The Welcome Wagon

Not much exciting happens here in the winter. Unless a tree blows down or a roof flies off or a coyote turns up in our pasture.

The winter is quite dull. Unless we get a new girl.

Last year we got Moldy the simperer.

This year Gracie is here. Gracie is not really a new girl. She was born here. She is a great-granddaughter of Marty our favorite Nubian but she is mostly LaMancha so she has improved intelligence, which is nice for her because she can find the barn by herself.

She went to live with a new family and only comes back to visit the buck during breeding season. That only happens once a year so almost everyone has forgotten her by the time she comes back. She should wear a red suit like Santa maybe that would help.

In this video she is only wearing a purple collar while everyone extends a friendly New Girl welcome to her.

Snow Day

They said it would be nice and sunny today and don't worry about snow, go about your business, go out and eat some brambles if you feel like it, but send your farmer to get extra peanuts because maybe it would snow tomorrow. So I won't even bother to tell you what is happening right now because you know what is happening.

Fool Me Once

The farmer came down and strolled around the down-below pasture.

Everyone followed the farmer as a courtesy for a few minutes. Then since the farmer had no food we went back to more important matters. Except Moldy who continued doggedly.

The farmer looked at the apple trees that had fallen over in the storm. The wood was partly cut and stacked.

"This will make a nice flavor in the pizza oven," the farmer commented to Moldy.

Then the farmer strolled a little closer to the cabana.

"Look here, Moldy," said the farmer, "this is where the morels grow in the spring."

Moldy simpered in acknowledgement.

Then the farmer strolled over to the cabana where I was lounging with Izzy and Ringo.

The farmer sat down on one of the rickety cabana benches and looked up at the sky in a slow-witted musing way. "Pizza Mit Pilz und Ziegenkase," the farmer murmured in astonishment.

Penrose and Joy and Winjay and Moldy and Abby and Brandy looked up at the sky to see what the farmer was looking at.

Izzy dived under the feeder.

The farmer looked over with a sigh at Izzy huddled just beyond arm's reach, chewing her cud shrewdly and giving the farmer a very frank stare.

"I will see you tomorrow, little lady," the farmer said, and got up from the cabana.

Izzy did not say anything but I knew what she was thinking.

Not if I see you first.

Izzy, One: Farmer, Zero

Izzy went on Friendlies.

This is where they carry you up to the barn and put you on mind control to improve your friendliness. It is very unusual for Friendlies to be required in the Baby Belle family. It only makes sense to be friendly. You can't get peanuts from across the room.

The mind control involves you not getting any food unless you eat it from the farmer's hand. If you eat from the farmer's hand you get a lot of nice food and treats. If you don't eat from the farmer's hand you don't eat.

The farmer took Izzy and put her in a stall alone while all the bottle babies were out browsing. A little while later the farmer came and sat in a chair in the middle of the stall ignoring Izzy and reading a book about how to build a brick pizza oven. Izzy ran around and around the stall trying to get away from the farmer.

Unlike a Nubian she realized after two trips that since the stall was 10 foot square and the farmer was in the middle, she couldn't get any further away than five feet. So after two trips she stopped running and backed into a corner and stared at the farmer balefully.

After one chapter the farmer got up and went away.

The farmer came back with Moldy a couple of hours later. Moldy follows the farmer like flypaper. "Oh Moldy, would you like some treats?" said the farmer, and fed Moldy some grain. Moldy gobbled it greedily, simpering at Izzy from across the stall.

"Oh, Izzy," said the farmer, "would you like some grain?"

Izzy turned her back.

"I see," said the farmer, and left with Moldy.

A little while later the farmer came back and picked up the book again and said, "refractory brick," looking up at the ceiling in a slow-witted musing way. Izzy looked up too, puzzled, and the farmer abruptly caught Izzy with lightning speed and sat with Izzy in the chair, petting her.

Izzy was stiff as a board and mad as a hornet.

The farmer took out a peanut and inserted it manually into Izzy's mouth. Izzy spat it out onto the floor.

