they know there is a 100% chance of rain.

Great, thanks, good job, way to go, Moldy. And here is the worst part. We are all sitting around the shed glaring at Moldy and of course she doesn't even notice it because she is from Oregon and she is lying around clueless as usual staring out the door at the mud awaiting us when we have to go and get our breakfast and then as if it isn't bad enough right out of the blue she says, "I wish it would stop raining."

Great! Perfect! Thanks, Moldy, we will appreciate that in August when the ground is cracked and the grass is all dead and brown and burnt to a cinder! Way to go, Moldy!

The Rainbow of Dibs

Okay this is the last post about the Crumpet t-shirts. The Crumpet t-shirts will be available soon in a rainbow of colors. That is if you consider a rainbow to be made of three muted colors, dull navy blue, olive-ish green, and drabby brown (the company calls it chocolate.)  Okay the Crumpet t-shirt is also available in a rainbow of sizes. That is if you consider a rainbow to be made up of the sizes M-L-XL or 2XL. We do not know that many small goat people so we did not order smalls when we sent the order in a couple of weeks ago.  That may have been a mistake.

They are organic t-shirts so will shrink slightly, "but not too bad" according to the printing company. The printing company is very optimistic about everything. That doesn't seem to bode well.  They probably don't even have any t-shirts. The farmer is going to put an order form up on the web site soon but there aren't very many shirts since they are bound to be unpopular so if you want one you better send a dibs. Just send an email to the farmer at herronhillATgmailDOTcom and say what size and color you want and say a backup color and size if the first one isn't available. If you did the link contest and you win your shirt will be free. They probably will end up costing about $15 which is a lot of money for a t-shirt and then on top of that you will have to pay the shipping which will probably cost a couple of dollars for your future dust rag but there is a lot of dust in this world so maybe that's ok. Or you could also use it as a buck rag, So there are a rainbow of uses, if you consider a rainbow to be made up of three uses (t-shirt, dust rag, buck rag).

Sample dibs for those confused by the rainbow of information:

I [YOUR NAME HERE] would like to dibs one DRAB GREEN [or DRAB BROWN or DRAB BLUE] t-shirt, size M [or L or XL or 2XL]. If DRAB GREEN is not available, please send me DRAB BROWN. If size L is all gone, please send me size M. When my order is confirmed I will send you a check or a PayPal or something. Thank you for considering my dibs. Faithfully yours in Crumpetude etc.

Winter Doldrums

Well the Crumpet Project has really taken off and the Crumpet t-shirt will soon be arriving. Can you imagine the excitement. We had a big windstorm and the roof blew off the baby buck shack and the baby bucks are in the barn until the farmer's back goes back into alignment and then their shed will be fixed and back down they will go. The hot wire got fixed in the front pasture and this put the kibosh on the free blackberries the milkers were eating on the neighbor's side of the fence. Willen kicked the front panel out of the horse run-in so the farmer has to go and get some more plywood to fix it.

"Thank you Willen," said the farmer. "I was wondering how I was going to spend all my free time and now I know." Willen kept a neutral expression on his face, always best to play it straight if you're not sure what's going on.

The Terror got put on strict lifetime probation for running down to the street and so now she never goes outside unless she is on her tie-out or attached to the farmer's belt loop. What a relief, no more ankle-biting.

The new Isabel is here and she has no personality whatsoever but at least she isn't from Oregon so we can understand her when she talks, which is never, because she is the retiring type and she spends most of her time under the feeder where she can't be t-boned by the Wrath of Khan which is Betty's new name now that she is in heat. When Betty is in heat she is the Wrath of Khan.

Speaking of heat Cherry came in heat also and she did her trademark part-Nubian caterwauling at the gate, just standing there all day playing the part-Nubian bagpipes and even forgetting to eat her dinner.

Abby my BFF decided to go in the front pasture with Pebbles, leaving me down below which is fine because it's much better here. But it hurts one's feelings. That's ok, I don't care, I have my daughter and my mother and that is really all I need.

"After everything you did for her," said my mother, shaking her head.

