Our New Goat of the Month

Little Jessie the LaMancha kid was the goat of the month last month. She was already quite full of herself before being made goat of the month. Afterward she was plain and simply prideful. And you know, or you ought to know, what pride goeth before.

That's right. Little Jessie has gone from her embroidered satin cushion right into the doghouse. Lo how the mighty are fallen.

The problem is this. Jessie went to the fair, which I don't believe in going to because it is ridiculous. When they have a people fair where you can go pet the accountants and insurance salesmen sitting in little pens for three days, let me know about it and maybe I will go. If it isn't raining and I don't have to have all my beautiful hair shaved off first.

But anyway Jessie went to the fair. And she came back with a blue ribbon, big deal. AND, we discovered a couple of weeks later, the goat chicken pox. First just Jessie had it, and she was locked into a quarantine stall all by herself, where she passed the time by yelling. The farmer gave up and threw Binky to the wolves - Binky went in with Jessie so she would shut up.

"Sorry, Binky," said the farmer, "but someone has to take one for the team."

Then Winnie, Jr., who also went to the fair, got it. She got thrown in a stall with Tanjy and Bugsy, who also went to the fair. Then Bugsy got it.

Then Bertie got it. Then Betsy. And by this time there were no more stalls to throw anybody in so the farmer decided to just let it burn itself out since the quarantine hadn't worked anyway. The farmer looked around and took stock: almost all the goats who had gone to the fair had gotten the goat chicken pox.

Except the Nigerians, we never get anything.

And Binky.

Binky is our goat of the month for October. Congratulations, Binky.

Goat of the Month

We haven't had goat of the month for a long time so today we are having goat of the month.

The goat of the month is Herron Hill's XJ Yes I Know.

But really her name is Jessie.

Jessie won a first place ribbon at the fair, which was good. Even better was the farmer's idea to have Shannon Stangeland from Poppy Patch Farm show Jessie, since the farmer is possibly the worst showman ever to enter the ring. Shannon on the other hand is one of the best, and she kindly agreed to do it. In this picture taken by Wendy Webster the famous goat photographer, Jessie is posing in the champion lineup with all the other blue ribbon goats.

Jessie was the first LaMancha goat born here this spring. She is Wronny's daughter. It was a cold day when she was born so the babies were getting started inside the house in rubbermaid tubs. Usually a rubbermaid tub will hold a kid for two or three days. After that they are big and strong enough to climb out of the tub.

Anyway, Jessie was born first but her sister Bugsy was coming fast right behind her, so the farmer grabbed her and ran to the house, rubbing her off with a towel on the way. Jessie was already mad as a hornet, and hollered the whole time.

The farmer ran through the kitchen and through the living room and into the bathroom where the rubbermaid tub was set up next to the heating vent and full of nice clean straw. In about the time it takes to read this, the farmer plunked Jessie in the tub and ran back out through the living room and the kitchen and across the yard to the kidding stall in the barn where yes, just as expected, Bugsy slid out right on cue just in time to be caught by the farmer.

The farmer turned around, puffing and rubbing Bugsy dry with a clean towel, and ran back to the house.

The farmer opened the kitchen door to find Jessie, as mad as a two-minute-old goat can get, screaming bloody murder next to the washing machine, and ready to march on Stalingrad if the need arose.

She had knocked over the rubbermaid tub, walked through the bathroom, through the living room, and through the kitchen when most baby goats, even Nigerians, are looking around themselves and saying, "didn't it used to be pitch dark in here? Can I get some sunglasses, please?"

So Jessie is goat of the month.

Because of Jessie the baby goats have an all-new nursery system and the rubbermaids are being used to store milk bottles.

In the artful photo below, Jessie shows off the whiskers that should have been trimmed before she went in the ring.

The News from Home

Hello everyone.

It is fall now, and time for an update, after a sketchy summer of haphazard reporting.

The farmer says I am not going to have any kids again this year and I am very angry about it. I am just almost angry enough to go on a hunger strike. Almost.

But not quite.

To placate me, the farmer says that my Dairy Princess Cookbook is finally going to come out.

If you have any recipes you would like to have considered this would be the time to submit them before it is too late. Your recipes must be good and they must have DAIRY ingredients.