The farmer took another peanut and shoved it into Izzy's mouth and held her mouth closed for a minute so she could taste it. The farmer let go and Izzy spat the peanut out and it bounced off the stall door and plonked into the water bucket. Izzy loves peanuts.

"I see," said the farmer and got up to leave.

Two can play at any game and this time when the farmer opened the door Izzy made a bold broken field run to daylight in the style of Walter Payton and before the farmer could say "I see" she was out of the barn and through the panel gate and down the pasture and through that little wedge between the railroad tie and the down-below gate and that was that.

The farmer came down later and looked at Izzy through the fence and said, "I will see you tomorrow little lady."

Izzy pretended not to notice and did not say anything but I know what she was thinking.

Tomorrow. Who cares about tomorrow. This is today.

Izzy Goes on Friendlies

The farmer came down and took my daughter Izzy just like that.

Izzy is very very tiny and the farmer wanted to examine her. Also the farmer thought Izzy was getting unfriendly because she hadn't been put on friendlies for several reasons. For one she was born at the end of the year and this is just like people who have a lot of children and the first few have to go without cake and bicycles and they have to mow the lawn and wash the dishes and learn some manners and so on and the last few dine exclusively on Belgian chocolates flown in from Brussels and they run completely wild. Simply because the parents are too tired and worn out to resist. All the parents can do is say, "now, now."

Or sometimes they will say mildly, "put that down. I mean it, now." That is all they can muster.

Anyway everyone was too tired and worn out to put Izzy and Ringo on friendlies so they were a little bit enfants sauvages as they say in France. They did as they pleased. And they were very tiny.

And being Baby Belles they were hard to catch in a fair fight and so that is why the farmer came down without advance warning and blundered about in a typical fashion pretending not to notice anything and then grabbed Izzy with lightning speed. If it had been Cherry's daughter Bing or Mel's daughter Elbe I would have said, "touche! Nicely done!"

But under the circumstances I cried foul and so did Izzy but not to any avail, she was trundled off to the barn to be put on friendlies.

If you don't know what friendlies is I will explain it tomorrow.

The Years Ahead

It is New Year's Eve. Or it was three days ago. That is the time for making prompt resolutions. Or do them a few days later if you forget.

Where we are it is very cold. Maybe it is the same by you or maybe you live in Australia. I don't know. I can only go by the way things are here. But this is true everywhere, so it doesn't really matter.

If you want to make a change, you have to start in your little corner of the world.

In my little corner of the world I am going to make some changes.

1. I am going to have more fun and eat more.

2. I am going to try to be more patient with animals of low intelligence (Nubians and Nubian crosses, bucks, boston terriers, farmers.) I have made a mental note, for example, that yelling does not cause the farmer to move any faster.

3. (related to 2) It has been proven that farmers get slower with each passing year, and this is just something you have to accept. I do not expect the farmer to speed up any and I must try to remain encouraging. Note to self: Brandy is very good at this, she still thinks the farmer is her baby, and just yesterday she was murmuring unwarranted enthusiasms. "Just look at you! You got your boots on after all! See!" Etc.

4. Sometimes other animals do not understand what you are saying. This is true everywhere. You must try to speak more plainly and not head butt them. (related to 3 and 2)

5. Try to get more candy and peanuts somehow. The candy and peanuts have slowed to a trickle. Cookies are nonexistent. May need to contact outside sources. (related to 1.)

6. Look to the years ahead. I don't know what this means but it is on an old John Deere plaque we have in our barn, so it must mean something. Follow my example, and look to the years ahead. We can't do anything about the years behind, anyway.

Shepherds Quake, Obviously

Merry Christmas from Herron Hill Dairy. Home of Baby Belle.

Dogs Can Be So Helpful

Sometimes. Like here, or here. Does Wendell ever do anything like this? No, he is a pest. But Spenny always opens the shower door and steps discreetly inside if she has to take a leak and no one is home to let her out. Now that's helpful.

