This past week I have come to believe that my goats
consider me a "blonde" goat farmer. I know I am
mainly gray now with a few strands of the blonde stuff
blending in, but basically my goats consider me a
blonde. You remember the blonde jokes: A blonde
calls up 911 to say her house was on fire. The 911
operator asks how to get there. The blonde answers,
"Why, in that big red truck, silly." Or, how about
the blonde state patrol officer who stops a blonde
speeder. The blonde state patrol officer asks the
blonde speeder for some ID. The speeder takes out her
compact mirror, looks in it and say, "Yes, this is
me," and hands it over to the blonde state patrol
officer who looks in the mirror and says, "Oh, I am so
sorry. I didn't realize you were a patrol officer
too. I'll give you a warning this time."
So, what makes me think my goats don't take me
seriously? What made me even notice this? This past
week Lee had to have some intensive knee surgery done,
leaving him out of goat chores for at least six weeks.
This leaves me by myself to not only feed and water
over one hundred head of goats, but also, by myself,
doctor or worm any that need it.
Usually Lee is my goat holder and I'm the one that
doctors. If I walk among the different herds, they
usually don't pay attention to me floating around,
checking them. But, if Lee appears with me, they pay
close attention to Lee. Lee is crafty and between the
two of us, we can usually catch any goat out in the
field with very little problems.
To the goats, Lee is "The Terminator". He will
somehow catch them when they least expect it. And,
the goats take him very seriously. Me, I'm the
blonde. The one who floats around and says happily,
"How's my babies? How's my beautiful girls today?"
and airily pats or hugs any goat that lets me and most
the herd comes for attention.
And, because they consider me a blonde, it has made my
life very easy this week in the doctoring and worming
department. They don't expect me to do this by
myself. I float by talking to my wonderful babies,
wrap an arm around a neck and before they know what
happened, they had been wormed.
I did have one blonde moment at the beginning of the
week. I noticed one of our older, heavier, weighing
in easily at two hundred pounds, does with diarrhea.
I picked up a paste wormer, stuck it in my back
pocket, and floated on out to her, saying inane sweet
things to the herd in general. She tended to be a
flighty, wildish gal, but when she saw just me and no
Terminator Lee, she just continued standing there
dozing, waiting for me to float on by.
Without thinking what I was doing and totally
forgetting I had learned years ago to not do this to a
full grown goat, I threw a leg across her neck and
used my legs like a squeeze chute to hold her
stationary. I do this all the time with small kids
when I need to doctor them.
Basically, her eyes suddenly bugged out and she said,
"What?!!" (in goat language, of course). And, she was
off like a shot. That was when my eyes bugged out and
I had one wild rodeo ride across the field before I
dug my heels in and stopped her. Really the only
reason she stopped is we had come up to the electric
fence. Before she could think to duck sideways and
continue my rodeo ride, I hurriedly wormed her, said
some very sweet blonde things to her, and quickly
dismounted from her neck.
It's now been nine days since Lee's knee surgery and
I'm starting to notice a new look in the herd. When I
float now through them, saying sweet blonde things to
my darling goats in a sing song voice, they are more
alert, watching me like a hawk. I hear mutterings now
of that blonde being a wolf in disguise. It's not
quite as easy to float up to them to check them over
if I see something wrong.
Fortunately for me, some of my goats act like blonde
goats. They have totally forgot what I can be capable
of and will still actually come up to me for a hugging
or a petting, even if I have doctored them recently.
I make a mental note to keep these "blonde" girls and
to notice if this trait is passed on to their kids for
future replacement does.
So, Lee's recuperation continues and I'm still trying
to keep my blonde camouflage going until I have my
Terminator back. Until then, have you heard the one
about the blonde following a truck in West Virginia in
the middle of winter? She honks her horn at the truck
driver who politely stops to see what the problem is.
She hurries up to the truck, looks up at him and tells
him he is losing part of his load. He thanks her and
starts up again. After several more yards, the blonde
frantically honks at him again. Once again he
politely stops and she hurries up to the truck door
and informs him he is still losing his load. He
thanks her again and continues on. A third time the
blonde honks frantically at him and he stops again.
She runs up to say that the load was still falling
out.
He patiently explains to her, "Lady, this is West
Virginia, it's the middle of winter, and it is
snowing. I'm a state road salt truck driver."