Dairy ingredients are cheese, milk, ice cream, yogurt, panir, butter, cream, etc. Everything tastes good with cheese, so if you have a good recipe but there aren't any dairy ingredients, just add cheese and send it in. If you have a recipe that isn't good, why not add cheese and see if that helps? Obviously I mean GOAT cheese, milk, cream, butter.

My daughter Blue Umbrella, aka Baby Blue, has inherited my throne as the farmer's personal milker. Baby Blue has the most delicious milk in the herd and she loves the milkstand.

She is also the smartest milker - big surprise - and has been squirted with the water bottle several times for hiding around the corner on the down ramp after she has been milked so that she can rush back IN to the milk parlor when the door opens to try to be milked twice.

Up the down staircase is definitely not allowed. She knows that but it's hard not to take advantage sometimes when you are competing against Nubians.

By the way Boo and Scouty did really well when we first switched to the milk bench but now they have post-traumatic-stress-disorder and can't stand still in the milk parlor. When they are halfway milked they start to dance and jiggle, both of them exactly the same way, even though they are never in the milk parlor at the same time.

The farmer has worked the problem out on paper by developing a special theory of dairy bucket flight probability: 1 Nubian in the milk parlor + 1 Nubian in the milk parlor at the same time = 2 many Nubians in the milk parlor.

In other news, the dairy was finally approved as a Grade A Washington dairy and this morning the inspector came out to take the first milk sample. We will have our grand opening in the spring and spend the winter experimenting, since right about now everyone is starting to peter out of milk. And maybe by then we will be able to get a pasteurizer.

So that's all for now. The big girls are all in heat so I can't hear myself think. Must go in case more apples have fallen from the tree.

Ribbons Shmibbons

We have a little yearling named Xie Xie (pronounced shay shay) and she is very good-natured. She has a little good-natured daughter named Binky and a good-natured son named Buddy. Being one-quarter Nubian she does occasionally let out a bellow of indignation for no apparent reason, but we think that is just as a courtesy to her fellow Nubians. In reality she is very easygoing and doesn't mind much of anything.

In the photo above by official goat photographer Wendy Webster Xie Xie is being used as a display table to show off some of the ribbons the girls won at the fair. She doesn't care.

In the photo below Xie Xie displays the rosette she won herself. It is a pretty good ribbon for a little skinny yearling to win. She doesn't care.

In All Fairness...

Well the farmer got back from the state fair almost at midnight last night. The goats streamed out of the trailer like they were heading for the lifeboats on the Titanic. They didn't care that it was pitch dark and the flatbed was parked in front of the barn door, or that there was a big pile of delicious hay between them and their destination. They just ran like scalded cats down the aisle and into their stalls.

Bertie in particular was cantering hard and shaking her head to try to dislodge the last three days. When she was at the Fair she spent almost the whole time gazing blankly into the middle distance, hoping hopelessly to be beamed back magically somehow to her home planet.

The Fair is like a beautiful nightmare that passes in a hot sweaty blur. The people all have to wear white to do their silly shows where they parade around in a circle. Some of these people if not all don't look so great in white, which is not a slimming color in the least, and many of these people could benefit from some slimming. And of course not even the slimmest looks good in white once the white has gotten covered with smudges and little goat hoofprints, which takes usually about five minutes.

I guess in their show Boxcar Betty and Belle Pepper didn't do too well - one got third and one got fifth - which I find incredibly hard to believe knowing how closely related they are to me, Baby Belle, the most beautiful goat in the world. But the beautiful Poppy Patch herd was there, looking even more magnificent than ever, so the competition was swept downriver as Poppy Patch rightfully won all the big awards.

"I told you you were too fat, Betty," the farmer murmured darkly to Betty as they headed back to the barn. Betty pretended not to hear and went right back into her little pen with Belle Pepper, where they got back to the important business of eating beautiful free hay supplied by the Fair.

The farmer put on a fake smile as courtesy requires and pretended to be tickled pink with the third place ribbon, even putting it out on display for about five minutes.

All was forgiven within a few hours when Xie Xie and bratty little Tangy, who had to be pretty much dragged around the ring, both won first place and then Reserve Champion in the Recorded Grade show, while the rest of the Betsy family also picked up scads of ribbons.

The LaManchas did well too against some impressive competition.

Meanwhile everyone sat in their pens listening to reams of questions from the inquiring public, excerpted in the list below.