"She was a nobody until she met you," said my daughter.

"I'm ok," I said with gracious humble bravery, which is how I do everything.

The Crumpet Project

NEWS: There is an update to the Crumpet Project. Click here for more details.

Obedience and the Debt Ceiling

Well it finally happened. Crumpet came into heat. She went and stood by the fence outside Chaos' pen, and she talked to him about the debt ceiling. She told him how worried she was about the debt ceiling, on account of it being so near to the fiscal cliff, and even though goats are pretty good at walking up and down cliffs, she didn't know if she could walk on the ceiling. It would depend what kind of ceiling it was.

"Isn't it a debt ceiling?" blubbered Chaos.

"Isn't what a debt ceiling?" asked Crumpet, and then the whole conversation started again, and this went on three or four times in completely circular fashion and then finally the farmer hove into sight with the Terror a few inches behind and off went Crumpet, up to the big barn for incarceration purposes, and the last thing I heard was something about the Federal Reserve and the full faith and credit of the farm and the distant sound of the Terror yapping idiotically, and then there was just the blap of a door slamming shut and after that nothing but the sound of Chaos, standing by the fence, saying over and over into thin air: "isn't it a debt ceiling?"

Feeder Pest

The Terror is failing puppy obedience, it is only to be expected from such a wayward dog. There is supposed to be an exam this week but we already know what score she will get:

Heeling: F
Leaving Dropped Treats Alone on the Floor: F-
Down: F
Come When Called (Or Ever, for that matter): F
Sit: C

It is just not the kind of test she is going to be good at. The kind of test she would be good at would be:

Run Around Insanely Knocking Other Puppies Over: A
Pee on the Floor at the Most Inopportune Time (Carpets only, Linoleum Doesn't Count): A
Eat the Farmer's Glasses: A+
Sit in the Hay Feeder When We Are Trying to Eat, Biting our Noses When we put our Heads in: A

*

The blog has gotten very boring lately with a lot of drivel about goat shows. There has hardly been anything about Crumpet, who is still the most famous goat in the world even if nobody has ever heard of her. Crumpet has moved into the down-below goat shack, the one with the leaky roof, oh wait they all have leaky roofs, anyway the one where everyone who didn't go to the Fair lives. This includes Moldy, Blue, Jammies, Jinxy, Dinky Dollarbird, Blue Jaye, that one that nobody can remember her name if she even has one, and the other one that cries for no reason, just as a hobby.

The coyotes ate all the pears and so they have stopped creeping around our pasture at night which has stopped the farmer from hollering and shining the big spotlight and shooting off the .22 that no one can get aimed - "has this gun been sighted in?" everyone asks after they shoot it and miss by a mile, how surprising, usually they are like Daniel Boone and could shoot the hat off an acorn, must be something wrong with the rifle. Anyway it is a lot easier to sleep without gunfire or coyotes.

It is turning into fall very quickly and last week for a while it seemed like it might be January with the wind blowing a gale and great flapping sheets of rain. The farmer took Crumpet up to the barn for a ceremonial measuring and Crumpet had not grown at all. If you have any suggestions for making Crumpet grow, send them in. Licorice did not work. If she stays this shrunken she is going to go to puppy agility with the Terror, since carrying the candy pack is not a full-time job.

Eo has a new plan to take over the world but she won't tell anyone what it is. Be on the lookout though. She is not one to tangle with. Moony is now the size of a Shetland Pony and still drinking milk. The new buckling came and he is staying in the barn for a few days to meet his roommates and he smells like a bag of rotten fish that has been marinated in a barrel of cat pee and then left out in the hot sun for a few days. For this reason I went back down to the down-below pasture and my mother went with me. And Belle Starr too.

If we could get on Yelp we would do a barn review: one star, barn is nice but service is very slow and surly, and right now it smells like sardine-flavored cat pee. Proprietor does not seem to care. AVOID.