Rain Rain Go Away

We only got about five inches of rain during the Atmospheric River. No big deal. We have never seen Lost Beaver Lake so high though, and now it is pouring again when they promised the rain was over. Obviously it hurts one's feelings even if one is only mildly flooded. Expressions of concern and sympathy, in the form of ginger snaps or licorice, can be sent to the following address:
Million Belles
c/o Herron Hill Dairy
Home, Wa.
Please put a little note: to be opened by addressee only and not any of addressee's so-called friends.
Thanks.

Dive! Dive! Dive!

The weather people I guess got a new boss or something because they have changed the name of the thing they used to call "The Pineapple Express." Maybe that sounded too jolly, like there would be music and grass skirts (yum) and hula dancing instead of torrential downpours and water up to your neck.

Speaking of grass skirts (yum) Maddy (The Sheriff of Crazy Town) is in trouble for eating a broom. She has a long neck and she just reached over the stall wall and helped herself. It was hanging on a hook on the wall, which was a strategic error. She only ate the bottom sweeping part but still she got the riot act like she even cares. I wouldn't eat a broom myself unless it was made of wheat straw.

Anyway I got off track. "The Pineapple Express" is coming in a couple of hours. Only now it is called an "Atmospheric River." We are battening. Or actually, we are watching the farmer batten. The last time we had a big "Atmospheric River" we got nine inches of rain. Around here, since we are on a hill, once you get to three or four inches it really doesn't matter any more.

So that's what's happening. Not news, really, it happens every year. But we all look forward to the day when "The Pineapple Express" aka "The Atmospheric River" will be called "A Ton of Third Cutting Dairy Alfalfa from Eastern Oregon" or "All the Field Peas You Can Eat" or even "A Big Bag of Black Licorice."

I am practicing for that sweet day with some vocal exercises.

"A Big Bag of Black Licorice" is coming! Hold on to your beards!

No Telling

It is breeding season and various ladies from around the Peninsula have been coming to visit the gentlemen here if that is what you like to call them.

The gentlemen are all big and smelly, except for Jackie. He is little and smelly. Really you have to tie a handkerchief around your nose and mouth if you want to go anywhere near them. I avoid them like the plague. Drive-through buck service is definitely the way to go.

But when the ladies come into heat they start bawling and flagging their tails and this causes their brains to shut off. When it happened to me, I could not even remember my name. So they don't seem to notice anything amiss in the Old Spice department. Then again, at this time of year, there is no telling what may happen.

Our old friend Gracie had gone into heat, she was bawling and flagging which is the universal sign of the cerebral cortex having shut down, and she came back to visit. At first she seemed halfway inclined to meet Junior. Junior was all for it and he came thundering out like a boxcar full of dead fish.

But then Gracie got a sudden blank look and sat right down on the ground. Not really, her expression said. I don't think so.

Gracie's owner Mo worried Gracie might have broken her leg or something but no, she was just putting the kibosh on Junior. Oh well, there's no telling.

Off she went to see if she liked Jackie any better. Once again, he was all for it. Gracie headed him around the stall like a little soccer ball.

Not really, her expression said. I don't think so.

Oh well, said the farmer, there's just no telling, she can stay overnight with Cowboy and see what happens. Gracie stayed overnight and when the farmer came out in the morning she and Cowboy were sleeping in opposite corners of the stall, each pretending the other was invisible.

Not really, Gracie's expression said. I don't think so, said Cowboy's.

The farmer told Gracie's owner that it didn't seem like Grace was really in the mood, so it was probably no use staying any longer. So they came and got her.

When she got home she went and stood by the fence line, bawling and flagging her tail.

Oh well. This time of year, there's just no telling.

Harmony and the Polar Express

Q: Can't We All Just Get Along?

A: Yes, if it is cold enough.

Around here we are used to the Pineapple Express. It comes in the winter from Hawaii, dumping gallons and gallons of rain and bringing a clammy unseasonable warmth, sometimes even 60 degrees in January. Occasionally during the Pineapple Express a bunch of flies will wake up, thinking it is April, and flutter around groggily until the Express blows out of town.

