Musings

Katy's last post about Special caused me to reflect on what we've created in him. It seems he has taken his name to heart and has decided that the rules don't apply to him. He's so cute it's hard to get after him, but he insists on crawling through the fence and coming to visit his humans. Sometimes Temerity will follow and, less frequently, Faun will as well. But the little runt, the one who seemed to suffer so many setbacks, has become the ringleader in the great escape. We're trying to get Eppie to herd them back into the corral but she's a little unclear on the concept. At times we can coerce her to bark OR run in the general direction of the fence but for some reason she just doesn't get the fact that she's supposed to be barking AND running, AT the goats. Sometimes she acts as if she doesn't even hear us and wanders off. We're thinking the time may have come for an electric fence. If they would just stick to eating grass and leave the lilacs, roses, and apple tree alone...

Speaking of Eppie, she's found a new hobby - exhuming chicken guts. Yes, this is truly disgusting and we've tried to bury them as deep as possible and barricade their interment site. Eppie, who can't understand us when we try to convince her to fulfill her destiny in life (herding), has become a voracious gourmet. The catch-22 of all this is we can't let her in the house because she's rather...aromatic? And we can't put her outside because she immediately heads to the burial ground and (literally) digs in. I can only hope that they decompose quickly.

So Katy and Billy have been butchering chickens. Thankfully, I've been given the task of minding Sam during the proceedings so I'm spared participating in the gruesome act. We've decided not to raise roasters again, so after this batch is processed we'll do them one at a time as we put chicken on the menu. We cooked the first one the other night, marinated in tequila, lime, onion, and green chiles, and grilled. Although it was a little weird to think it had recently been running around the yard, I tried to put it out of my mind and focus on the fact that it was very tasty and very tender. As this is the life we've chosen, I'd better get over the squeamishness.

Peace has a boyfriend - a darling little buck named Samson who we borrowed from the Buzzells. As far as we can tell they're still trying to figure out why they've been put together in this little pen and what they're supposed to be doing, but we're hoping that she will get pregnant and that it will calm her down a little. I know it seems like a longshot but perhaps being a matron and mother will temper her somewhat. And we can only hope that her kids get Samson's personality genes. I wouldn't mind if they got Peace's looks, however, since she is quite a beauty. With luck we'll have some more kids in January!