Random Cuteness

When it comes to fences, goats are known to be disrespectful.  Ours are no different, particularly Baba, the youngest.  She has plenty of room, an acre or two of hilly, rocky woods, along with the paddock behind the barn, and often she and her mother Caitlin will spend the whole day, exactly where we want them, munching poison ivy and low lying pine branches.  But if Baba notices me taking a walk near her terrain, she will plow right through the electric fencing, as if to say: Ha! Here I am, uncontainable.  

She returns to the barn happily enough, knowing that she will be rewarded with a handful of grain, which she likes even more than celery, radish greens or apples.  But I don’t like her getting zapped, and so I find myself avoiding the woods when she’s back there, or sneaking around in a circumspect way, hoping that she won’t notice.  This rarely works.  She is an observant goat.  

Yesterday, entranced by our first real snowfall of the year, I took Magic up to the woods, figuring Baba and Caitlin would stay in the warm, hay-filled barn.  I had just been in their stall, checking on their water, and they had looked the picture of cozy contentment.  Of course, not long after I got up to the top of the hill, I heard a bleat.  There they were, outside of the fence, trotting up the snowy slope towards us.

Back towards the barn we went.  Some progress has been made.  Confronted with the goats, the fur on Magic’s back used to stand on end and he would snarl ferociously, as if fending off a pair of dangerous predators. But he restrained himself nobly, with only a little bristle along his spine, and trotted down the hill alongside them.  The three of them waited for me at the pond.  Witness Caitlin studying Magic; Magic assiduously avoiding eye contact; Baba looking back at me with a knowing smile.  Perhaps she senses my affinity, for I, too, loved to jump fences when I was a kid. 

Escaped goats and Magic.

Plus chickens, taking in the snow…

And finally the seven trunked pine, snow gilt.