1. What kind of sheep is this (indicating Betty)?
2. Where are the pigs?
3. Are there any other animals here (from a disappointed looking lady)?
4. What is his name (indicating Winnie, as she is being milked on the milkstand)?
5. Where are the chickens?
6. Where are the horses?
7. Where is the bathroom?
8. Do you work here (indicating the farmer)?
9. What happened to their ears (indicating one of the LaManchas)?
10. Why did you cut off their ears (indicating one of the LaManchas)?
11. Can they hear with no ears (indicating one of the LaManchas)?
12. Why do you crop their ears (indicating one of the LaManchas)?
13. Did something happen to their ears (indicating one of the LaManchas)?
14. 9,999,999 variations on the preceding 5 questions.

She's Back....

It is fair time again. My goodness the summer shoots by.

Anyway a batch of fat milkers are going off to Puyallup to sit around in tiny little stalls being ogled. One of my daughters is going, so at least there will be one pretty goat there.

Two years ago little orphan Betsy made her debut at the Fair and got her picture on the front page of the paper, and they are still using that picture as part of their official Fair icon.

This year Betsy will go as a milker, along with two of her daughters and two of her granddaughters. She is older now but don't worry, she is still crazy as a bedbug. If I had known this picture would be on the front page of the paper every day of the fair for two years running, I might have tried to teach her a more intelligent expression.

Oh well. Lipstick on a pig.

Blast From the Past #4

Big Orange, back when she was just a little tangerine.

Blast From the Past #3

Lucy and Leo climb Mt. Atticus, the highest peak in Home, Washington.

Blast From the Past #2

Sammy hangs ten in the F-150, spring '07.

Blast From the Past #1

Peanut's first day outside, 2007.

You Think You've Got Problems

There have been some complaints about the lack of news. Well actually there has been so much news that there just wasn't any time to report it. Anyway, here is some of the news, most of it having to do with various problems.

1. The pea hay got baled and had to be picked up down in the field in Chehalis. The pea hay is just down the road from the Black Sheep Creamery and the farmer was very happy to see all the Black Sheep sheep (most of them are white) lying in contented bundles in their grassy fields. There was a terrible flood last winter in Chehalis, and most of the Black Sheep sheep drowned. But just to show the power of life, the Creamery is back in business and going strong. The first three lambs born there this year were named Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy. You can see them here.

Anyway, what is the problem with the pea hay? Well, we now officially have too much hay, and there isn't really enough space for it. So it is creeping into all the aisles and passageways.

2. The big girls were supposed to be learning to go up the new ramp into the new milk parlor, a daring attempt at caprine education which was proving very difficult to accomplish, especially on the days when there was only one person - the farmer - to 'encourage' the big girls to go up the ramp, then open the hatch, then shove them into the milk parlor, then close the hatch, then race around through the back door to get into the milk parlor to catch them and clip their collars to the milk rail before they decided to jump from the milk bench onto the floor, wall, door, etc in an attempt to flee. In truth, only three goats really took to the ramp: Wronny (a genius LaMancha), Xie Xie (a nitwit yearling who is very hungry), and Big Orange (Xie Xie's twin.) Boo, Scout, Bertie, Betsy, and Winnie would rather have spent eternity eating shards of broken glass than go up the ramp.

Anyway, after several curse-filled days, lots of threats and bribes and gallons of milk being kicked (in a bucket) across the new bench, the big girls learned to go up the ramp.

And now there is a new problem.

3. The New Problem: Everyone wants to go up the ramp at the same time. Worse, everyone sometimes succeeds in doing this, leading to a huge bottleneck of exceedingly fat goats (you know who you are) at the top of the ramp. So many goats that no one can fit through the hatch, even if it were possible to open it.

4. Conclusion.

In summary, it is very useful to have an understanding of problem theory if you are going to try to run a goat farm. The first thing that you must understand about problems is that problems are like pi or the speed of light - a constant. So that even if you can fix one problem, a new problem will arise in its place, leaving you with a zero sum.

But does this mean that you shouldn't bother trying to fix your problems? No indeed, because the underlying premise of successful farming is that one day you will have a better set of problems than you have today. And as it turns out, the farmer is very pleased with the new set of problems: 1) too much hay; 2) milkers too eager to obey.

Good problems. Nice Problems. Better Problems.

That'll Do

Two baby goats, herding a border collie.

Just Follow Me, Girls

Blue Umbrella and her son Rocky.

