Goaty Goodness

Goaty Goodness

Dreams of Goaty Goodness

Spring is around the corner and Goaty Goodness is afoot. I can feel it. My kids are out there somewhere.

El Diablo has in his head that we’re getting a pygmy goat. It’s so cute how he comes up with these wild ideas. He thinks a pygmy will be “less trouble.” He came to this conclusion after listening to tales told one wintery eve by a fellow traveler who had bought goats during what she described as a mid-life crisis. In an attempt to dissuade me from following in her missteps, she told a succession of horror stories about her experiences with her goats. The moral of her story was: get sheep, not goats, because sheep are a lot less trouble.

While I would consider sheep in addition to goats, I can’t consider them a replacement.  A mid-life goat crisis is not something that can be lived vicariously.  I want to have my own.  There is no substitute for Goaty Goodness.

So, I’ve been reading up on goats lately trying to figure out which kind would be the best addition to the farm.  I keep coming back to Angora goats. I have an elaborate fantasy of sitting at the spindle and spinning their fur into mohair yarn to dye and knit.  Yeah, I know someone has been watching too much Once Upon a Time lately. You can call me Briar Rose. If you’re going to dream, dream big.

Operation Panda Rescue

In other news, Moon Pie is a freakin’ genius.  We have been playing a fun new game in which her favorite toy, Panda, is in peril and only she can rescue it. It took her five trials to figure out how to break Panda out of jail.  I’ve posted two videos (Trial 2 and Trial 5) of her training below. Trial 2 was an unsuccessful attempt to get Panda free, but it features her stealthy army crawl technique.

 

 

Trial 5 demonstrates her brilliance and bravery. Mission accomplished!

 

The Duck Report

The baby ducks are going through an awkward phase.  They are growing all long necked and legged, but they are still too short to scale the pool walls on their own.  So yesterday as I was changing their water I had this bright idea: Wouldn’t it be great fun to catch a baby duck and let it go for a swim?

“Fun” is not quite the right word to describe what happened next. Baby ducks run remarkably fast for having such little legs.  After chasing ducks all over the pen for a good five minutes, I finally managed to catch Mistletoes.  Mistletoes went from cute little peep-peep-peeps to frantic cries of “PEEP! PEEP! PEEP! PEEP!”

And that’s when P. Recious Rainbow Queen Mother stopped running away and went all “momma bear” on me.

She came barreling at me with lightning in her eyes and malice in her squawking.  I guess she called on her pterodactyl ancestry because she somehow transformed herself into a huge winged monster.  I stood deer-in-the-headlights frozen by the sight of her as she grabbed a hold of my boot with her ferocious bill and viciously yanked at it.  All the while she was flapping and hissing. I was screaming and flailing. Baby duck was PEEP! PEEP! PEEPing.

Moo-moo was out the outside of the pen, going crazy.  All of our Panda Rescue Missions had been leading up to this moment.  She went barking up a storm, lunging at the pen in an effort to save me from my attacker.

In trying times you learn who has your back…and who does not. While all this was going on, El Diablo was standing outside the pen laughing and fumbling for his iPhone in an effort to video the spectacle. (This is exactly the sort of behavior that earned him the name “The Devil.”) Lucky for me, he didn’t have his phone on him.

Mistletoes did not get to swim in the pool.  He was returned to Moma Duck and I got the hell out of there.  Getting your ass handed to you by a duck is a humbling experience.