We are not used to the Polar Express. Last night was an all-time record low of 8 degrees here, making Monday's 30 degree snowstorm a pleasant memory.

After the snow the sky cleared ominously, north to south, turning a bright bitter blue and bringing in the Arctic wind from Canada. That is not how we like it here. We like our wind from the West, even if it means the Pineapple Express. That is what we are set up for.

The farmer has been stamping around babysitting the pipes with wraps and heaters and every tap turned to dripping and half the time on bended knee praying to the God of Plumbing: dear Lord, please help the pipes and keep them whole in their hour of need amen dear Lord.

As far as us goats the farmer does not seem too concerned, although Izzy did get rescued and plunked into the Nigerian refugee stall with the rest of us.

That's ok because we have our own system. When it is 50 degrees or 40 degrees or 30 degrees we keep to our usual hierarchy. When it is 20 we start to make exceptions: for example the night before last we allowed Cherry's daughter Bing to sleep in our pile even though she is only half Nigerian.

When it got down to 10, we abandoned the hierarchy completely. All the goats from the snow-filled cabana piled into the barn together into a single heap. Pinky, Jr. (the lamb) was lying by Brandy (the lion); Wronny pretended not to notice that Jimmy and Jimmy Jr. were invading her space; Winnie turned a blind eye to the appearance of Betsy, whom she normally cannot tolerate.

Meanwhile one of our flickers fell out of a tree, stone cold dead and frozen solid. So sorry, little flicker, best to travel with a herd during the Polar Express.

By midnight last night Penrose, being a Swiss goat, had to get up and move closer to the door - she was getting too hot in the pile. "Excuse me, won't you," she asked politely as she tiptoed to a new spot, taking care not to step on anyone and freeing up a heat pocket in the middle for Xie Xie to roll into.

Sometimes, we are the world.

Snow Day

A lot has been happening so we have not been able to post the information about the new Sheriff of Crazytown. But don't worry it is coming.

Right now there are a couple of inches of snow on the ground and the snow is still coming thick and fast.

Well that's fine, who cares, I have my winter coat on, except last week a big windstorm came and blew the roof off the buck shed and part of the roof off our cabana. So no one wants to go inside the cabana, since it doesn't really have that "inside" feeling since there is an inch of snow inside most of it. The farmer couldn't get the sheds fixed in time with one thing and another so the big bucks moved to the baby buck shed and the baby bucks moved to the big barn, and the farmer relented and let a bunch of Nigerian refugees into the barn instead of cramming into a tiny corner of the cabana where there is no snow.

I got to go to the barn and my mother Belle Pepper and Hannah Belle and Big Orange somehow snuck in with us, I guess because she is the mayor she can go where she wants, and Betty and Iota (Pawprint) and Ringo.

Since the baby bucks are in the barn with their buckly aroma pervading every corner everyone who was thinking about coming into heat came into heat all together creating an ungodly din of Nubianesque screaming even though we do not have any fullblood Nubians any more. You cannot hear yourself think, which isn't usually a problem but today all of a sudden in a quiet patch I heard myself thinking and I was thinking, "where is Izzy?"

Izzy is my daughter and she was trapped out in the snow with no mother or brother to cuddle with and so I started screaming and the farmer said "oh Millie are you coming into heat?"

And I screamed "NO! MY LITTLE TINY DAUGHTER IS TRAPPED IN THE SNOW ALONE!"

The farmer doddered off to go get some hot chocolate so I continued screaming and Ringo joined in with me but we were a poor second to the overheated Valkyries.

Occasionally from deep down inside the snow-filled cabana we would hear Izzy peeping forlornly and we would also hear Pinky calling like a foghorn, probably to one of her imaginary friends. And now and then Penrose would shout, "Why me?"

Eo suffered in silence as usual, with her eyes narrowed, plotting her revenge on the cruel world.

Meet the Mayor

Elections are very expensive so it has been decided that Big Orange will stay on as Mayor of Crazy Town, even though she is not really qualified any more. That has never stopped anyone else.