Blue Umbrella

Do you know this song? Blue Umbrella? People think it is a John Prine song, because he sings it, but like some of the best John Prine songs, it is actually a Steve Goodman song. We thought about it today because it is raining for the first time in what seems like months, a melancholy nostalgic summer rain that reminds us of a melancholy nostalgic song.

"Blue Umbrella, rest upon my shoulder,
hide the pain while the rain makes up my mind,"

And anyway, Blue Umbrella is my youngest daughter's name. She is a beautiful yearling milker, a blue roan broken buckskin with blue eyes. With all that natural blue, Blue Umbrella seemed like a good name.

Yesterday the farmer was trying to teach the big milkers how to use the new milk bench. They have to run up a ramp, then duck through a hatch, then run along the bench in the next room - elevated about three feet off the floor - until they get to the end. Then they get their grain, and they get milked.

The farmer went and got Winnie to try with. Since she is a LaMancha she is supposed to be smart. But she's not that smart - after all she let the farmer catch her when she should have known she was the subject of an experiment. Her sister Ronny took off running - that's the one the farmer should have guinea-pigged on, if you ask me.

But anyway, Winnie couldn't get with the program, no matter how the farmer shook the grain can and dangled peanut butter wafers. Winnie just stood and bawled. She wouldn't even put a foot on the ramp, except by accident, and then she leaped backward like a bee had stung her.

"Oh, forget it," the farmer said, and went to get Betsy. Betsy loves food, so she was very tempted, but she is part Nubian, so the whole thing was a little bit Flowers-for-Algernon. Betsy wanted to come up the ramp. She just didn't know how. She stood and bawled.

Her daughters out in the pasture joined in the bawling. Triplicate bawling, and no progress toward the milk bench.

The farmer was exasperated, and running short on time, so turned Betsy out. When the farmer wasn't looking, Blue Umbrella nipped in the out door.

"Whuh?" said the farmer, catching a glimpse of Blue Umbrella rushing past.

Blue made a sharp left, ran up the ramp, ducked under the hatchway, ran along to the end of the milkbench, and plunked her head in the feeder.

That's how it's done, fat girls. Watch and learn.

"Just give me one good reason
and I promise I won't ask you any more
Just give me one extra season
so I can figure out the other four."

Blue Umbrella.

The Getaway Goat

It is all well and good planning your big bank heist and drilling a hole through the wall and cracking the safe and getting all the money out. But if you can't make a clean getaway, then where are you? Up the creek, that's where.

This is yet another reason why my daughter Hannah Belle has earned the title of Smartest Goat of All Time. You have to be smart to figure out how to get to the grain around here any more. We used to live in a barn but now we live in a massive hay tunnel, with stacks of hay everywhere and a tiny little walkway leading to the hidden grain barrels.

It's like that every year in mid-summer when hundreds of bales come in from the field. So to get to the grain you have to first wiggle through, or over, the gate - which is locked with not one but two chains - navigate the hay tunnels, and then take the lid off the grain barrel.



Well, of course Hannah Belle knows how to do that, and she did it all the time when she was younger. And then she would get busted with her head in the barrel, and she would get a swat on the behind and a good yelling-at and possibly even a brief stint in goat jail. Aka the horse trailer.

Well, who needs that kind of grief. So Hannah Belle has now taken her game to the next level.

She waits patiently for the farmer to go inside. Then leaps, wiggles, and worms her way to the grain. She takes the lid off the drum and knocks it over so that a buffet of grain spills onto the barn floor. She eats what she wants - picking the corn out of the cob mix - listening with one ear cocked for the sound of approaching farmers.

When she hears the kitchen door open, she leaps, wiggles, and worms her way back out, runs to the back of the herd, turns her head away and pretends to be contemplating the meadow down below.

"Who did this?" yells the farmer, upon discovering the spilled grain and knocked-over barrel. Then comes and looks at us. Hannah Belle will be at the back of the pack, napping, or maybe chewing her cud (with her stomach sucked in so she doesn't look too fat.)

"Who did this?" the farmer yells again.

No answer.

"I know it was you, Hannah Belle," the farmer yells. Hannah Belle stretches sleepily.

"I know you did it."

Hannah Belle looks up in pretended surprise at the mention of her name.

'Oh really?' her expression says. "Prove it."

