Monthly Archives: November 2014

It’s stinky bucky time!

Here’s an update on the boys. At five months old Snickers weighs in at just over 80 lbs. He’s not as heavy or muscular as Finn, but he’s at least as tall if not taller. He’s a long, leggy type goat and he has really nice hooves.

I’ve recently taken to calling him “Fu Manchu” because of his funny face markings.

Sputnik learned to jump on the igloo on command today. I’d just point to it and he would hop up there to get a cookie.

Look at the above photo just a little bit closer. What a little goofball!

I tried to stand all my boys up for posed photos, but no one wanted to cooperate.

Sputnik was the best of the bunch. Here he is standing nice and square for the camera. (Snickers and Finn, take lessons.)

Snickers weighed in at just under 75 lbs. He’s still the smallest of the bunch but he’s got nice proportions and he’s the most fun to play with because he’s the least bucky of the three. He’s the only one without a sticky yellow face right now, and I can still reasonably “shake hands” with him without totally defiling my fingers.

Today we worked on his “lie down” command. He goes right down on his knees with just a touch, but he doesn’t want to drop his back end and he tends to panic if I force it down like I do with the others. I usually end up pulling one of his hind legs out from under him and lowering him down, which he seems to tolerate well for some reason. Today he did something funny when he was down, though. He likes to lean on me when he’s lying down, and today I thought I’d stand up and see if I could get him to stay down. As I eased my knee out from under him, he slowly fell over onto his side and ended up flat out on the ground where he lay without moving. He did this twice. I had to roll him back up on his chest and fold his knees back under him, at which point he jumped up and ran away. He’s a funny little character.

Finn is almost too big for the stanchion now. It’s not that he’s too tall or long, it’s that his neck is too thick! He’s nearly six months old and weighs between 85-90 lbs. He hasn’t grown very much since the rut started, and my pudgy little guy is quite trim and muscular now. I can feel his ribs when I rub his sides. Two months ago I wasn’t sure if he had any, the little blubber ball!

He’s as sweet and friendly as ever and he constantly wants to cuddle up to me and rub that sticky yellow face all over me. Unfortunately, these days he’s about as un-cuddly an animal as anyone could hope to meet!

Today Finn learned a new trick! I taught him to stand on my milking stool and spin a circle. It’s difficult now that he’s so big, but he’s a very willing and attentive pupil. He’s probably not *quite* as smart as Sputnik, but he’s less hyper so sometimes Finn learns stuff faster simply because he pays better attention.

Can you beat this pose? I was trying to stand him up nicely for the camera and boy did he stand! He also generously annointed me and everything else within a three-foot radius. What he had observed (and I had not) was that Petunia had sauntered casually around the corner about 30 feet away.

Uninvited guests get uninvited guests

One afternoon last spring I heard Daisy barking so I peeked out the window to see what she was excited about. A white station wagon was slowly crawling up the driveway with a neatly dressed couple inside. Only Jehovah Witnesses dress in their Sunday best on a weekday and come calling at your house uninvited. I had just made up my mind to pretend not to be home when I saw the car come to a halt. Daisy was standing in the middle of the driveway barking her head off and wouldn’t move. The car sat there undecidedly for a few minutes before slowly backing up and turning around. Daisy was triumphant and I was relieved.

Our victory was short-lived however. A few days later I heard Daisy barking again and this time a large flatbed truck was trundling up the drive. The JW’s were back, and this time they’d sent the ranch division. These guys weren’t nervous about barking farm dogs. The truck pulled up to the house and a big man with a cowboy hat stepped out of the driver’s seat while a smaller man in a suit and tie with a Bible under his arm stepped out of the other. They had already seen me before they got to the house so it was no use hiding.

I went out to greet the two men on the porch and they started giving me their spiel. I wasn’t really listening because I was watching the scene unfold behind their backs. A strange truck in the driveway had not gone unnoticed by my five goats who had been grazing in the field moments before. They all came up to inspect the unfamiliar vehicle and add a few nose prints and hoof marks. And when Mr. Cowboy asked me if I believed in Jesus, my response was, “Did you know there’s a goat in your truck?”

The guy whipped around to see Pac-Man crawling around in the cab of his truck with Nubbin right behind him. He had left the driver door standing open and naturally it was the first thing the goats discovered. At first he acted like he didn’t care. “Oh, it’s a farm truck, they can’t hurt it.”

“Maybe not,” I replied, “but are you sure you don’t need the upholstery, because it’ll be gone in five minutes. And you might not care to sit in whatever Pac-Man is leaving there on the seat.”

With that statement, he bolted off the porch and with a little handy maneuvering he managed to get the goats out of the vehicle before any damage was done. He closed the door and tried to come back to the subject of my salvation, but the moment was lost and it wasn’t long before the two fellows bowed out with as much dignity as they could still muster. They could tell I was having a hard time keeping a straight face. No one comes to our place and leaves a car door open. No one.

Halloween goats on parade!

My goats are grounded at home due to a vesicular stomatitis quarantine. The horses got sick, not the goats, but for some reason the goats have to stay home too. It meant that all our Halloween festivities had to remain on home territory. Bummer. Fortunately, we have enough goats and enough costumes that we were able to stage our own private goat Halloween party!

First, Cuzco as Mr. T! His one horn is perfect for fashioning into a mohawk!

Mr. T as B.A. (“Bad Attitude”) Baracus and the A-Team van!

The wind kicked up and the A-Team van kind of took flight. Cuzco looked more like a black peacock when that happened.

Nubbin the Viking princess.

Pac-Man the pimp.

Lilly the girl about town (and boy has she ever been living up to that description lately–I had to retrieve her from the neighbor’s goat pen again today!).

“El Pollo Diablo” Petunia.

Delilah the Spanish beauty.