But don't worry, there will be a new Sheriff, and she is overqualified, so that should make up for it.

Tomorrow, you can meet the Sheriff.

Wendell's Traveling Dime Store

If you look at our dog Wendell you might not think much, he just looks like a boston bulldog, plain black and white with four paws and a round head like a little pumpkin. But inside that pumpkin there must be pages and pages of the Sears catalog or something because Wendell loves to bring things home from faraway places.

This happens when he gets under the fence and goes snuffling around the neighborhood, which is strictly forbidden so it only happens roughly three or four times a day.

Here are some of the items Wendell has brought back from his travels: stuffed animals (several regular teddy bears and a duck wearing shorts and suspenders and a little cap), hand tools, unmentionables, a slice of pepperoni pizza (still warm), a plastic Godzilla one foot tall, a carburetor, 10,000 balls (tennis, golf, and other sports), a new pair of socks (tag still on it).

Those are just some things. We don't have room to list everything. It is possible he is running some type of backwoods delivery service. We just don't know.

Anyway you might think a dog that has the nerve to snatch a slice of pizza that is still warm or a carburetor which somebody almost certainly needs, probably a large person with muscular forearms, you might think a dog like that would be very brave.

But that is not the case.

Yesterday Wendell was sitting in the living room and he started shaking and shaking uncontrollably, which is what he does when he is in the grip of a terrible fear. The farmer looked out the window from whence the horror came and there was a deer in the yard. More of a fawn, really.

And last week Wendell was in the barn and the farmer shooed him out but he wouldn't go which is a serious violation. "Get out, Wendell!" the farmer yelled, but Wendell just sat there shaking and shaking like the end was near. The farmer looked out and the tuxedo cat from next door was strolling through the garden. Wendell was pop-eyed with terror.

So you might think that a little dog afraid of a tuxedo cat and a fawn must be a terrible coward. But consider the case of Wendell and B.D., in which Wendell routed a bold, gigantic coyote.

So maybe he is both, a terrible coward with the heart of a lion and the guts of a burglar. And a traveling dime store all his own.

Fairies in the Kitchen

The Million-Dollar Babies

The Jammies Family is rather sickening because they always get a lot of attention in fact when the farmer sees them the farmer always says "oh Jammies, I love you, Jammies." Or, "oh, Bumbles, I love you, Bumbles." Not like Tangy for example where the farmer always says, "Tangy, get OFF!" or Maddy where the farmer says, "Will you PLEASE be quiet," or Jimmy, Jr where the farmer says, "JIMMY! Do not make me come and get you!" or Hannah Belle where the farmer simply bellows, "HANNAH BELLE LECTER!"

No with Jammies the perfect mini-Mancha and Bumbles the overstuffed doeling it is always Jammies I love you Jammies and Bumbles I love you Bumbles.

In this photo they take their adorableness to a new level by lounging in the pasture on one of our probably last sunny days. Bumbles, Jammies' daughter, demonstrates just how fat you can get by drinking mini-mancha milk, especially if you are an only child and your mother is Jammies the candy goat.

Jammies is bred to our cousin Pepe, Betty's blue-eyed son, and somebody already asked if the babies would be for sale and the farmer said, yes, they would be available for one million dollars each, two million if they have perfect mini-Mancha ears like Jammies.

The S hocking Truth

Our farmer has been buying all kinds of fence chargers and they don't work like the old Sears fence charger that was built in 1974 and zapped like a charm until it finally gave out last spring. They don't make the parts for it any more so it went to the scrap heap. Since then there has been a Gallagher (PowerPlus! Good for 60 acres!) that wouldn't shock a flea, a Farmtek that would make you say "I think I feel something! There! That's it, isn't it?" And a Saaco that had enough juice to light the flashing light indicating that it was working correctly but not enough power to actually produce any shock at all of any kind.