Enter the Dragon

The farmer went out of town and it poured. There was a lightning storm and the power went out. The tractor stopped running and the Terror had a potty training relapse, the worst kind of relapse there is. Laddy got stuck in the neighbor's chicken coop, he walked in there to steal some alfalfa that belongs to their goats and when he got in it was too narrow to turn around - it was one horse long but only about a half a horse wide, and when he tried to back out he kept banging his big butt against the wall so he stood there stamping and crying like a Nubian horse and he had to be extracted manually and just in the nick of time because it was plain to see that he had started thinking Kung Fu thoughts - "I could kick this whole place down," -  if thinking isn't too strong a word for the type of cerebral activity he is known for.

Anyway it was a long week and no one really enjoyed it except the farmer because the farmer was in Virginia where it was bright and sunny all day long every day, with the temperature around 80, and no chores to do except eat cake and lasagna. "I think I will have a little more," the farmer kept saying. The farmer came home fatter than ever, looking like a dry yearling who lives at a feedstore where the grain is free choice and the alfalfa buffet never closes.

It was decided the farmer would go on a spinach diet since the unharvested spinach was running amok in the garden after all that rain.

But just then the mail arrived and lo and behold! Two more big bags of black licorice! On the label the licorice was clearly addressed to me, it said "Millie Beautifulgoat," but the bags did not get delivered to me, instead they were shared among the masses, which is not legal when a bag is addressed to a specific goat. In fact I believe that kind of mail-tampering is a felony but no one listened to me, what a surprise.

The feast was back on, even Kung Fu Laddy got some. Sandy, the farmer's new pet, the goat formerly known as the Screamer, feasted three times a day on my licorice as she was milked on the stand to get her production up for the Fair.

"Why can't some of you be more like Sandy," the farmer said pointedly, looking at Clover and Clara Belle, not to mention Betty. Their production has gone to hell in a handbasket since the farmer went out of town. "You are going to look pretty ridiculous at the Fair with your little thimbles of milk."

Sandy simpered infuriatingly from the milkstand, she is just like her grandmother Moldy. She is as bad as Crumpet only worse. She puts Pebbles to shame. She gobbled five pieces of licorice in a row.

"I could kick this whole place down," said Eo bitterly, watching the black whips disappear.

Even Zinnia

Zinnia took a thrashing in the licorice contest and so we won the bet but we had no idea who we were betting against because if we did we would have bet a backhoe or a flatbed trailer with brakes that work or a new roof for the cottage because usually if the loser ever pays off a bet like that a few weeks go by and then a pocket-size bag of stale Twizzlers arrives and Wronny and Jessie hog them all and no one else even really cares, we look at each other shrugging, who cares those are stale anyway.


But that is not what happened. Almost the next day a huge box arrived on the FedEx truck and the farmer was pleased and said, "oh that is the new disposal," and carried the box up to the house, commenting absently to The Terror that "I thought it would be heavier." The box did not even get opened right away, that is how disposal-like it seemed, but when it did get opened it revealed what seemed like a hundred bags of top quality liquorice (with a Q.) It was an awe-inspiring sight, like a visit from the Dalai Lama or a truckload of third cutting alfalfa backing up to the barn.

We were all giddy with delight since it was decreed that the licorice would be shared amongst all the masses. "Even Zinnia," said Wronny. "Even Zinnia," we intoned reverently. And thus it was carried out but I think some of the bags disappeared into the farmhouse.

It is now the time for self-congratulation because if you don't congratulate yourself who will, so we extend our heartiest kudos to ourselves for being who we are, and we also congratulate Cora Belle the Horrible, who made it onto the Top Ten list, Pinky's daughter Tea who won the Skagit County 4H Fair, Chella's daughter Calico who made it to the state fair, Sammy the Terror who learned how to sleep through the night without peeing, Sandy the Screamer who has quietened down and become a real milker - head down in the feed dish with no questions asked, Spenny the angel-saint-dog who has never offered to even snap at the Terror. And we also pre-congratulate ourselves on the upcoming State Fair where even if we win nothing we will have a really good time. We are who we are.

God Bless Us Every One. Even Zinnia.