Peace Comes Dropping Slow

Well the farmer decided to just leave all the gates open instead of sorting us back to our designated areas. The reason for this is that it gives the FAT MILKERS access to EVEN MORE FOOD.

I am trying to put a subtle emphasis on a few keywords here and there in hopes that someone will notice the unfairness of the FAT MILKERS getting access to EVEN MORE FOOD.

The idea is that now they can go back to the never-ending pasture in the back during the day and eat the lush waist-high grass which is free rather than the newly purchased hay from the Longbranch pastures. But because they are DUMB as well as FAT, they will just sit around like blobs waiting for the newly purchased hay to be brought to them on a platter rather than go out and forage on the free hay. Unless we, the starving classes, show them how to do it.

So the farmer left all the gates open so they could come down into our pasture and we could show them the grass. Sad.

Well, to be fair, Boo and Scouty did go running for the grass at a suprisingly high rate of speed. For those two, any rate of speed is surprising, unless licorice or vanilla wafers are involved.

Anyway, we have been lolling around with the fat milkers for a few days now and wouldn't you know it the turf wars are over. Everyone got bored with them. Everyone agrees Brandy is the Queen. Everyone knows only milkers go on the milkstand. And so now there is peace, if not quiet, since the Nubians are always sighing or singing or snoring.

The Hay

It is time for The Hay.

So I was going to write a new ode to Hay.

But since the Hay is like Forever, I decided to just link to last year's Ode to Hay.

I used the extra time to start writing a song about The Hay. Here's the first verse:

You're in my blood like holy hay
Tastes so bitter and so sweet
Oh I could eat a bale of hay
And still
I would still be
on my feet

Luckily "feet" rhymes with "wheat," so I think I know where I will be going with the next verse, but right now I better take a nap. I get pretty tired watching sweaty red-faced people carry hay into the barn.

Bastille Day

I do not know what day it is where you are, but here it is Bastille Day.

We, the down-belows, led by my daughter Hannah Belle who is an expert at taking matters into her own hands, broke through the lower pasture gate and stampeded the hill and the big barn, taking the fat milkers by storm.

Yes, I said it, they are fat. It is because they get WAY TOO MUCH FOOD. The farmer LETS THEM EAT CAKE while we squabble over little crusts of bread!

Vive la Revolution! (or should it be 'le Revolution'?)




As soon as we stormed them a battle ensued that roiled and surged around the barn and then spilled over into the front pasture.

Even the babies got into the act, with Winnie, Jr. and Jaybird throwing down to see who would be King of the Babies.

Even Penrose awakened from her slumbers to join our fearless band.

Actually, Brandy is getting a little bit angry, so we may go back to our own pasture. Not because we are afraid, but because we prefer our humble peasant existence.

Thank you for your time, here comes the farmer, I must run.

The Basking Society

If you don't die first, some day you will get old. Some of our best friends are starting to show a little wear and tear. Marquee, who is the finest old goat gentleman you could ever hope to meet and the granddad of just about half the goats here, is starting to have some trouble getting around.

Not to mention his other problems, which are too personal to get into. But let's just say that it seems fairly doubtful he will have too many more kids, because the swimmers apparently fell off the lifeboat.

But that doesn't stop him from enjoying the sunshine. Once you are about ten years old, like Marquee, you really get the hang of basking.

And Spenny the border collie now has gray eyebrows and doesn't get all atwitter about fetching sticks any more. She leaves that to Wendell the Pest, who doesn't even really know how to do it. He understands the part about getting the stick, it's the part about bringing it back that has his little boston terrier brain puzzled.

So Spenny basks, too.

And let's not even talk about Tommy the appaloosa. He is the top hound of all the baskervilles, laying flat out like a giant pancake and soaking up all the rays in sight.

Oh well.

The Unbearable Hotness of Being

It is blazing hot today, just like a brick oven, with nothing but sun for miles. How I long for the marine layer, the chilly morning fog in the meadow, the delicious breeze from the West.

Lucky Marquee got a cool bath and a shavedown yesterday and he looks a fright but goodness I'm sure he's comfy. Laddy the nosy Tennessee Walker was following the farmer around like a puppy dog as usual and making it hard to feed everybody but when the farmer turned around and sprayed him with the hose, which usually makes him saunter off to bother someone else, he just stood there basking like a fat dolphin in the hose water.

It's hot. It's way too hot.

Why oh why did I ever get this fur coat?