Why do we do it? We will do something, it doesn’t work, and then we will try the same trick again thinking that maybe, just maybe this time it will work. Naturally, doing it the same way, it doesn’t work. We give a deep sigh, wait a week and try the same thing again.

Why do we do that? I guess, being goat farmers we are ever hopeful. We think that maybe this year no one will kid at night and we won’t lose sleep. Uh, huh. Or, if we kid in the winter for 4-H kids or Easter kids, maybe this year it will be a warm winter. Uh, huh. Here’s a good one, that buck that has been quickly escorting you out of his pen, maybe today he will be quite mellow and let you hang around with him. Uh, huh.

It’s like jumping off a roof and thinking maybe this time gravity will be your friend. Where’s our brains? Remember I’ve been telling you off and on about taking the weanlings up on the hill in the cool of the shady trees and sitting on a bucket and enjoying life? Only to have the weanlings come barreling down the hill, ram into me, knocking me off my bucket? Hey, you don’t have to tell me four or five times or more that maybe I shouldn’t sit on that bucket in their line of fire.

I then started sitting on my bucket with my back against a tree. They were quite reluctant to attempt to knock a tree down, so I was safe for once. Then, for a week, heavy rains hit in the evenings preventing me from taking them their jaunt up into the hilly woods. Yesterday it was nice, in the nineties, just perfect for going and sitting in the shady woods.

I grabbed up Lee’s hunting sitting bucket with the rotating seat and the girls were ecstatic. We were going to the hills! Oh, My! We were all going to the hills! they shouted as they danced so tightly around me that I could only take tiny steps. Like orbiting planets, they weren’t about to let me out of their sight.

I found a spot half way up the hill that was out in the open, but still protected by the shade of the trees. Lovely! I could see all over one end of the farm. There was the house up on the other hill side, the barns and run-in sheds down below, open fields where you could see goats grazing. It was beautiful. So peaceful. I plunked my sitting bucket down.

Sure I was out in the open, no tree to put my back up against to protect me from surprise stampedes from the baby girls, but after all, it had been a week. Things would be different now. Plus, the girls did not go straight up the hill, they went to the side of it, snooping to see what was there. Lovely, just lovely. I sat there in extreme satisfaction with the world. Then I heard it.

The sound of thundering little hooves. Oh, no. I swiveled my seat around to see my herd of seven month old weanlings heading straight for me, at a dead run.

“Oh, no!!!! No! No! No!” I shouted. They actually made a split and divided themselves to stampede on either side of me, all except one, who was in the rear and thundering along harder than the rest.

Sweetie Jo. A single, born to an old momma with plenty of milk who’s kid had grown into a miniature elephant. Or, at least that was what it looked like as she came at me.

“WHOA, Sweetie Jo!” I shouted in anguish. She saw me too late in her excitement. With my arms outstretched trying to stop her, sitting on my bucket, she plowed into me, knocking me straight off the bucket, landing flat on my back. She bounced sideways and caught up with the others who were milling around, trying to circle and come back to see what I was doing.

What I was doing was doing a perfect imitation of a big bug on it’s back. Fortunately, the girls had knocked me off my bucket so much, I had learned how to roll over on my new knee and my old worn out knee, put my hands on the ground, lift my behind up in the air and able to get up. Thanks to the new knee I could now get up off the ground once knocked flat.

The first thing I noticed as I rolled from my back to my knees and hands, my fall had been cushioned by a big stand of poison ivy. Bummer.

With what dignity I had left, I got straightened up, picked up my bucket and started hobbling down the hill with my little planets, rotating close around me, still excited about their adventure on the hill side.

You’d think I’d learn, wouldn’t you? Well, maybe next time.