And They're Off

Well the Super Bowl smackdown finally came on the schedule and Zinnia the Ninnia aka the Beady-Eyed Sourpuss was turned out in the milker pasture with Wronny. She went out there with her two kids, A.J. and Edie, who are inexplicably sweet and adorable although I guess it is not that inexplicable since Chaos is their father.

Okay, first of all, confidence: what is it? Is it stealing lunches from little kids? Is it t-boning the slow-witted? Is it sneaking up behind an intelligent, kindly, extremely correct (except for the chandelier udder) Nigerian and biting its ear while it is trying to take a nap? That's right, Zinnia, I am talking to you. The answer to all these questions, especially the last one, is no.

Confidence comes from deep within the rumen of the true herdqueen. Confidence is its own reward. Confidence is like a little bird that flies NORTH for the winter. WHY NOT TRY SOMETHING NEW? Confidence babbles happily like an Alpine brook; it knows its way down the mountain. Confidence is the peace that passes understanding, like a bucket of warm Cherry trance-milk. Ommmm. Confidence lies sleeping in the sun, because there is no need to get up.

Getting up is exactly what Wronny did not do when Zinnia swaggered into the milker pasture radiating what she thought was confidence. Oh Wronny saw her, but really, some things really do not merit one's personal attention. Wronny flicked an eye over at two of her underling lieutenants, Elbie and Schwinnie, and they took off like a shot - yes, My Queen! - in Zinnia's direction.

Zinnia quivered out one last swagger and then realized too late that her confidence was really arrogance. Her brain shut down in a flood of panic. She wheeled and ran. And ran.

And ran, with the portly Hounds of Hell warm - Hot burns too many calories - on her heels.

Wronny yawned and went back to sleep. Ommm.

Losers please send licorice (black.)

c/o Millie
Herron Hill Dairy
Home Wa 98349.

Thanks.

The Staring Circle

It has been a beautiful August here, no rain except a few sprinkles and not too hot, only in the 80s or so and sometimes in the 70s. The farmer got out the clippers and has systematically been shaving the fair candidates to see what is in there under all that hair. Blue Jaye was shaved and she looked beautiful but she isn't making much milk. Clara Belle also looked beautiful. Clover did too.

Marti was shaved and sometimes she looks pretty good, sometimes she has the topline of a brontosaurus. She just keeps rising like a loaf of bread dough and she can't always be punched down. One day the rear is too high, the next day the front, the third day she looks good.

Sandy was shaved and she looked surprisingly good except for her head, which looks like a miniature donkey's head, with a wattle on each side only one wattle is under her ear where it is supposed to be and the other kind of dangles lopsidedly along her neck which isn't a good look. Also they aren't the same size, one is a grape and one is more of a ping pong ball. When everyone saw what Sandy looked like under her hair we cleared a small circle around her for staring and now she travels around with her own little buffer zone, the staring circle, which no one ventures into.

"Oh dear," said Abby, when she saw her daughter Sandy in her hairless glory. Pebbles did not get shaved because she did not settle so she won't be going to the fair. Pebbles is the pretty twin. Sandy is the unsung twin, and there was quite a chorus of unsinging when she came out of the cutting salon in the barn.

"Is she adopted?" asked Crumpet. Crumpet is one of Sandy's little sisters.

Derringer, one of Clover's daughters, also got a haircut. "Hmm," said the farmer, when Derringer came prancing out.

This does not bode well for Derringer. Usually when the farmer says "Hmm," the farmer then says,  "I don't expect her to come in last." And sure enough, a few minutes later the farmer remarked to The Terror as Derringer went pronging back to the Pear Tree Pasture, "I don't expect her to come in last."

The Terror was busy eating hoof clippings and didn't say anything.

For Derringer, sadly, this probably means a lifetime of goat shows, unless she has the good sense to grow her udder out in the shape of a chandelier, which is what I did, and I have never been anywhere near a ferris wheel and I wouldn't know an elephant's ear from a corn dog.

Anyway the farmer allowed that we might get a couple of ribbons at the fair.

"Especially since we have a secret weapon this year," the farmer explained to The Terror.

The Terror was asleep by now, and didn't say, "Secret Weapon? What Secret Weapon?"