Every time the farmer would go back to a different farm store and the farm clerk would explain why the fence charger didn't work, it was all because the farmer hadn't hooked it up right and all the voltage and amperage was flowing counterclockwise down the drain as if it were in the Southern Hemisphere where they have Christmas in July which would mean that it needed a better ground, with a minimum of 75 30-foot-long copper poles from NASA to work correctly.

"Oh really," the farmer would say. "Well how come the old one worked for 35 years with no problem?"

"Well," the farm clerk would say, and make a little French touche gesture, "they don't make them like they used to."

After the last episode the farmer said, "that's it," in complete disgust and now we have a charger that is rated to completely encircle Rhode Island three times. It is enough to hold Laddy and will probably hold Tommy. Willen will stay if the other two aren't going anywhere. Anyway, if you find an old Sears fence charger at a yard sale anywhere, please email us immediately.

In other farm news something far more shocking has happened to Big Orange. Big Orange used to be a high-kicking bucket-launcher. She was the bane of the milkroom. She was considered the Mayor of Crazy Town until the farmer started working in the city and the neighbor farmer started coming over to milk Big Orange. Somehow the neighbor turned Big Orange into an almost normal milker. So Crazy Town will need a new Mayor.

Luckily there are several deputy mayors waiting in the wings to take office.

Big Orange's granddaughter Pinky has been started in the milkroom even though she is not a milker just to keep her off the ballot.

In this photo she stuffs her face while Jimmy Jr., Jimmy's wether son, wanders mistakenly into the milkroom. No wethers allowed, Jimmy. Beat it.

The Cruel Twist

They had the Harvest Festival Farm Tour last weekend. This is where people go around our Peninsula looking at pumpkins and chickens. They track mud everywhere and park in the ditches.

The farmer came out to see if anyone might like to go and represent the goat kingdom at the neighbor's farm, which was on the tour. There was a big stampede out the back of the barn, led by everyone. Not even Tangy wanted to represent the goat kingdom.

"That is ok," said the farmer bitterly. "We don't need any of you. We have two nice goats from Minter Bay going."

And the farmer went off to help the farmer from Minter Bay who was bringing the two goats who had volunteered to represent the goat kingdom to the public. Only as usual the farmer forgot almost everything except one folding chair, so the farmer from Minter Bay who had gone to all the trouble of bringing the two "volunteer" goats also had to sit on a tiny postage-stamp sized chair that looked like something a hummingbird might perch on. That was while our farmer lounged on a full-sized comfy chair, not even looking apologetic.

Anyway the two volunteers were Filbert, Hannah Belle's son who has become a goat celebrity from last year's Harvest Fest where he got his picture on the front page of the paper. And George, aka Curious George, one of Alice's mini-mancha triplets from this summer. George is a baby and he put on a show of shivering and whimpering while Filbert chewed his cud in a blase fashion.

Filbert is known as a professional goat.

Anyway the public started coming and it turned out in a cruel twist of fate that Filbert once again was the Candy Goat. This means he was wearing a little pack and the pack was filled with candy. Good candy, like tiny Milky Way bars. Not sourballs wrapped in plastic and petrified candy corn.

So this made Filbert extremely popular. "Why don't you take a look and see what he has in his pack," the farmer from Minter Bay would say to the children, and they would look in the pack and give a little gasp of delight.

The people who owned the farm were selling animal treats for a quarter. So all the children had little sacks filled with peanuts and cracked corn and carrot slices. And they would all give Filbert something in exchange for their Milky Ways, so he had an excellent racket going, and spent most of the day licking his lips. That part was not the cruel twist.

The cruel twist was George, shivering and whimpering. He was the Trash Goat.

"Now don't forget," the farmer from Minter Bay would say. "When you finish your candy, put the wrapper in George's pack. He is the trash goat."

That is why I don't volunteer for any of these expeditions. Because even though I know someone gets to be the Candy Goat, I know there will also be somebody who gets to be the Trash Goat. And that is all the incentive I need to stay home.

LaMancha or Bedbug?

This is a picture of Maddy. She looks fairly normal but unfortunately she is crazy.