Trick-or-Treat!

Happy Halloween from Em and Ellie (who chose their costumes to commemorate the 75th anniversary of our favorite classic film).

Elliot: I've been clicking my hooves together all day, Lion, but I still can't get us back to that delicious poppy field!

Emerson: Courage? Who needs it? If I ever meet The Great and Powerful Oz, my only wish is to get out of this hideous furry suit! She won't show this picture to anyone, will she?

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A friend told me about a psychological research study which proved that animals become annoyed when their owners dress them up in costumes. (Yes, is anyone else wondering who was stupid enough to fund that project?? And how it was actually published??) I admit it - while I find these photos quite amusing, my goats do not enjoy this activity. Considering that these were the third outfits we tried on, and Elliot became so entangled in his dress that we had to cut it off with scissors, "annoyed" seems a mild description here. I can sympathize with how they feel, having experienced annoyance myself...like when someone ate my strawberry plants, gored a hole in the screen door and left a trail of poop all over the deck. (That was today.) I am often annoyed by pets who escape from their pen and run off down the driveway, or refuse to drink the hot vinegar water I haul outside on chilly nights. Goats, you owe this to me. 

Several years ago, we took a vacation to the ocean with four other families, all in one house. As an avid scrapbooker, my primary goal was to take one terrific group photo of all sixteen kids on the beach together. Too busy building drizzle castles, riding waves and chasing their cousins through the sand, the kids would not cooperate with my efforts to pose them in a line. That's when I lost it, and in a moment which likely still haunts some of the younger children, I began screaming at them.

(ANGRY AUNT VOICE): "I've spent two weeks packing for this trip; I got up at four in the morning to drive seven hours here; I'm sharing a bathroom with nine other people and tonight I'm cooking dinner for twenty-six on three hours of sleep and if you kids don't get over here right now I swear I'll put a pound of sand in the meatloaf and maybe some jellyfish too! NOW LINE UP BY AGE - AND SMILE!!!"

Now I know better. I should have just bribed all the kids with animal crackers!

Narrow Misses

Recently we visited my niece - a lovely young girl, college graduate, newlywed and kindergarten teacher - in what will be my first, and probably last, visit to her new home. I admired the kitchen, the skylight, the hardwood floors...all the way to the basement where she proudly introduced us to her pets - a myriad of aquatic, amphibious and reptilian creatures stacked in cages and tanks - including three stingrays and nine snakes (both the venomous and the squeeze-you-to-death variety). It was a very brief visit.

Snakes, really? Why not a kitten or a goldfish? Even goats have their hazards, but at least they won't slither up the bedpost in the night and swallow you whole! The worst I've had to contend with is being head-butted, kicked, knocked over, slammed into the gate, pooped on, exposed to infectious parasites and punctured with razor-sharp hoof trimmers...oh, and last weekend I was almost run over by a combine.

(For those non-rural readers, that's COM.bine with the emphasis on the first syllable, as in a motorized agricultural vehicle used to harvest crops and approximately the size of a small house.)

I had taken Em and Ellie out to graze in what we call "The Delicious Field," a weedy area at the edge of our property which borders a cornfield. While they filled their bellies, I perched on a green plastic chair at the edge of the tall corn, soon absorbed in my book. (Anyone else read the Game of Thrones series? Goats? What goats?) It was Emerson butting my leg and a vague awareness of a honking noise that drew me from the fantasy world of Chapter 5 - what's wrong, crazy goats? Clearly agitated, they were prancing and circling in front of me, as far down the hill I saw my husband on his tractor waving his arms and sounding the horn. I have never understood why he and his brothers take such gleeful pleasure in teasing and creating commotion, just as he was obviously frightening the goats with his stupid antics. Annoyed, I reached to console the goats (just ignore him, babies!), then turned away in disgust (his wild gestures and horn-beeping even more ridiculous now). Ohhh! And that's when I saw what had so disturbed everyone but me - a gigantic corn-harvester with a twenty-foot blade, fast approaching my reading spot as I sat hidden by the tall corn.

Would the farmer driving the machine have seen me in time, and stopped? Would I have recognized the noise of the motor for more than wind? Would the goats have eventually worked together to push my chair out of the way? I'd like to think so...

Just maybe, though, I should trade in the goats for a nice, safe animal, like a boa constrictor...

Of Cabbages and Kale

It was a devastating loss. After hours of lip-biting, painstaking effort, she had been so certain she would win, and yet the blue ribbon for the County Fair Childrens Coloring Contest went to...someone else. (Are the judges blind?? Who ever heard of purple pigs??) More than a decade ago, my young daughter cried for an hour, then resolutely started planning for the next year. She abandoned her crayons and plotted instead to win her coveted prize in a different category - fresh vegetables. The following summer she helped her Daddy check the garden each day, weeding and watering what were sure to be first-place cherry tomatoes. In August she carefully selected her specimens (five red, five yellow) and proudly presented them at the judging table. On a whim, I also had her pick a few other vegetables to enter. (Why not? I have to drive over there anyway...)

Results were announced the next day. With her dad and sister, we rushed to the overflowing table of tomatoes, and there, by Emily's entry, was...nothing. (Not again! Not even fourth or fifth place? Just because one is a little misshapen - that's called individuality!) I gripped her hand as we moved on to the green beans (Who knew so many people would enter beans? How do they get them all exactly the same size?) and the bell peppers (well, even I didn't expect those to win) and just as I was debating whether a funnel cake might cheer her up after another no-ribbon year, I remembered the cabbage. It was a lopsided, scrawny globe with more than a few worm holes - maybe I should just turn the tag over so nobody would see her name - and that's when I heard her shriek.

"Mommy, I won!! My red cabbage won the blue ribbon! Look! Look! Look!"

That can't be - the blue ribbon must be for one of the other...oh. Then I understood. Nestled among several plump acorn squash and yellow zucchini, hers was the only red cabbage entered. I refrained from mentioning this, snapping half a dozen photos of my beaming daughter clutching her ribbon (I made sure to keep the pathetic cabbage out of the picture!) That was twelve years ago, and in memory of that wondrous moment we have grown red cabbage for the fair every year since then. This year my husband expanded the cabbage row to about thirty plants, just to make sure there was at least one flawless specimen. (You never know - someone else might enter!) Now the fair is done, another blue ribbon is in the drawer...and who on earth is going to eat all that cabbage?

Add to this abundance her sister Megan's new favorite vegetable - kale. Here's what I know about kale - chock full of nutritional value, tasty in soups...and a few seeds produce enough kale for the next ten years. Again, I've had it sauteed, fricasseed, pureed and in the freezer; I've given it away to all my friends - yet it still keeps growing! Help! The rest of the garden is by now just wilted plants and withered stalks, but my prizewinning produce just won't quit.

Enter - the goats. That's right. Here are two animals with absolutely no useful purpose, and two rows of vegetables I can't bear to pick anymore - it's a match made in heaven. Every evening I fling open their gate and yell, "Go to the garden!" and they're off like a flash. I always knew there was a reason we had goats!